Q. Dear Civil Behavior: Our daughter is a senior in high school and quite comfortable with her lesbian identity. We support her 100 percent, but we know the world is not always so tolerant. As she’s writing her college application essays this fall, she’s “coming out” in them — and we think that’s a bad idea. You just never know who’s reading these essays, so why risk revealing your orientation to someone who might be biased against you? We’ve strongly suggested she think over the ramifications of what she’s doing, but she doesn’t seem to have any doubt about it. Deadlines are approaching and we are at an impasse. How can we persuade her to keep some things private if they might hurt her chances of admission?” — Anonymous

A. I can see why for boomer parents this situation could be an especially tough call, since our own experience colors our point of view. When our generation applied to college, gays and lesbians kept their sexual orientation under wraps — for very good reason. For example, at Duke University, my alma mater, “the Duke of older times was saturated with homophobia,” its president, Richard H. Brodhead, said in a speech this fall. He acknowledged “evidence of official intolerance and active repression of homosexuality at Duke from the 1960s,” and noted the national context: “It would be hard to describe today how deeply entrenched prejudice on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity was in this country at this time. Homophobic prejudice was everywhere, with its aggressive mockery and crude repression.” Applicants could hardly be faulted for concealing what was then a possible cause for expulsion.

But times have changed. It is notable that Dr. Brodhead made his remarks at the opening of a new Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, in the heart of Duke’s campus.

Today’s youth also have different feelings about personal privacy than our generation does. Boomers who understand and accept the many variations in sexual identity may see no need to broadcast it to the world, or to make it the focus of a college application essay.