As our country struggles to accept its gay and lesbian citizens, the debate for gay civil rights often focuses on the issue of choice, with the majority of Americans believing that to be gay is a choice, one that's embraced for its lifestyle. This belief ignores the presence and experience of one segment of the gay and lesbian population: its youth. In Joining The Tribe, journalist Linnea Due travels America to create a portrait of gay and lesbian teenagers as an endangered and vulnerable community whose diversity, courage, and resiliency will inspire gay and straight readers alike. By vividly documenting the lives of gay and lesbian teenagers, Due shows that homosexuality is not about choice. It's about fights in the schoolyard, whispers in the locker room, cruel classmates, and oblivious or abusive parents. Most gay and lesbian youth endure severe humiliation and isolation for being gay, resulting in depression and low self-esteem for most, and suicide for some. Combining in-depth interviews with social analysis, Due reveals the realities gay and lesbian teenagers face, often without the support of family, peer groups, or adult gay and lesbian networks. With stories from across America, Due meets kids from a range of backgrounds and families, with some in the closet, some out, most somewhere-in-between, all struggling to grow into adulthood. By turns heartbreaking and infuriating, Joining The Tribe shows how against overwhelming odds, gay and lesbian teenagers continue to survive and bounce back, ready to join their brothers and sisters in gay America's fight for freedom and respect.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Like a lot of fortysomething gay men and lesbians, including me, Linnea Due thought that the post-Stonewall culture, full of queer parades, films, and literature, made coming out easier for contemporary gay and lesbian teens. But being pelted and shouted at while accompanying a group of twentysomething queer activists changed her mind and led her to write this book about what it is like for queer kids to grow up these days. She traveled across the country listening to queers and lets them tell their stories in this frightening, inspiring book.
From Publishers Weekly
If Due's (High and Outside) collection of poignant interviews with gay and lesbian youth reminds us of one thing, it is that greater visibility does not mean greater safety. Due (whose feature on gay and lesbian teenagers was declared one of the top six underreported stories of 1992 by Media Alliance/Project Censored) talked with lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents of different ethnicities, classes and backgrounds across the U.S. They vividly recount the assaults they suffer in their families and schools and in the broader society, assaults including name-calling, beatings and death threats. Many testify eloquently to the fear, pain and shame that come not because of their sexual orientation per se, but because of the devastating results its disclosure had on many of their social relationships. At the same time, some speak touchingly of first love, of support from family and friends and of the efforts by some communities to provide services to gay and lesbian youth. Unlike many of the professional resources available for counselors, teachers and others concerned about these teens, Due lets her interviewees speak for themselves, while her sensitive editing provides background, commentary and balance between individual and collective experience. The result is a moving, vital pastiche.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The bible for gay youth.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Joining the Tribe: Growing Up Gay and Lesbian in the '90s (Paperback)
After seeing this book in the hands of one of my very good friends, I had to take a look. When thumbing through it and saw some highlighting. Now I'm not one to highlight a book so I giggled and sort of thoght it was childish. Well next month I find the book in the library and check it out. Well needless to say, I was highlighting the parts that I though pertained to me. (shhhh! It was a library copy...Hey I used pencil)
I now consider this my gay yout bible. For any gay youth out there one of the main fealings that overwelms you is that fealing of lownlyness. Afer reading the book I knew that not only was I not alone, but I was very well off. No matter what situation your in, In, out, Bi, Gay, even Straight. If you want to know more about a gay youths trials and tribualtions this is the book. With 33% of all teenage suicide being based on sexual orientation issues, I belive more books like this should be used to prevend and disscuss this though-to-be taboo subject. Gay youth is out there. And for the most part, we feal alone. Read this book.
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