Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abigail C. Saguy
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Undocumented Immigrant ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Fat Acceptance ◽  
Plural Marriage

This book examines how and why people use the concept of coming out as a certain kind of person to resist stigma and collectively mobilize for social change. It examines how the concept of coming out has taken on different meanings as people adopt it for varying purposes—across time, space, and social context. Most other books about coming out—whether fiction, academic, or memoir—focus on the experience of gay men and lesbians in the United States. This is the first book to examine how a variety of people and groups use the concept of coming out in new and creative ways to resist stigma and mobilize for social change. It examines how the use of coming out among American lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ+) people has shifted over time. It also examines how four diverse US social movements—including the fat acceptance movement, undocumented immigrant youth movement, the plural-marriage family movement among Mormon fundamentalist polygamists, and the #MeToo movement—have employed the concept of coming out to advance their cause. Doing so sheds light on these particular struggles for social recognition, while illuminating broader questions regarding social change, cultural meaning, and collective mobilization.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Abigail C. Saguy
Keyword(s):  
Coming Out ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Close Association ◽  
Undocumented Immigrant ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Plural Marriage ◽  
Depth Interviews

This chapter argues that coming out has become what sociologists call a “master frame,” a way of understanding the world that is sufficiently elastic and inclusive that a wide range of social movements can use it in their own campaigns. It introduces five movements that are the focus of the book—(1) the American lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus (LGBTQ+) rights movement; (2) the fat acceptance movement; (3) the undocumented immigrant youth movement; (4) the plural-marriage family movement among Mormon fundamentalist polygamists; and (5) the #MeToo movement. It reviews the data and methods that form the basis of the book—participant observation, textual analysis, and 146 in-depth interviews. It argues that disparate groups use coming out to challenge negative stereotypes and overcome oppression, and that the close association of coming out with gay people informs the meaning of the term in other contexts. It previews the subsequent chapters.

Overcoming Fear

2020 ◽  
pp. 44-67
Author(s):  
Abigail C. Saguy
Keyword(s):  
Coming Out ◽  
Immigrant Youth ◽  
State Level ◽  
Illegal Immigrants ◽  
Undocumented Immigrant ◽  
Dream Act ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Deferred Action ◽  
Legislative Changes

This chapter examines how the undocumented immigrant youth movement has evoked “coming out as undocumented and unafraid” to mobilize fearful constituents. It discusses the local and state-level legislative changes for which the movement as advocated, including the federal DREAM Act. It argues that while the DREAM Act never passed, the undocumented immigrant youth movement arguably led President Obama to sign the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order in June 2012, which deferred deportation for “Dreamers” who meet certain criteria on a two-year renewable basis. It further argues that the undocumented immigrant youth movement has successfully challenged cultural understandings by offering an alternative image to that of “illegal immigrants” sneaking across the border—that of educated and talented “DREAMers.”

Heterosexism, homonegativity, and the sociopolitical dangers of orthodox models of prejudice reduction

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 440-440
Author(s):  
Darren Langdridge
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Prejudice Reduction ◽  
Stage Models

AbstractCriticism of orthodox models of prejudice reduction is particularly relevant for lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, particularly when considering stage models of coming-out. If social change is to be effected regarding endemic homonegativity and heterosexism, then it is argued that a radical rethink is needed to the understandable but misinformed desire to get us to like each other more.

Conclusion

Out in Time ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 165-168
Author(s):  
Perry N. Halkitis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gay Identity ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Life Circumstances ◽  
American Society

The lives of gay men in the United States across time and generations are shaped by numerous burdens predicated on the challenge of coming out, a condition that permeates their lifetimes. After first realizing that they are gay, most spend much of their lives seeking the full integration of their gay identity with other aspects of their lives. These conditions create psychosocial burdens in the lives of gay men, which often engender risk and diminish health. Despite these life circumstances, which are rooted in the homophobia of American society, many gay men embody enormous grit and resilience, and their lives are indicative of both pride and dignity. While these psychological processes associated with coming out are somewhat consistent across the Stonewall, AIDS, and Queer generations, the advance in the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people have resulted in lives somewhat less burdened.

scholarly journals Coming Out, Fitting in: The Personal Narratives of Some Irish Gay Men

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Gay Men ◽  
North American ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Gay And Lesbian Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fitting In

Through the personal narratives of four gay men coming of age during the 1970s, this paper questions the relevance of the modernist ‘coming-out’ story in Ireland. This story, so prevalent in British and North American studies documenting the history of the gay and lesbian movement there has remained largely untold in Ireland. This paper reveals a uniquely Irish ‘coming-out’ experience shaped by the schools, families and communities in which the men lived and whose stories cannot be adequately explained within a modernisation perspective so frequently used to explain social change in Ireland.

Generational Crises

Out in Time ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Perry N. Halkitis
Keyword(s):  
Gay Men ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Gay Identity ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Late Twentieth

There are many commonalities in the coming out experiences of gay men both within and across the generations despite greater tolerance and acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the United States that has developed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. While there is this bond that ties the men across the Stonewall, AIDS, and Queer generations, there are generational differences in coming out shaped by a crisis that defined and defines much of the lives of the men within each of these cohorts. The crises of identity, the crisis of AIDS, and the crisis of failure are explored as the defining element of each generation, respectively, with recognition that these crises are cumulative across time. Despite their connections as gay men and commonality in life experiences shaped by gay identity discourse, there are also intergenerational challenges and conflicts that emerge between the age groups.

Self-Care and Solidarity: The Undocumented Immigrant Youth Movement

2018 ◽  
pp. 139-160
Author(s):  
Ala Sirriyeh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young People ◽  
Self Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Undocumented Immigrant ◽  
Dream Act ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Deferred Action

This chapter examines how a shift from the notion of compassion that is felt at a distance to a practice of compassion as suffering with one another in solidarity has been achieved by the undocumented youth movement in the United States. It begins with an overview of the origins of the undocumented youth movement, followed by a discussion of their campaign for the rights of the country's undocumented young people, their campaign for the passage of the federal Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, and their response to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) introduced by President Barack Obama. It also considers the movement's use of storytelling as testimony in their DREAM Act campaign and shows how compassion as solidarity and co-suffering can play an important role in enabling witness bearing and the building of a more inclusive and enduring resistance to suffering and social injustice.

From “coming out” to “Undocuqueer”: intersections between illegality and queerness and the US undocumented youth movement

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-143
Author(s):  
Ina Batzke
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
The United States ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Narrative Self ◽  
Movement Strategies ◽  
The Us ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
And Gender

This chapter explores the intersectionality of seeking citizenship and gender on the movement strategies of undocumented youths by tracing the evolvement of the Undocuqueer movement within the overall undocumented youth movement in the United States since 2001. By analyzing both tactics and narrative self-representations of Undocuqueer activists, it describes the specificities of UndocuQueer challenges and opportunities in order to trace how LGBTQ representations of undocumented youth legitimized themselves within the larger scope of the movement. In the course of this discussion, it is clear that the UndocuQueer tactics are not be understood as a parallel occurrence to earlier representations of undocumentedness, but instead as an intersecting one in the fight for social justice, which almost organically grew from within the overall undocumented community.

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