Challenging sexual prejudice, creating safe spaces, promoting sexual diversity: A case study of LGBTQ youth activism in the San Francisco Bay Area (California)

This dissertation is a study of the ways that the queer youth activist community in San Francisco; California is advocating for safer and more inclusive schools and communities for LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning) youth. It focuses on the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, a youth-led organization that connects Gay-Straight Alliance clubs (GSAs) with one another and to community resources. The study explores how the activist efforts and goals are situated through a multi-dimensional sense of community. I show how the constitution of a cohesive youth activist community is generated through the ongoing relations between local communities of practice (GSAs) and a broader imagined community of queer youth activists fostered in spaces of leadership and networking through the GSA Network. The research was conducted in regional leadership meetings and youth conference steering committee meetings, and I show how this community is focused on strengthening individual school-based GSAs and extending their scope toward a broader political agenda. The findings are a product of sustained participant observation, interviews, and analysis of written artifacts produced by the youth community. Through analyses of overlapping sources of data, three primary themes emerged that shape the way that youth advocate for LGBTQ issues. First, youth situate their advocacy within a social justice paradigm that promotes difference and diversity within the queer youth activist community and seeks to build a coalition-based political agenda. Second, creating a climate of safety for LGBTQ youth entails both an exposure of the violence and harassment that many LGBTQ youth face in their schools, and also promoting a sense of safety that is less concerned with violence and more attuned to creating spaces that represent, validate, and support queer youth. Third, gender activism is a fundamental component of activism in GSAs, and youth are challenging underlying ideologies about binary gender, advocating for the right to transcend gender norms, and treating gender activism as a primary means of eradicating oppression and discrimination based on sexual identity. This study contributes to the emerging literature on high-school GSAs and also has significant implications for queer theoretical analyses of sexual and gender identity.