Growing Up Queer

Kids and the Remaking of LGBTQ Identity

Mary Robertson

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781479800049
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: LGBT-Studien

LGBTQ kids reveal what it’s like to be young and queer today Growing Up Queer explores the changing ways that young people are now becoming LGBT-identified in the US. Through interviews and three years of ethnographic research at an LGBTQ youth drop-in center, Mary Robertson focuses on the voices and stories of youths themselves in order to show how young people understand their sexual and gender identities, their interest in queer media, and the role that family plays in their lives. The young people who participated in this research are among the first generation to embrace queer identities as children and adolescents. This groundbreaking and timely consideration of queer identity demonstrates how sexual and gender identities are formed through complicated, ambivalent processes as opposed to being natural characteristics that one is born with. In addition to showing how youth understand their identities, Growing Up Queer describes how young people navigate queerness within a culture where being gay is the “new normal.” Using Sara Ahmed’s concept of queer orientation, Robertson argues that being queer is not just about one’s sexual and/or gender identity, but is understood through intersecting identities including race, class, ability, and more. By showing how society accepts some kinds of LGBTQ-identified people while rejecting others, Growing Up Queer provides evidence of queerness as a site of social inequality. The book moves beyond an oversimplified examination of teenage sexuality and shows, through the voices of young people themselves, the exciting yet complicated terrain of queer adolescence.

1

Welcome to Spectrum

A Place to Be Queer

In seventh grade Brian, who is twenty-one years old, white, and queer-identified, began sharing with his parents that he was experiencing homosexual desires. His pediatrician recommended Spectrum to his mom when Brian expressed that he felt he needed more support than he was getting at home and at school. He told me, “I was just looking for support; I was looking for community. I was looking for people who were going through the same things I was going through and have the same feelings I have.” So in eighth grade he made the plunge and attended Spectrum for the first time. His father came with him and hung out reading a newspaper while Brian made his way. I asked him if he remembered what it felt like that first day:

Yes, I remember the first time I walked in. It was a Wednesday ’cause we looked up the schedule and they said there was a support group, and I was like oh, maybe I should go the next day at the support group for the first night. And my dad was like, “Well, why don’t we [his parents] come the first day?” ’cause I’m from the suburbs. Never really ventured too much out, I never, before I started coming to Spectrum, I rarely came downtown. . . . It was the week right after queer prom, so everyone was kind of winding down from that and there was a lot of talk about oh, you know, “I did this at queer prom,” and “I saw this person,” and whatnot . . . but also at that time of the year they’re also doing their annual survey, so I remember . . . my first day being overwhelmed a little bit, but then also getting this big [survey], and back then we didn’t do it on computers, we did it on paper! And so I had this big packet, you know, full of survey to do, and I’m like well, “I’m really coming out,” I had to fill out this survey and like identify myself and all that stuff, so, that was overwhelming at first too . . . just like, what is this place? I remember they were also talking that there was a drag show that Friday, and so I went to the drag show and that was like, wow, like overwhelming. There was so many more youth. . . . It was interesting to see. I had never been to a drag show, I didn’t even know what a drag show was.

Entering Spectrum for the first time is not for the faint of heart; it takes an incredible amount of courage and self-awareness to walk up to the building, enter the front doors, and find your way down to the youth space. Someone who is afraid to be associated with the LGBTQ community likely would not come anywhere near The Resource. A majority of the youth who make their way down the stairs and into the dazzling milieu that is Spectrum are likely to be well on their way to recognizing their gay, lesbian, bisexual, or queer sexuality and/or queer gender identity. They learn about Spectrum from peers, siblings, and—like Brian—often from adults in their lives. For many youths there, making their way into Spectrum also means “really coming out,” as Brian described. Brian refers to the survey he was asked to fill out the first time he attended, which was part of data collection being conducted by a local university.1 The survey asks youth many questions about the climate at their school, at home, and outside in the world, various health-related topics like tobacco, drug, and alcohol use, suicidal thoughts and other self-harming behaviors, religion, support systems, and demographics. Respondents are also asked to identify their gender and sexual identities and answer questions about sexual conduct. Once that initial survey is completed, youth are asked to fill out The Resource’s census every time they come. They are asked their age, race/ethnicity, whether or not they are experiencing homelessness, health insurance status, citizen status, gender and sexual identity, and whether or not they get a free or reduced lunch at school. What does it mean to name your sexual orientation and gender identity? How do youth decide which terms best describe who they are? Do they maintain those identities once they have completed the survey, or do they feel free to change them? This process of completing a survey and census—one in the service of research, the other a mechanism for The Resource to justify its existence to funders—is part of young people’s identity formation.

