Product Description

How Gay and Lesbian Teens Are Leading a New Way Out of the Closet

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #659074 in Books
• Published on: 1996-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 328 pages

From Library Journal
The authors, a psychological anthropologist and a developmental psychologist, undertook a study of 202 ethnically diverse lesbian and gay youth aged 14 to 20 during 1987 and 1988 at the Horizons Community Services, Inc., a Chicago gay community center founded in 1973. A brief history of the 20th-century homosexual experience in Chicago contextualizes the study, which serves as a microcosm of American attitudes toward homosexuality. This moving inquiry demonstrates that any confusion youth may experience is not about their sexual identity but about how to express themselves in an intensely homophobic society. Recommended for most collections.
- James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A sure-to-be controversial volume on inducting self-professed homosexual teenagers into the gay and lesbian culture of the 1990's. Hackles rise merely at the idea that teenagers can know whether they prefer the same sex or the opposite. Adolescence is the age of experimentation, most people contend, one in which no decisions have been made. But Herdt (Human Development/University of Chicago; ed., Gay Culture in America, 1992, etc.) and Boxer (Psychiatry/University of Chicago), both of whom are gay, disagree, their findings based on two years spent interviewing teenagers at the Chicago-based Horizons center, which offers refuge for teens troubled about their sexual identities. The authors' interviews and questionnaires show that, in some cases, children as young as nine years old have the beginnings of a same-sex preference. As puberty arrives, some of these kids accept their homosexuality, while others deny it and struggle against their feelings. Horizons offers the support of peers and of gay and lesbian counselors, as well as an introduction to the gay and lesbian community. Herdt and Boxer describe that community in often tedious detail, including the geography of Chicago's gay neighborhoods; the history of homosexuals in the US; and the rituals and organizations--from political groups to choruses and sports teams--that help define a gay/lesbian culture. Most of the children who come to Horizons have kept their sexual orientation a secret except from a close friend or two, and they use the confidence they develop there to ``come out'' to families and at school. As the authors describe it, though, ``coming out'' is a continuing process, about ``the death and rebirth of a new self.'' Repetitious and sometimes academic-sounding, but still useful information about a new generation of gays who are coming out in the daylight and not in a closet or a dark and dangerous bar. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Horizions not only a good read, but a good history.
Horizions focuses on the histor and youth programming of Horizions Community Services in Chicago, IL.

Horizions has focused much of its resources n gay youth and this book take a close look at the youth and how the center has helped them.

The staff and participant interviews only add to the persona feeling gained from reading the book.

This is a must read for anyone who works with gay youth.