Hello Bookworms, I recently read and reviewed; Coming Out to the Streets:: LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness, a novel focusing on urban sociology to open discourse regarding this often stigmatized topic. Although more of an academic format, rather than my typical casual review, I highly recommend the text to anyone! It’s a lot more approachable than it may seem and is quite a unique study into the lives of LGBTQ homeless youth, a perspective that’s often dismissed.

Robinson, Brandon Andrew. 2020. Coming Out to the Streets: LGBTQ Youth Experiencing Homelessness. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press

Brandon Andrew Robinson reports on a remarkable qualitative research study in which the author was also a participant rather than an observer in his text, Coming Out to the Streets: LGBTQ Youth Experiencing Homelessness. This ethnographic analysis consists of extensive interviews that look at the lives and goals of young people, their family lives, and their lives once they move out. The author doesn’t hesitate to confidently state their points, almost provoking the reader into contention. Nevertheless, the particularly compelling portrayal of data opens room for debate and inquiry amongst readers. Similarly, it exemplifies his thesis that sexuality and gender are integral components that compose culture’s intricate, nuanced appearance of race and class. Through the lens of urban sociology, the junction of these themes is examined compellingly yet critically. Aided by the unique division of chapters, Robinson invites readers to put themselves in the position of the oppressed youth, if only for the duration of the text.  Ultimately signifying an urgent call to action and reframing our society’s view on homelessness, highlighting its heteronormative elements that diverge to create hostile institutions and beliefs.

The book is divided into chapters on specific institutions, focusing on their intersections with gender expressions. The format simplifies the complex subject into its building blocks to research “how gendered homophobia affects poor, gender-expansive LGBTQ youth, especially youth of color” (p. 11). The first two chapters detail the youth’s entry into homelessness, highlighting the impacts of generational poverty, the layers of instability within families, and how these youth act out in forms of resistance. Further, the extreme policing of gender and sexuality is explored via the queer control complex and its intersection with law enforcement. The third and fourth chapters examine how society aims to control these individuals and the individual responsibility in escaping the violent segregated spaces each youth takes on. Robinson expands on the reasons for homeless LGBTQ youth facing increased policing and criminalization, tying the notions to the Lavender Scare concept and the new Jim Crow. Finally, chapter five explores the shelter and exposes that, although it’s more human than the streets, it serves to regulate youth with violent and harmful tactics. To illustrate, state laws and regulations may prohibit these youth from obtaining identification that aligns with their gender identity and expression. Even areas deemed secure, such as LGBTQ-friendly shelters, are reported as conforming to homonormative standards, profiling and misgendering these youth. The chapters can combine these areas to illustrate the reality that exists and ultimately offers the solution of abolishing shelters and diverting their funding into housing. The presentation of these marginalized youth highlights the condemnation of the different pieces of the system: teachers, administrators, and mainstream society. The text focuses on the additional obstacles and judgments they face within this framework and the unevenness between LGBTQ social change and their lived realities. Eventually, revealing how society’s rose-coloured glasses are an act with dire consequences. Through the embodiments and enactments of gender, gender expression, sexuality, race, and class, the reader feels these issues’ mutual intersections and complexities and how they manifest in our society (p. 22).

Unfortunately, however unbiased, it’s evident that the author chooses not to report stories in which the LGBTQ youth who face intense difficulties at home share their story and how it’s propelled them into this situation. Instead, unique points are made throughout the text, emphasizing that the system, rather than the individual or their family, is to blame for their homelessness. The primary conclusion arising from the author’s portrayal is that the issues facing these youth are systemic. The blame is placed on the structures that control society, which should protect, support, and provide for these homeless individuals. Instead, it propels them into a system founded on inequality that disproportionately negatively affects queer youth (p.83). Additionally, the author addresses that these issues remain perpetuated not due to a lack of education or awareness; but due to the active, purposeful, and continual imposition of oppression and marginalization. As the topic is incredibly complex and involves social inequalities and enactments of gender that currently devastate individual lives, the issue is addressed with care and detail. Once the concern is conveyed, the author leaves room for the claims to be reinforced by the distinctive opinions of the affected youth. Forty personal interviews are depicted, each sharing sentiments society repeatedly silences. The individuals in the study are all situated in downtown Texas, an underdeveloped and gentrified area. The author approaches their representation delicately to ensure no further harm is caused when aiming to shed light on their reality. Following each portrayal, academic analysis is interwoven, posing critical remarks using purposeful vocabulary to evoke self-reflection. Moreover, some interviews are lengthy, having several pages of their dedication. Through these interviews, the author highlights that these youth are not passive victims of the danger they face, as they undergo significant lengths to navigate within a racist and transphobic system. Instead, by developing queer street smarts, strategies that allow for the “navigation of the public sphere and the harassment and violence that come from living on the streets” (p. 115), youth effectively work to create opportunities and escape systemic pressure. These are typically more personal, detailing the individual’s entire life, allowing a name to be put to the tale. Humanizing these individuals is essential to the comprehension of the horrors they face. Rather than remaining desensitized to the situation, their recounts can extend empathy. The effort isn’t to relate to these stories, as that remains near impossible, but to serve as a reminder of our humanity and the simple desires we strive for. Why should we be allowed to attain peace, survival, and love, whereas these youth constantly fight for the same rights? Ultimately, the text combines trusted sources with individual informal accounts to deliver an educated and productive way to dismantle specific societal barriers that face queer homeless youth.