I share Brian’s account of discovering Spectrum because it shows some of the processes of becoming that he encountered on his journey there. From the adults—his parents and his physician—who identified Spectrum as a resource, to the university-administered survey he was asked to complete on his first visit to the space, to the introduction to downtown and drag, two things he was previously unexposed to, Brian’s formation of a sexual and gender identity is not simply a matter of experiencing desire. My hope is that these processes of how youths come to understand their sexualities and genders become visible throughout the book, helping us to think about how we all become sexual, gendered beings. Because Spectrum is so much a part of this process, I spend some time here putting it into regional, historical, and political context.

Where Spectrum Lives

Spectrum, and The Resource, the larger LGBTQ organization that houses the youth program, are located in the heart of a bustling urban community in the western United States that is home to industry leaders in health care, technology, and investment services and to over half a million people. In 2010, the city’s skyline, a growing mass of skyscrapers and cranes, attested to the economic vibrancy of an economy seemingly untouched by the recent recession. The urban center boasts a busy public transportation system with buses and light rail; multiple professional sports stadiums and arenas; art, history, and science museums; and a booming dining and nightlife industry. Youth often arrive at Spectrum after having come from downtown, where young people are known to congregate in public spaces, shop at stores like Hot Topic or H&M, or see movies at the multiplex theater.

The Resource is located in a mixed-use residential community near downtown that has historically been known as this city’s gay and lesbian neighborhood. Like many gayborhoods across the country, this slightly seedy yet creative and lively place is undergoing urban development and gentrification that is changing its look and feel.2 In many ways, this neighborhood is losing its queerness. As a result of the new urbanization and creative economies movements, the hardscrabble businesses and residents who have so long given it a special charm have been pushed out to make room for a whiter, more educated, and straighter population. It is this same influx of development money that helped The Resource to purchase and renovate a building on one of the busiest and most eccentric city thoroughfares.

The largest racial/ethnic minority in the city are Hispanics, who make up 32 percent of the population, followed by Blacks at 11 percent, Asians at 2.8 percent, and Native Americans at 1.3 percent. Whites make up more than 50 percent of the population, and residential racial segregation is the norm. It is one of the most educated cities in the United States, where 92 percent of the city’s population has completed high school and 35 percent have bachelor’s degrees. While the median family income is just under $40,000, with the median home price at $383,000, it has increasingly become the case that the wealthy are pushing the middle- and working-class residents out of the urban center and into its periphery. Regardless, this city remains one of the most racially and economically diverse communities in the state and bears the brunt of providing a disproportionate amount of social services to individuals and families in need.3

The Resource is one of the much-needed service providers in the city. Its mission is to serve all members of the LGBTQ community, yet the various programs and services it provides—including health services, legal aid, addiction services, and outreach—are often used by those who do not have the resources to access these services privately. The same can be said of The Resource’s LGBTQ youth drop-in center Spectrum, where the bulk of the youth in regular attendance are from working-class and low-income backgrounds, many of whom are experiencing or have experienced homelessness, are struggling to complete or have dropped out of high school, and generally do not have the resources or support that many middle- and upper-class teenagers might have, including access to health insurance, quality education, and jobs. While white youth make up the majority of the Spectrum community numerically, youth of color—particularly Latinx and Black youth—are strongly represented in the space. The combination of sexual and gender minority youth from a wide range of race/ethnic and class identities results in an unusually diverse space for this typically segregated city.

Going Inside

Michael, who identifies as gay and is white, cismale, and barely in his forties, rolls up on his bike wearing a T-shirt, cargo shorts, and sneakers. He locks up and takes me inside Spectrum for my first visit. We walk up a small flight of concrete steps and through the glass double doors. Someone behind the reception desk, recognizing Michael, waves us in. The reception area is bright and clean, with that brand-new, not-quite-lived-in feeling, but I don’t get a chance to see much of it as we take a hard right and enter a stairwell headed for the basement, where Spectrum is. At the bottom of the stairs is a small vestibule with colorful art hanging on the walls. The art is a project the kids at Spectrum worked on with a community art group, intended to represent youth participants’ relationship to Spectrum and each other. It makes for a warm transition for visitors who exit the outside world and enter Spectrum.

After opening another door, we encounter a desk with a sign-in sheet and stacks of various pamphlets and flyers: Some announce events, some are public health flyers about sexually transmitted infections and suicide awareness. On the other side of the chest-high counter, a kid wearing all black with shoulder-length hair, dyed black with a blue streak, and multiple facial piercings greets us. Behind the L-shaped counter that separates the reception area from the rest of the space, I see a wall of lockers, a few computer stations for staff, and the soundboard for the PA system, which is currently plugged into someone’s iPod. Loud pop music fills the room.

