Review: Robertson, Mary. Growing Up Queer. Kids and the Remaking of LGBTQ Identity.

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the review:

When conducting research about LGBTQ people, it is easy to fall into the trap of taking individuals’ sexualities for granted. Feminist scholars have discussed the social construction of gender at length. However, while we often pay lip service to the idea that sexuality, too, is socially and historically contingent, research rarely takes this idea as a central point of departure. Professor Mary Robertson’s recent book, Growing Up Queer: Kids and the Remaking of LGBTQ Identity (2019) is one rare example of research looks at how one becomes sexual. Growing Up Queer provides an ethnographic analysis of Spectrum, an LGBTQ youth center in an urban center in western United States in 2012-2013, to explore how the youth at this center become sexual and gendered through the social contexts they occupy.