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How young Black queer men in Los Angeles reject stigma and stereotypes and instead find pride in their racial and sexual identities
Shameless is an in-depth exploration of the ways that young Black gay men in Los Angeles come together to learn how to navigate racial and sexual stigma in everyday interactions. Based on 4 years of intensive ethnographic fieldwork resulting in observations with over 200 young men in a Los Angeles community health organization, in-depth interviews with self-identified Black queer men, observations with gay kinship families, and media content analysis, Terrell J. A. Winder paints a full picture of the socialization and stigma negotiations of young Black gay men. He explains how traditional strategies like passing and covering can become untenable and ineffective for young Black gay men dealing with multiple stigmas simultaneously, who are looking to experience their identities with a sense of pride, rather than as a source of shame.
"In this captivating and nuanced book, Winder offers an important and necessary sociological analysis of the lives of young Black gay and queer men and the ways they unpack and 'unspoil' stigma. His analysis of biological and chosen filial commitments, as well as of cultural representations that work together to influence self-identity and socialization into adulthood, is complex, nuanced, and enlightening."
"Rooted in love and resistance, Winder’s Shameless is more than a brilliant book—it’s a blueprint for possibility, a promise for a better tomorrow. In an era when political leaders are hellbent on systematically erasing Black and gay lives from our schools, our libraries, and our history, Shameless is the book that everyone needs in their hands immediately."
"By centering the ways of knowing and being of Black gay men and elaborating on the practices they use to refashion their identities, Winder intervenes in the social science and public health tendency to obscure or dismiss Black gay men's agency in their own self-recognition, affirmation, and care; this is a crucial contribution that Shameless makes."
"Shameless delivers bold insight into 'another toolkit' for doing life as Black gay men. Rejecting scholarly tendencies to overemphasize the weight of stigma, discretion, and shame, Winder shows how Black gay men actively counter racial and sexual marginalization through creative and communal everyday practices. This work offers a vital addition to the archive—illuminating the narratives, spaces, and lived theories that keep Black gay men living and loving. A powerful ethnography of Los Angeles, which embodies a politics of care at its finest."
"Poignant, personal, and powerful! While centering his own journey growing up in Baltimore and spending his college years in New York City as pretext, and the lives of his subjects in present-day Los Angeles, Winder intellectually moves beyond the geographical local, brilliantly employs multiple methodologies, and maps out a more global narrative of resilience, cultural inversion, and empowerment. Here, the work doesn’t minimize the negative experiences of vulnerable populations. Instead, it challenges the reader to think more dynamically about how the socially oppressed can become individually empowered, while managing stigma shamelessly."