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• A look Kurt Chandler's "Passages of Pride."

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Passages of Pride is a book from 1995 that looks at true stories of Lesbian and Gay teenagers. This book may seem dated, but the passages can strike a cord, as many of the issues in the book are still experienced by a number of LGBT members today who face challenges and obstacles with “coming out” and “being out.”

The author, Kurt Chandler, splits six stories into a number of different chapters, all under specific sections with differing topics for the group of LGBT teenagers. Chandler is a journalist and author, and the book was the result of a year-long newspaper project with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. A large credit to Chandler in the foreword to the book is his honesty, explicitly stating his fears that he would have trouble finding teens that were both “out” and have the courage to share their stories publicly. I found it most refreshing as a heterosexual ally that Chandler also was intuitive enough to realize that it may be difficult for these teens to trust him with their stories.

The book is an easy read in the sense that the chapters are as short as a Dan Brown novel. The stories are uplifting, but don’t read it if you’re looking for a warm feeling in your heart with every story. It is definitely not as popular or has some of the happy endings that Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul might have. It will make readers cringe and hopefully wonder how people can be so hateful based on one aspect of a person’s life.

Some of the biggest credits to this book is Chandler's ability to look at a number of individual experiences in a these teens lives, and at the same time allow messages and challenges to merge together as a shared experience of their sexuality. Each teen is given a chance to give a true story in each of the sections of the book from awareness to disclosure and finally the community.

I'll focus mainly on Dan, one of the teenagers from the book, and one of his chapters on disclosure. He starts from kindergarten and continues through late high school dealing with coming to terms with being gay. At first his parents tell him to ignore the problems he’s having at school with his peers, teachers and guidance counselors. As the time progresses and more of his identity becomes lost from pretending to be something he is not, his parents turn on him. They begin spouting the very things he is trying to avoid at school when he tells them he is gay and wants to go to a support group out of state. Throughout high school, he attempts to look inward and finds authors such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and performances from Harry Fierstein’s "Torch Song Trilogy."

The imagery in some of the last pages, specifically when Dan unpacks and notices his “closet is empty, doors wide open,” which is something he admits in the book as “some weird symbol of my life or something,” adds to the true nature of these chapters and the gripping nature of these teens problems. Whether they fully find acceptance and remain hopeful is something you’ll have to read to find out for yourself.