5/23/17

THRIVING CONTEXTS
for
LGBTQ YOUNG ADULTS
+

OF COLOR
Kia Darling-Hammond
May 23, 2017

Marcus (they/them)

Oh, I was kicked out of my house for two weeks when I was
16 or something.
So about the age of 13, my mom got married for papers to
this other Jamaican guy. He was a friend of the family. We
kinda grew up with him, blah, blah, blah, it was cool.
Then around the age of 17, I started dating my first
girlfriend. He found out and flipped out. Stalked us.

He showed up to our school - Drove past us when he was

supposed to be at work.
Hed call my friends and try to find out where I was. This
went on for a couple months. It was crazy!
No sh**. It was super traumatizing.
He put that thing on my phone where you can find out
where your kid is
Hed always show up where we were.

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You know? That first really butterflies, first experience,

intimacy, was like someone kicked me in the gut.
When I tell people The experience was intense, and I
will admit it was really terrifying.
Literally terrifying.
Terrifying like I thought homeboy was gonna kill me at
one point.

I don't know. Going through something like that, Ive

never thought to invade someones privacy like that -
reading their love notes or something, and printing
everything out.
highlighting words, and going through phones.
Surviving. That was a point where I was just surviving.
Its kind of I wasnt even really living.

The Stakes are High

Youth homeless population is ~40% LGBTQ+ (Durso & Gates, 2012)
(1) Family rejection; (2) Being pushed / kicked out of home
Nationally, 57.6% of K12 LGBTQ+ students feel unsafe at
school because of their sexual orientation, and 43.3%
because of their gender expression. (GLSEN NSCS 2015)
Social, psychological, and physiological effects (Center for Youth
Wellness, 2014; Cvetkovich, 2003; Major & OBrien, 2005; Miller & Kaiser, 2001; Singh et al.,
2014; etc.)

Disproportionate exposure to threat at intersections of race

and gender / sexuality. (Burdge et al., 2014)

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Yes. And theres more to the story.

1. How and under what circumstances do
LGBTQ+/SGL youth and young adults of color
believe they experience thriving?

2. What new information is revealed when we center

the lived experiences and survival literacies of
LGBTQ+/SGL-identified youth and young adults of
color to better understand possibilities for thriving?

TUF Events

Thriving (vs not-thriving)

Utopia

Future Self

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Thriving
Thriving means having your identity supported, your
identity affirmed. You being in a situation where you
can learn, fail, make mistakes, and still understand
yourself as someone who will be capable of greatness
and is worth greatness.

There was also a lot of free time for myself, for me to
take care of myself I could regenerate when I had hard
moments.
- Dante (he/him)

Thriving
Thats when I feel like I was really happy, when I was
actually learning about something that I loved and that
I found interesting.
I think what helps me also thrive in that situation is
having people, having a great support system, having
friends that I can rely on, havingspecifically having
queer people of color friends.
Another thing that helped me thrive was music...I need
to have very consistent music sessions where I play and I
sing and I just have fun.
- Norma (she/her)

Normas Utopia (she/her)

In my perfect utopia, I would have no violence, more of a
community sense ofalmost like communism, but not
likenot to where we were screwing people over. Where
everybodys equal in terms of money, in terms of power,
and stuff like that.

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Normas Utopia (she/her)

Lots of music. Lots of relaxing time with your family. Dont
work people to death.

just gay people everywhere. Just like queer people,

transgender people, anything thats like, fits in the queer realm
would just be free, be open, not to worry about police killin
em, people of color not having to worry about police. Yeah, I
think that would be my perfect utopia.

Kats Utopia (she/her)

Higher emotional connection / Love / Intimacy
Waking up with special someone
Sharing space
Enjoying the day
Little things (sun, Sunday, no obligations)
An ease to the day
Memory of fun / Energy of fun
Chillin / Strollin / Its an easy day

Significance
Every participant has a thriving narrative. Every participant
has imagined a world that exceeds current reality.
These TUF events are both normal and situated.
There is considerable thematic overlap, offering a starting
point for situated analysis.
Tensions exist:
Participation in social structures/institutions vs
Achieving happiness, wellness, and self-actualization.
K12 / post-secondary

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