New book, other research examine rural gay life

The myth of the gay population only living in large urban areas is being disproven by an increasing amount of literature detailing the rural gay population, and it's an issue with which rural journalists should familiarize themselves. In her new book, Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America, Indiana University communications professor Mary Gray uses 19 months of fieldwork in rural Kentucky to "understand the processes by which queer rural youth negotiate their identities, lay claim to public space, and organize for social change," Marcel LaFlamme reports for the Daily Yonder. LaFlamme's book review notes that Gray acknowledges the many real challenges gay youths face in conservative rural communities, but refuses to paint them as victims or martyrs, "focusing instead on the strategies that they use to create a sense of belonging and visibility in the rural places they call home."

"Gray argues that the politics of visibility that has come to drive gay and lesbian social movements in the United States may be organized around a class-bound set of urban values that simply don’t have much traction in rural communities," LaFlamme writes. "In rural communities, bringing private experiences of injustice into the public sphere is sometimes just seen as stirring up trouble." LaFlamme points out that while the book does illuminate a new group of rural gay youth, Gray fails to provide a solution that moves past gay rights movements that focus on visibility in urban areas. (Read more)

A 2007 survey of 626 gay, bisexual and transgender middle-school students from across the country by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network showed 81 percent reported being regularly harassed on campus because of their sexual orientation, Benoit Denizet-Lewis reported for The New York Times Magazine in September. Middle school educators admitted to Denizet-Lewis that they were totally unprepared for openly gay students, and the use of "gay" as a derogatory term in adolescents was so prevalent they didn't know how to stop it. Still, at least 120 middle schools across the country have formed gay-straight alliance groups. Denizet-Lewis's reporting took him to rural communities like Yulee, Fla., and Sand Springs, Okla. Ritch Savin-Williams, a professor of developmental psychology at Cornell University, told him: "This is the first generation of gay kids who have the great joy of being able to argue with their parents about dating, just like their straight peers do." (Read more)