Hearing Us Out
Voices from the Gay and Lesbian Community
Roger Sutton
—
From Publishers Weekly
Lesbian adoptive parents, a gay Presbyterian minister, a lesbian police officer, a drag queen and a gay man with AIDS are among the 15 individuals who speak here, in first-person narratives adapted by Sutton from interviews. Their stories touch on homophobia, coming out, creating community, self-acceptance and spirituality; generally positive, they show the progress made by the gay and lesbian community over the years. Others, like that of an Irishman who fears losing his green card if his sexuality is revealed and that of an AIDS educator working with young people, point out struggles yet to be overcome. In his introduction, Sutton explains that he focused primarily on adults (only three interviewees are of high-school age) to show lesbian and gay teens ‘that life goes on past junior-high humiliation and high-school ostracism,’ but the profiles likely to interest the target audience most will probably be those about their peers. And while he states that ‘my community is bigger than where I live,’ Sutton does not venture beyond his own base in Chicago, somewhat limiting the scope of his otherwise effective book. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-An eloquent foreword by M.E. Kerr sets the tone for 15 short interviews in which gays, lesbians, and their advocates speak about the perils and joys of being sexually different from mainstream culture-how they approach straight society and how it reacts to them. The book documents a wide range of experiences, including a young man who was hounded out of high school; lesbian partners who adopted Peruvian children; a minister; a drag queen who attended the 1984 Democratic convention as a presidential candidate; and a police officer who wants her lover to be treated with care and respect in the event she is injured or killed in the line of duty. This lively title both demystifies a minority group demonized by much of the media and shows teens that there is ‘something to look forward to’ in spite of the discrimination and loneliness they feel. It succeeds largely because the narrators’ words bespeak qualities such as humor, honesty, generosity, and commitment despite, as Kerr says, ‘the prejudice or rigidity of others.’ Clear black-and-white photographs illustrate each interview. This book shows a wider range of experience than Ann Heron’s Two Teenagers in Twenty (Alyson, 1994). Eric Marcus’s Is It a Choice? (HarperCollins, 1993) is comparable in scope, but provides information in a question-and-answer format.
Claudia Morrow, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Details
| ISBN | 9780316823265 |
| Genre | Coming Out |
| Publication Date | 1994 |
| Publisher | Little Brown and Company |
| Format | Hardcover |
| No. of Pages | 128 |
| Language | English |
| Rating | NotRated |
| Photographer | Lisa Ebright |
| BookID | 5208 |
