Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth are disproportionately represented in the U.S. youth homelessness population. In Coming Out to the Streets, Brandon Andrew Robinson examines their lives.
Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in central Texas, Coming Out to the Streets looks into the LGBTQ youth's lives before they experience homelessness—within their families, schools, and other institutions—and later when they navigate the streets, deal with police, and access shelters and other services. Through this documentation, Brandon Andrew Robinson shows how poverty and racial inequality shape the ways that the LGBTQ youth negotiate their gender and sexuality before and while they are experiencing homelessness. To address LGBTQ youth homelessness, Robinson contends that solutions must move beyond blaming families for rejecting their child. In highlighting the voices of the LGBTQ youth, Robinson calls for queer and trans liberation through systemic change.
"In this poignant ethnography, Robinson sheds light on the crisis of LGBTQ youth homelessness–a crisis that has not been undone by pro-gay Youtube campaigns or legal marriage equality. The experiences of the young people in the book are simultaneously violently painful and immensely hopeful. By highlighting the voices of homeless youth, Robinson challenges the dominant narratives about 'coming out' found in much of the LGBTQ research in sociology and offers a new pathway toward addressing the structural inequalities that so many young LGBTQ people face on a daily basis."—Kristen Schilt, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago
"To read Coming Out to the Streets is to be at once stunned by the sheer number of LGBTQ youth who experience homelessness in the United States and heartened by how these courageous young people survive these difficult conditions. With its deft analyses and gripping storytelling that centers LGBTQ young people's voices, Brandon Robinson's ethnography is a must read for scholars, artists, activists, and policy makers interested in radical social change."—Marlon M. Bailey, author of Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit
"The voices of unhoused queer youth come alive on these pages. Their stories document how the 'queer control complex' increases their vulnerability to issues of racism, homophobia, and transphobia. But this is not just a story of heartbreak. It is also a story of hope led by the voices of the youths themselves as they provide solutions to many of the social problems that shape their lives. A must read for those of us who care about improving the lives of queer young people."—C.J. Pascoe, author of Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School
"This sorely needed book beautifully upends conventional wisdom about homelessness and urban marginality. Through rich storytelling, Robinson captures the gender- and sexuality-based violence that pushes youth into the streets and beleaguers their daily survival. A must read for understanding, improving, and celebrating the lives of our most vulnerable young people."—Forrest Stuart, author of Ballad of the Bullet and Down, Out, and Under Arrest
"Coming Out to the Streets is a wonderful book. Brandon Robinson is unflinching in documenting the richly nuanced and complex lives of youth for whom precarity is a condition of the everyday."—Patrick Anderson, author of So Much Wasted and Autobiography of a Disease
"Robinson's focus on LGBTQ youth offers new and important insights into a population that faces disproportionate rates of homelessness and significantly more danger as they navigate the streets."—Jason Adam Wasserman, coauthor of At Home on the Street
“This book constitutes a relevant tool for understanding how someone gets to face homelessness, even if not queer.”
