Abstract
This paper analyses qualitative data with LGBT young people to explore police-LGBT youth interactions, and the outcomes of these interactions, as pedagogical moments for LGBT young people, police, and public onlookers. Although the data in this paper could be interpreted in line with dominant ways of thinking about LGBT young people and police, as criminalization for instance, the data suggested something more complex. This paper employs a theoretical framework informed by poststructural theories, queer theories, and pedagogical theories, to theorise LGBT youth-police interactions as instruction about managing police relationships in public spaces. The analysis shows how LGBT young people are learning from police encounters about the need to avoid ‘looking queer’ to minimise police harm.
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Notes
LGBT refers in this paper to young people who identify with a broad range of sexually and gender diverse subject positions, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, questioning, queer, intersex, and pansexual.
The main youth service provider where most of the interviews were conducted had an age bracket for service of 12–25 years. As such, young people aged 12–15 could not be excluded from the study, but all young people who volunteered to be interviewed for the study were aged 16–25 years.
These service providers support LGBTIQ young people with a range of issues they may be experiencing, including exclusion from school, interactions with police, homelessness, social exclusion, discrimination, and homophobia/transphobia. They provide drop in spaces so these young people can connect with other young people who identify similarly.
FTM means female to male, a person whose birth sex was assigned as female but who now identifies as male.
MTF means male to female, a person whose birth sex was assigned as male but who now identifies as female.
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Acknowledgements
Special thanks go to the LGBT young people who shared their stories with me, and to the service provider staff who initiated this process. Thanks also to the QUT Faculty of Law and PFLAG Brisbane for research funding.
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Dwyer, A. Teaching Young Queers a Lesson: How Police Teach Lessons About Non-Heteronormativity in Public Spaces. Sexuality & Culture 19, 493–512 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-015-9273-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-015-9273-6