Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-1-2019
Publication Title
Youth and Society
Abstract
Sexual and gender diversity is an overlooked subject in resilience research. This study seeks to advance the conceptualization of resilience among lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) youth. Informed by social ecological theory of resilience, grounded theory analysis of interviews with service providers (n = 16) and LGBTQ youth (n = 19) yielded the following categories: (a) facing adversities across contexts, and (b) “doing well” while still in pain. LGBTQ youth face both general and LGBTQ-specific adversities. LGBTQ youth, even in a so-called “post-gay” era, remain challenged to navigate marginalization to maintain their well-being. Participants endorsed a context-dependent understanding of “doing well,” rather than using normative criteria of health (e.g., absence of psychopathologies). Although resilience is known as “ordinary magic,” this article alternatively proposes that resilience is LGBTQ youths’ extraordinary acts to “show up” every day to battle through adversities.
Keywords
LGBT issues, qualitative methods, resiliency
Volume
51
Issue
2
First Page
268
Last Page
285
DOI
10.1177/0044118X16671430
ISSN
0044118X
Recommended Citation
Asakura, Kenta, "Extraordinary Acts to “Show Up”: Conceptualizing Resilience of LGBTQ Youth" (2019). School for Social Work: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/ssw_facpubs/18
Comments
Archived as published. Open access paper.