Siobhan Brooks’s article explores how Black LGBT women in Philadelphia find community among each other while interacting with Black heterosexual spaces. Brooks describes this kind of identity management as “staying in”. Black LGBT people are accepted as long as they do not openly express their sexuality. Brooks’s primary question is this form of identity management in three spaces: heterosexual family settings, urban public spaces in Philadelphia, and black churches. Brooks believes that “staying in” negatively impacts a black woman’s queer identity as well as their role in queer activism. This article speaks to an essential part of the black queer experience. Often being queer and black means being a black person who happens to be LGBT instead of a black LGBT person. Black queer women are at an intersection of multiple identities that are both difficult and dangerous to navigate. The number of hate crimes and violence against black queer women has been deemed a crisis. Hopefully, Brooks’s article will help me to understand how black queer women in Philadelphia are navigating this complex space. Brooks uses a number of sources in their article, including several journal articles on black homosexuality, black feminism, and homophobia in the black community. They also reference the book Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, which includes a number of accounts from black feminists covering a wide range of subjects.
Source:
Brooks, Siobhan. “Staying in the Hood: Black Lesbian and Transgender Women and Identity Management in North Philadelphia.” Journal of Homosexuality 63, no. 12 (April 20, 2016): 1573–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2016.1158008.
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