Institutional Erasure Upon Achieving “Equality”? A Call for Maintaining Identity-Based Community Centers for Queer Youth

• In Event: Roundtable Session 124
  In Roundtable Session: Queering Institutions and Using Queer Institutions

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present and grapple with a reoccurring theme that emerged from a larger study about political socialization at a community center dedicated to educating and empowering queer youth. The author asserts the importance of identity-based community youth centers, even after "equality" is achieved. This argument runs counter to some adult participants' ideas about the necessity of such institutions in the future.

Author

• Jillian Carter Ford, Kennesaw State University