Kicked Out: A Review

I am honored to have the opportunity to review Kicked Out, by Sassafras Lowrey.  I met Sassafras several months ago in a writing workshop and was inspired to keep writing even when it feels nearly impossible, so I’m glad for a chance to give something back.

As I began to read the introduction to this amazing book, it occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to read it with a freshly-broken heart.  Sitting on the bus to New York City, tracing the steps of many a desperate youth (and older folk as well), felt a bit monumental.  Of course, I’m always likely to take things (and myself) rather seriously, reading symbols into anything and everything.  I had tears in my eyes by the time I’d read half of the introduction.

I am excited by being able to review this book because I think it is special.  It’s about survival.  Survival is something that used to occupy a fair amount of my time, and I am reminded of that recently as my life has taken a sharp turn toward the less stable.  I grew up in a rural-ish place, an hour from Boston but it was like a different universe.  25 miles away there were high schools with GSAs, but in my town a teacher who came out had his tires slashed.  There was no mercy or compassion for difference, only a sort of brutish ignorant indifference that mostly kept us freaks alive.  Not that much would have had to change for me to have a ‘kicked out’ story too.

One person’s story of finding a new family, after his brutal experience at the hands of his family of origin, is shocking and heartbreaking.  Another’s blazing writing struck a deep chord with me – the isolation, unstable irrational parents, the desperate longing of her first love – these things turned out differently for me, and I am grateful.  Grateful that my parents didn’t kick me out.  Grateful that they paid for college, though they still hold that against me.  I have lived in a safe, warm, dormitory or apartment every day of my adult life.  And every day of my childhood I had a bed to sleep on.

Stories from youths living in shelters, told unedited, are intense and impressive in their brevity.  One, translated from text message, shows the ways new media and technology expand the ways we have to express ourselves, but that does not detract from the horror of the story.

There were times when I thought I might have to leave my childhood home.  I don’t think in my case it had anything to do with my being queer.  The abuse in my house was dealt out to all of us, queer or not.  But if my parents had been stuck in that conservative, hateful mindset where non-normative sexuality is unacceptable, then I might have been kicked out too, or forced out by intolerable circumstances.

There are 34 contributors to this book – authors, editors, artists.  Each one of them has something important to say.  The parts that feel the most important to me are the ones where embedded in someone’s struggles are bits of advice for the kids on the streets right now.  Or ten years from now.  This advice is mostly timeless – because dumpsters and friends and violent, angry people don’t really change much over the years.

Do I have criticisms for this book?  Of course.  As a member of the community and student of LGBT policy, I have researched this topic a fair amount, and so the essays from providers and advocates are not news to me.  Some of them feel a little clunky and repetitive to me.  Yes, almost half of homeless youth identify as some version of queer/trans.  No, there isn’t enough funding to go around.  Yes, the most important thing is to reach out to these youth and build relationships with them.  Yes, the system is deeply and systemically broken.  No, it is not okay for any kind of abuse to be meted out to anyone.  That said, anyone who wants to do more research on these issues will find a wealth of resources in the footnotes, which I always read obsessively.

But I have a lot of specialized knowledge that comes from working on these issues.  For the person looking at this stuff in depth for the first time, this book as a whole will break your heart, educate you about the resources for queer youth that do exist, give you tools for advocating for change, break your heart again, and light a fire under you for immediate action.

I finished this book as I started it, with tears in my eyes.  They were pushed over the edge by Sassafras’ own story of a series of horrible losses.  Hir story is brilliantly written, and frankly, something I feel about all of these stories is that they don’t need me to say how ‘moving’ or ‘heart-breaking’ or ‘painful’ they are.  That almost feels too far removed, judgmental, potentially exploitative.  You all need to know this stuff.  It’s an advantage that it is put together beautifully.  This more than any Prop 8 rally should serve as a reminder of the work we have to do in our community to reach out to and take care of our youth.  In my temporary apartment with the sound of blowing heat surrounding me, I am pausing again to be grateful for the security I have in my life.

Go buy this book, support queer authors and independent presses, and if you get it (as I did) during the pre-sale, you get a free copy of another Homofactus Press book of your choice.  I got the first volume of Visible:  A Femmethology ‘cause I have some catching up to do – if you do get this during the pre-sale leave a comment telling what book you got too!