youth

male or female. The term "youth" for young people aged 13 to 19 sounds slightly clinical and in the singular usually means a young man (the plural "youth" is understood to be inclusive). You may want to use young person, young adult. The gender-, classist-, and ethnic-neutral term "youth" has been used in all the school shootings to describe the middle-class or upper-middle-class white males who did the killing, thus concealing the real connotations. Yet when there's a shooting by African Americans they are always identified as Black. In the same way, in some killings of "youth," the victims have all been girls. It's important to know who's doing what to whom; don't let the use of youth obscure critical information. See also adolescent, ageism, juvenile, teenager.