The main element of the text was to dissect how and why our society is to blame for the current magnitude of queer homeless youth. By bridging urban sociology in the context of homelessness with gender sexuality studies and queer studies, the text and class analysis aim to shift from rights and identity. Through a multi-method qualitative approach, the author concludes that structural classism and racism within our traditional institutions allow youth to become vulnerable to becoming and remaining homeless. Past studies have overfocused on identity without discussing its embodiments; how sexuality complicates and affects individuals’ experiences with rejection, violence, and discrimination (p.29). The author came to the conclusion that there must be alternatives to blaming families for rejecting their children. Instead, they emphasize the system as the main perpetrator rather than other structural aspects of life, such as the church or the family. First, our world’s framework is examined using examples, stories, anecdotes, and factual data to introduce information to the reader. Next, the focus shifts to structures like shelters, ones that are publicly funded and, therefore, more detrimental to youth. This is an insightful stance, as shelters are depicted as safe, positive environments. Instead, the text exposes that these areas are neither readily available nor offer protection from violence and prejudice. Further, instead of providing security, gender is policed by utilizing the queer control complex and the new lavender scare.

The shelter serves as another control method in which gender-expansive youth are devalued and placed in this lower-status position. They remain overfunded, yet resources aren’t adequately allocated or made available to those in need (p.137). To add, the author states that youth’s problems are dismissed, utilizing the shelter as an all-encompassing solution for everything. Finally, the author disagrees with the deflection of the family as a racist and classist narrative that perpetuates negative stereotypes. This results in attempts at erasure and holding the underlying connotation these individuals come from; most black and brown families are more homophobic than middle-class white families. Unfortunately, no data remains to support this; however, it’s evident that racist narratives throughout history haven’t required data (p.162). Through the revelation that shelters are harmful, the study calls for queer and trans liberation. Society operates through fundamental contradictions in which success stories remain impossible. Individualistic successes are nearly impossible without dismantling these structures, which don’t solve the significant issue. The exposure of large institutions and how they’ve failed is at the core of this text, concluding that the organizations serving these LGBTQ youth don’t utilize the best practices nor focus on non-discrimination policies. Ultimately, they inhibit this discrimination and are overfunded, allocating the resources carelessly, leaving the vulnerable youth they should serve to protect themselves. Violence and discrimination against LGBTQ2S people frequently persist in our systems, which are meant to protect and assist those in need. This tragic abandonment is the current reality perpetuated by society’s hetero-normative mentality. Yet, the author reminds the readers that real commitment from the government and immediate integration of housing are possible. 

This text was compelling, informative, and well-structured, utilizing purposeful vocabulary to initiate critical thinking. The integration of conversation contributes to the necessary process of undoing the stigmatization that prevents these topics from being academically spread, developed, and addressed by the government. The writing design is as complex as it is approachable, allowing for an enhanced connection between the authors and readers—an intricate and refreshing feat in an academic journal. However, one critique is that more conclusions should have arisen from discussing religion and the family’s prominent role in the queer control complex. The essence of a systemic structure that enforces and upholds these homophobic beliefs seems more harmful to society than an individual’s family. The family plays a prominent role in shaping the individual’s feelings towards themselves, the judgment they face, and oppression, leading them to find support elsewhere in possibly dangerous areas and communities. These issues arise because not enough responsibility is placed on the support systems an individual should be surrounded by. The author spent an entire chapter demonizing certain families, yet their views were often destructive due to their religion and traditions that trace back to faith. Placing the blame on the “system,” an abstract concept to readers, seemingly diverts from the issue, again positioning the blame on those with more power. Placing more responsibility on this framework, individuals can attribute these downfalls to something attainable and one that can be manipulated in the short term. This is especially critical as the area of research isn’t one a reader can take immediate action on, and the study can’t be recreated.

Ultimately, the text is very resourceful and an effective tool on which to base future studies. Understanding the experiences of marginalized subjectivities pertaining to issues of gender and sexuality is an ongoing, nuanced process. The author successfully delivered a compassionate glimpse into the lives of queer homeless youth and contributed a study that undoubtedly will lead to debate and action amongst the scientific community.