How is identity formed? If you were born in Canada, that makes you Canadian; if you were raised Jewish, that makes you a Jew, right? But what about a teenage boy from small town Saskatchewan who has a secret crush on the guy who sits next to him in homeroom? What does that make him? And how would his identity change if he grew up to become an out-of-the-closet gay man?

In Out Spoken: Perspectives on Queer Identities questions like these are addressed by an eclectic range of authors in disciplines that range from sociology and education to cultural studies and literature—as well as playwrights, artists and writers—to reveal the fluid and sometimes confounding nature of identity when sexuality is part of the mix.