Adolescence is a difficult time, but it can be particularly stressful for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identifying youth. In order to avoid harassment and rejection, many LGBTQ teens hide their identities from their families, peers, and even themselves.
 
Educator Michael Sadowski deftly brings the voices of LGBTQ youth out into the open in his poignant and important book, In a Queer Voice. Drawing on two waves of interviews conducted six years apart, Sadowski chronicles how queer youth, who were often “silenced” in school and elsewhere, now can approach adulthood with a strong, queer voice.
 
In a Queer Voice continues the critical conversation about LGBTQ youth issues—from bullying and suicide to other risks involving drug and alcohol abuse—by focusing on the factors that help young people develop positive, self-affirming identities. Using the participants’ heartfelt, impassioned voices, we hear what schools, families, and communities can do to help LGBTQ youth become resilient, confident adults.

Michael Sadowski is an Assistant Professor in the Bard College Master of Arts in Teaching Program, based in New York City and Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He is also the editor of Adolescents at School: Perspectives on Youth, Identity, and Education. A former high school teacher, he was also an instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, editor of the Harvard Education Letter, and vice-chair of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.