Coming of Age and Coming Out: How the 1960s Compare to Today
Nicolas Shumway’s novel The Education of Joshua Chastain: A Gay Mormon Memoir opens an essential window on the challenges facing a young religious gay man seeking to understand and embrace his sexuality in the late 1960s while continuing to be a man of faith. Over sixty years have separated today’s young gay people from Joshua, leading us to ask how relevant Joshua’s experiences are today. The answer depends on the three famous Ws: who, what, and where.
The most significant difference between Joshua and young gay people of today is access to information. Joshua discovers the term “homosexual” in a classroom dictionary game when he is barely ten years old. He does not understand the term, but he intuits that it describes who he is. Today’s young gay people could immediately go to the internet and find hundreds of entries on homosexuality—not all of them reliable, but most certainly available. Similarly, young gay people today, unless they live in communities that ban books and block internet access, can find countless novels, histories, and academic studies on sexuality, not to mention easily obtained high-quality gay-themed magazines like The Advocate and The Gay and Lesbian Review. This underscores the role that literature and media can play in shaping LGBTQ+ identity and fostering self-acceptance. Moreover, young people living in enlightened communities may have discussed the varieties of human sexuality in school or other venues without censure or judgment.
Still, while access to information gives today’s gay youth advantages that Joshua does not have, many young gay people of today can quickly identify with Josh, mainly if they grow up in conservative religious homes and communities. Aversion therapy of the type imposed on Josh is still recommended in certain Evangelical circles. The relatively high incidence of depression, suicide, and self-destructive behavior among today’s young LGBTQ+ people is a stark reminder that many face the question that initially haunts Joshua: is a gay life worth living?
Joshua finds answers to this question in ways that remain as viable today as they were in Josh’s time. He seeks the company and counsel of other gay people, including a wise “nelly queen” and a progressive Catholic priest. He also learns to challenge religion with religion and to read the Bible against the Bible. He challenges “clobber verses” like Leviticus 20:13 and Romans 1:28 with verses like Romans 8:38, where Paul argues that nothing can separate us from the love of God. But what most unites Josh with today’s LGBTQ+ people is his discovery of love and community—a discovery that not only helps him understand his sexuality as a blessing rather than a sin, but also underscores the vital role of community and love in the LGBTQ+ experience.