From book bans in the classroom to bans on gender-affirming care for minors, LGBTQ+ youth continue to be the target of U.S. culture wars, contributing to high suicide rates among queer kids, especially in rural areas. Seeking to address that and create community for LGBTQ+ youth, queer portrait photographer and photojournalist Maxwell Poth recently released Young Queer America, a collection of stories and portraits of queer kids across the country.
The inspiration for Young Queer America came from Project Contrast, a non-profit organization that Poth started in 2018 to amplify the voices of LGBTQ+ youth through storytelling. Over the last several years, Poth has traveled across the country, mainly to rural areas, to take photos of queer youth and capture their stories.
But the purpose of Project Contrast and Young Queer America has always been much more than documentation; through these visits, Poth also seeks to create a community for LGBTQ+ young people.
“When we travel and meet these kids, we create events and hold get-togethers, so a lot of these kids meet queer people for the first time in their entire lives,” says Poth. In turn, he hopes that fostering a sense of community will lower the rate of LGBTQ+ youth suicide.
Poth also seeks to create a community for LGBTQ+ young people.
“When we travel and meet these kids, we create events and hold get-togethers, so a lot of these kids meet queer people for the first time in their entire lives,” says Poth. In turn, he hopes that fostering a sense of community will lower the rate of LGBTQ+ youth suicide.
For Poth, the project is personal. Growing up Mormon in Utah and coming out as a teenager was a real challenge, and Poth wanted to address that. “I wanted to highlight the high suicide rates within the queer community, queer youth especially in Utah, because of the religious standing there,” says Poth. “I grew up Mormon. I went through what those kids were going through.”
Poth recalls getting the book deal for Young Queer America on the day that Biden was elected president and traveling to 15 different states in four months during the following year. When speaking with youth, he says he tried to capture every kind of story so that “every kid could feel represented in the book.”
The stories Poth connected to the most were the LGBTQ+ youth who came from nothing, didn’t have a lot and were on their own, or didn’t have anyone to look up to. “The ones that really struggled yet showed so much confidence and worked towards themselves are the ones that really moved me,” says Poth.
As for what surprised him the most, Poth was amazed by how “woke” the kids were. “They were writing things and talking about things I never even thought of until I was in college,” says Poth. “I was also surprised by how much they have in common. Even though they’re all from different places, they really do have more in common than they think.”
That’s part of what Poth hopes kids will get out of the book — a sense of commonality and representation. “If you’re a young queer kid, I hope that you can walk away reading a story and feeling more encouraged, seen, and represented, or at least just comfortable,” says Poth.
As the culture wars continue and LGBTQ+ youth bear the brunt of these political attacks, Poth hopes that his book humanizes the community for those politicians pushing for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.
“A lot of those people making these bills have never read a book that they’re banning or have even met a trans child that they are trying to fight against,” says Poth. “I would recommend that they read the book and understand what a trans child is actually like. Or meet one.”
