Out With It

Out With It: Urban Gay Teens Share Their Stories

After years of jokes about “faggots” not being real men, Xavier Reyes comes out after being inspired by his roommate at a group home. Gina Trapani learns that her two best friends aren’t really her friends when she comes out as a lesbian. David Miranda vows to become a priest if God will only make him heterosexual. J. Miguel Jimenez finds his father won’t stop worrying about his son getting HIV/AIDS or having unsafe sex.

Out With It: Gay and Straight Teens Write About Homosexuality, Youth Communication’s completely revised second edition of its groundbreaking book, is filled with true stories by teens from all walks of life-gay, lesbian, and transsexual teens, stories by teens in foster care, and stories by straight teens about experiences with their GLBTQ peers.

An unflinching look at gay life from a young person’s perspective, Out With It also includes several heterosexual teens’ transformative experiences with gay peers. As a straight teenager, Melissa Chapman worries she won’t be able to relate to other participants at an all-day workshop about gay issues. David Schmutzer shares his reaction to the movie Brokeback Mountain.

“For gay youth who stumble across it, the book provides an accurate reflection of their feelings and struggles that is rarely conveyed in mainstream culture,” says Keith Hefner, the founder and publisher of Youth Communication. “For straight youth, it provides models of the kinds of acceptance and support that their gay peers need and deserve.”

The insightful stories in Out With It were written by teens in an intensive New York City writing program run by Youth Communication and were originally published in Youth Communication’s award-winning teen magazines.

Out With It also breaks the stereotype that gay issues are of concern only to middle class white men, or to gay people themselves, says Hefner. Most of the 24 writers are young people of color-black, Hispanic, and Asian-and almost half are young women. And in several stories the friends and siblings of gay youth describe their own struggles to understand and accept their peers.

Keith Hefner, founder and director of Youth Communication, is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship for his work in journalism and youth development. He is also the co-editor of Growing Up Gay (1974), the first anthology ever published of stories by gay and lesbian teens. Youth Communication publishes many other anthologies by teens, including In The System and In The Life: A Guide to the Gay Experience in Foster Care.

To order your copy visit: youthcomm.org/outwithit