Queer Youth Cultures (SUNY series, INTERRUPTIONS: Border Testimony

Interruptions: Border Testimony(ies) and Critical Discourse/s

by Susan Driver (Editor)

Engaging a wide range of cultural practices, including zine-making, drag performance, online chatting, music, gay porn, and organizing resistance, the essays in Susan Driver's Queer Youth Cultures explore the creative, political, energetic, and artistic worlds of contemporary queer youth. The research in this collection bridges the perspectives of academics and queer youth, and the voices of the youth resonate throughout the analyses of their communities and lives. Through a variety of methodological approaches, the contributors bring into focus the institutional regulations of youth sexuality and gender, the complex and changing embodied experiences of queer youth, and the visual and textual languages through which the experiences of the youth are represented. Rather than seeing queer youth as victims, contributors celebrate the creative ways that sexual and gender minority youth forge subcultures and challenge exclusionary and heteronormative ways of understanding young people.

Genres: LGBT, Nonfiction, Queer, Academia

307 pages, Hardcover

First published March 20, 2008

Reviews

[Cherise · Rating 3 out of 5]

Culture is about pride. It is about being comfortable with yourself, no matter who you are or what you identify as (Gay or Straight). However, in society today, the culture around us shuns those who are different from the rest (Gay, transgender, bi-sexual, etc.) through the media because it is built within the heterosexual aspect.
In the book called “Queer Youth Cultures,” Professor Susan Driver goes against the norms of society by giving the audience a different perspective through a collection of essays written from the views of LBGT youth.
The book mainly focuses on these perspectives of this concept from talking about lesbian rock bands to hearing about the zine writers and how they adapt to society in self-identity (i.e being comfortable with who you are). In other words, this book focuses on LBGT society and how they fit into this world. It shows the different insecurities that they face from adapting to family life as an outsider to finding themselves a good support system.
This book is a very interesting read and I feel like it would open your eyes up to the how LBTG feel personally through self-identity and individuality. The book describes this as “marginalization” They are marginalized for being different. Connie, one of the youth in this book expresses the unfair treatment in rage of who she is. “Here ‘s another tranny hint for you festies out there: If you fucking go to the fest, wear a shit, wear a sign, a button, FUCKING SCREAM that all Womyn ARE WOMYN. We are not some masquerading fags, we are not closed to the boundaries of heterosexuality. We are womyn, we are queer, we are straight, we. are. womyn, and the MWMF’s exclusionary policy is lke the biggest blow to me.” (Connie “Queer Youth Cultures” 94.) This book is full of expression and individuality. I really like how it opens up the world to the personal views of these youth. Although this book is very different in that way, it gives them a voice that everyone needs to hear.

[Larry-bob Roberts]

Includes chapter "My identity is fluid as fuck: Trangender zine writers constructing themselves."