| This study examines the personal literacy histories of a group of lesbians and gay males. Literacy for the purposes of this study is defined broadly as the personal interpretation of textual and visual media including books, magazines, films, songs, advertisements, online documents, and institutional communications. The focus is on those texts that influenced the reader's development of a sexual identity.;The data were gathered via an email discussion list comprised of 20 participants. The only criteria for participation were interest in the subject area and a minimum age of eighteen years. The transcripts were analyzed according to the traditions of qualitative research, specifically narrative inquiry. The themes outlined in the narratives were triangulated through critical analyses of the cultural texts discussed by the participants.;The narratives shared in this study reveal a unique literacy event--coming out of the closet through text. Participants related common experiences of searching for texts inclusive of gay voices, exploring those texts within the safety of the closet, and constructing new identities as out lesbians or gays, in part, through reading.;The narratives of searching for gay-friendly books, films, or magazines included subplots about obstacles placed in the way by the censorship of gay voices in our culture. Participants reported finding few texts inclusive of gay characters or themes when they were younger, and those texts they did find often stereotyped lesbians and gays as either dangerous predators or pathetic victims.;However, the participants in this study demonstrated capacities to resist the negative portrayals of themselves circulating in the culture. Members of the Alternative Reading group completely revised the cultural scripts that limit representations of gays and lesbians to the superficial. The new scripts composed through acts of reading reveal a multiplicity of gay roles including lovers and committed partners, socially active individuals and empowered citizens.;This study is relevant to educational practice because it sheds light on the processes of identity construction of which schools, as socializing institutions, play a central role. |
