Search for a command to run...
in Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America Citation: Kazyak, E. (2010) Book Review Out in country: Youth, media, and queer visibility in rural America. Journal of Research in Rural Education 25(6). Retrieved from http://jrre.psu.edu.articles/25-6.pdf. Mary Gray's book, in Country, allows readers to inhabit world of rural and small town Kentucky and understand how young LGBT people and their allies experience its contours. The findings Gray presents primarily draw from nineteen months of ethnographic fieldwork as well as interviews she did with thirty-four LGBT youth. This ethnography challenges assumptions that circulate, both in and outside academy, about expressions of gender and sexual nonconformity in rural America, LGBT activism, and role of new media in social change. Gray asks how rural youth LGBT identities and how new media matters in their lives. Given its aim, book most centrally contributes to sexualities and media studies - yet its analyses will be of interest to scholars who study rural communities and education and social movements, as well as to educators and activists dedicated to supporting LGBT youth in rural areas. Perhaps one of this book's most exciting contributions to sexuality studies is how it problematizes way that the rural United States operates as America's perennial, tacitly taken-for-granted closet (p. 4). Gray laments way that both political Left and Right characterize rural America as inhospitable to queer expressions of gender and sexuality, and notes paucity of academic research addressing experiences of LGBT individuals in these areas. Thus, Gray's contributes to sexuality studies by illustrating how rural LGBT youth do collective labor of identity work (p. 21). Throughout her discussion of identity work, in Country focuses on relationship between identities and political activism. Specifically, chapters two and three document importance in rural life of being able to make claims of belonging and sameness, asking how, in turn, this shapes political work. One example is political mobilizing of area college students to contest a state representative's claim that his lack of attention to LGBT issues occurred because there were no gay people in his district. Combating logic that would displace queer into stranger category and outside of rural spaces, these students mobilized, securing 400 signatures from people demanding that their representative acknowledge that, in fact, gay people did live there. Gray astutely identifies tension that exists for LGBT activists in rural communities between laying claims to familiarity and asserting queer difference. Gray suggests that of non-profit organizations is important in lives of rural LGBT youth as it helps youth feel a part of a community. These chapters, however, are more concerned with highlighting connections and tensions between national, statewide, regional, and local advocacy efforts and less concerned with detailing impact for rural LGBT youth identity. Continuing focus on political mobilization strategies, chapter three addresses struggle over a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) at Boyd County High School. This section will likely be of most interest to rural educators and scholars interested in K-12 rural education. Gray outlines history of this GSA - including its inception in October 2002, its ban a few months later by county school board, protests against and in favor of club, and its final reinstatement in 2003 by order of a district judge. Gray also draws our attention to a few key players shaping club's history. For instance, Gray discusses how local activists were able to draw on support and knowledge from national nonprofits like American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in advocating for GSA. …