I remembered the byline of the writer, John Schwartz of the New York Times. Mostly about science but featured in the Enron coverage and increasingly involved with issues arising from the amendments in the Bill of Rights. So it would be well written. I hadn't realized it would contain a history of the struggle for LGBT Rights from at least Romer or an analysis of pretty much everything having to do with the research on signals you child might be gay. It said "diary me" in the introduction, so I read on, and cried, mostly tears of joy. So more non-fiction, and while the book is certainly interesting for LGBT Kossacks, it might be even more interesting for our allies here at the Great Orange Satan.
You might remember an article by Benoit Denizet-Lewis that ran in the
New York Times Magazine four years ago:
Coming Out in Middle School. A very Brave New World article, but oddly pollyana-ish, oddly fluffy (if you'll pardon the expression in this context). It didn't tell me that much about how different it is growing up gay in the new century, and it certainly didn't answer some of the questions Mark Halperin raised about what today's LGBT students bring into the classroom. This book doesn't do much with the second question, but it's ALL about the first, The subtitle is a tad misleading, because it's about the family's struggle too, but that's really just a quibble.
Here's what absolutely reeled me in. In the foreword, where Schwartz attempts to explain that this isn't a guide to how to parent a gay child, he reports a conversation he had with Timothy Noah of Slate about self-help books, which Noah hates, and memoirs, which he likes better, and Noah's example, well:
For instance, just about the last person I'd look to for personal advice about anything is Joan Didion. But when my wife died six years ago, I devoured Didion's best-selling memoir about widowhood, The Year of Magical Thinking.
Okay, we're dealing with this type of sensibility, I'm in! Yes, that's a link to my diary about the Didion book.
And of course, we begin with the suicide attempt. A year before Tyler Clementi raised all those issues, Schwartz writes. A lot of pills but nothing that would have killed him, the day he tried out his gay identity in public for the first time, at the age of 13. This is a book about Joseph Schwartz, John and his wife Jeanne's third child and second son. The story is good. John and Jeanne are the most supportive parents in the world. What made this terrific for me was John's Rolodex. We learn, for example, from Alice Dreger, a bioethicist at Northwestern, that gender-atypical young children are far more likely to end up gay than transgendered (see John Waters). We learn about the history of the DSM with regard to homosexuality, we learn that it also has a history with autism and Asperger's, and we learn that there's no link between being gay and either condition.
The chapter after the suicide attempt is for me the best in the book. It's of course about gay teens and suicide intertwined with the ideas that most gay young people are mentally healthy. That leads to a discussion of bullying (you already know what THAT says) which itself leads to the first historical analysis of the Anoka-Hennepin School District I've seen (background here and hereand here and here) and raises the issue that
This notion about anti-bullying efforts are actually invidious programs to promote homosexuality in schools has slowed or even blocked anti-bullying initiatives around the country
as it certainly had in Michigan.
There's another good chapter about how the landscape is shifting in favor of LGBT rights, and the fact that the backlash isn't working, and the developments concerning marriage equality, and gay penguins. Really engaging. I should also mention that Schwartz refers to his gay friends and colleagues as the League of Gay Uncles. How charming is that? PLUS a cartoon Joe drew, Leo, the Oddly Normal Boy. It's really an excellent read.
Plus, a year after the book's publication, Alice Dreger interviewed Joe for The Atlantic. Just go read it. Any 17-year old who addresses heteronormativity and white privilege so clearly is worth listening to. I hope he finds his way to Daily Kos!
I'd write more but I have 13 hours in which to write a presentation on the Hittites, Minoans and Mycenaeans and the early Greek city-states, clean the kitchen and sleep. I'll try to check in when this publishes.
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