4. Out Law: What LGBT Youth Should Know about Their Legal Rights

Keen, Lisa. Out Law: What LGBT Youth Should Know about Their Legal Rights. Boston: Beacon Press, 2007.

Annotation:

Out with the old: "All men are created equal." In with the new: All LGBTS (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Straight) men and women are created equal.

Justification for Nomination:

" Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Everyone deserves all three and Keen's use of the Constitution to help explain the rights of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) youth was pure gold. Everyone knows that when it said "all men were created equal", it didn't mean all men. In Keen's book she emphasizes this statement with powerful experiences from real LGBT youth and through the Constitution she explains how laws didn't use to include the LGBT community and how much they are growing. The wonderful thing about Lisa Keen is that she doesn't tell LGBT youth about their rights, but it explains their rights in a text that they can understand. Out Law written like a textbook (glossary, notes, appendix, and index), but it doesn't disappoint readers and it is not boring. The chapters are spread out in a variety of topics that are well organized and well thought out. Keen knew which topics she was going to use and which subjects she was going to talk about which shows that not only is she well organized, but she is intelligent and educated about society and laws. This also means that the book is neither preachy nor does it blame anyone. Out Law is stalk full of useful information that LGBT (and straight) youth (and adults) should know. The fact that it is not used in schools as a textbook confuses me. I think that a book such as this one should be allowed in schools because ALL teens need to know about the negative experiences that LGBT youth go to. They need to know what the laws are that are protecting LGBTs and they need to know the degradation and outrageous hatred/prejudice that the LGBT community goes through. I knew there were laws protecting the LGBT community, but I never knew what they were. After reading Out Law I have learned of real court cases won after an LGBT youth's constitutional rights being violated and I have learned that society, although very slowly, is opening up to excepting the LGBT community. I enjoyed learning from this piece of brilliant nonfiction because of its facts, history, but most importantly because I believe that the LGBT community deserve the same rights as everyone else.

Genre Category: Non-fiction, Gay youth, legal status, laws