Michael leads me to the right, and we walk along the reception counter as the space opens up to a large room with couches, stuffed chairs, and benches surrounding a low-lying table. There are just a few kids hanging out here, lounging on the couches, faces buried in their smart phones. In the lounge area there is a big-screen television and a foosball table. As we continue around to the right, another large, open room becomes visible. In it are long, banquet-style tables and stacking chairs, the far wall lined with cabinets and a countertop. Along the edge of these open spaces are bookshelves filled with the books that make up Spectrum’s lending library. Various doors leading to other rooms circle the space. There is a small room Michael explains is the “drag closet,” where clothes, makeup, mirrors, and the like are kept for drag shows. Next to it is a small, private consultation space. The remaining rooms are private offices for the various staff. There are two gender neutral bathrooms and a kitchen with a fridge, freezer, sink, and microwave.

Much like upstairs, Spectrum feels brand spanking new. The furniture is new, the rug on the floor is new, the paint on the walls is new. It’s a bit antiseptic and definitely unlived in. As he gives me the tour, Michael explains that the youth have been reluctant to make the switch to the new space. The old Spectrum, he tells me, was filled with ratty old couches, graffiti-covered walls, and an actual DJ booth, not just a PA behind a counter. Youth entered the space through a back door, so they didn’t have to encounter any staff at The Resource if they didn’t want to. Their refusal to show up seemed to be a bit of a protest to the relocation, although currently there is a contingent of kids posted up outside the building, smoking. The consensus among the adults is that the youth will reconsider coming inside once winter is on its way. For now, though, it is quiet and slow, adults often outnumbering youths in the space. During these early days at Spectrum, I often feel like I am hiding in plain sight. I hover behind the reception counter with the other adults and staff, reluctant to approach the kids quite yet. It will only be a matter of time, though, before I feel at home here.

Safe Spaces

From a generational perspective, LGBTQ-identified youth, gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in colleges and high schools, and drop-in centers like Spectrum are collectively a relatively new phenomenon. Of course, young people have always experienced homosexual desire and engaged in homosexual conduct, but it is within the context of the modern gay rights movement that people have adopted labels like “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual,” and more as identities marking one’s sexuality.4 In fact, the gay and lesbian rights movement—unlike the race-based Civil Rights Movement and the feminist movement—was missing a large youth-led contingent during its early stages.5 This was likely due both to the small number of self-identified gay and lesbian youth and the deeply stigmatizing and homophobic association of gay men with pedophilia.6 The first inkling of a youth-based gay and lesbian rights movement occurred on college campuses in the 1970s where students were advocating for their right to access to higher education. It wasn’t until almost twenty years later that similar student-rights-based arguments were made by high school students.7

While the growing number of gay-identified young people was resulting in a bona fide youth contingent of the gay rights social movement, a growing concern about the well-being of LGBTQ youth in the realm of public health, social work, and psychology was also developing. A 1989 U.S. Health and Human Services report on trends in youth suicide included a contribution from the San Francisco–based social worker Paul Gibson, who made a claim that there is a strong correlation between youth suicide and homosexuality.8 While Gibson was just one of many experts working with youth who had come to recognize that sexual and gender minority youth were vulnerable, his particular claim—that gay teens are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers—grew legs and has since become one of the most frequently cited “facts” used to argue that LGBTQ youth are at risk. Although Gibson’s concerns about gay youth suicide are valid, the data are disputed for being inflated, and the report critiqued, for not being grounded in the scientific method, therefore there are many who doubt the number is as high as he claimed. To be fair, Gibson never claimed to be a scientific researcher; he was asked to write a statement for the report based on his extensive experience working with gay- and lesbian-identified homeless youth. Regardless, it has been argued that the now commonly cited “Gibson numbers” resulted in the widespread recognition of the at-risk LGBTQ youth subject.9

The point is not to deny that homophobic bullying and violence are real problems that result in negative outcomes for victims—like suicide—but the story of the Gibson numbers is important to understand in the context of the construction of an LGBTQ youth subject. The story of LGBTQ youth precarity—or its correlate, resilience—has become the dominant narrative, leaving little room for an understanding of queer youth in other ways.10 And perhaps most significantly, the narrative of risk, which has situated academic scholarship on LGBTQ youth squarely in the fields of public health and psychology, has overshadowed the strength of the LGBTQ youth social movement. While this volume is not a book about social movements or organizations, it is important to recognize Spectrum’s role in the context of being a youth drop-in center for what are now broadly considered to be at-risk youth. The rise of the GSA in schools and youth drop-in centers like Spectrum is arguably a result of the at-risk narrative that began with the Gibson numbers.

As the sociologist Melinda Miceli carefully documents in her book Standing Out, Standing Together, the rise of GSAs in high schools gained most of its traction during the 1990s, bolstered by the Health and Human Services report mentioned above. Gay-straight alliances are “groups established by students for the purpose of uniting with those who shared their interest in discussing gay rights issues, educating their school community about these issues and the extent and ef...