Vanessa R. Panfil is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Old Dominion University. She is the co-editor of the Handbook of LGBT Communities, Crime, and Justice.
"The Gang's All Queer not only provides an exciting and rich
description of gay gang life, but it exposes the ease with which
we'd heretofore seen gangs as an entirely (unexamined) heterosexual
enterprise. A startling and essential book."
*Michael Kimmel,author of Angry White Men: American Masculinity at
the End of an Era*
"The Gangs All Queer offers a treasure trove of insights for gang
scholars, but more importantly, demonstrates how much we all have
to gain by embracing the queer criminological turn."
*Jody Miller,author of Getting Played: African American Girls,
Urban Inequality, and Gendered Violence*
"This book makes a substantial contribution to queer criminology.
The book artfully shifts from the conception of gays as victims of
hate crime to gays as agents and offenders, all while challenging
troubling racist stereotypes of queer and Black masculinities. The
conversations that this book can facilitate will greatly impact how
we think about crime and criminology, while developing queer,
black, and racialized-inclusive criminological research."
*Wesley Crichlow,author of Buller Men and Bwatty Boys*
"A fascinating and eye-opening portrait of young queer men involved
in this countrys gang underworld, which is typically associated
with hypermasculinity. . . .The book dives deep into the
complexities of what it means to grow up queer in the hood and
discusses how through gangs, disadvantaged youths can unite, feel
empowered, and create their own families of support and protection
even across lines of sexual identity."
*The Advocate*
"Panfil...let[s] her informants give voice to their lives and
concerns."
*The Gay & Lesbian Review*
"An interesting take on a world that never makes the headlines.Not
only did Panfil have access to a group of men who were willing to
tell all, she fully used that access to understand why a gay man
would turn to a group thats stereotypically anti-gay. This leads to
a bigger picture and larger questions of violence and closeting, as
well as problems with being black, gay and gangster."
*Washington Blade*
"Panfil’s text shines a warm sharp light on the complex politics of
masculinity and sexual identity among gang-involved men… Through a
combination of methodological rigour, human engagement and
stylistic verve, Panfil portrays a fluid repertoire of responses to
the tension between masculinity and sexuality that exposes not only
gang masculinity but the gang itself as a fragile construct."
*British Journal of Criminology*
"Ariveting look at identity construction, the qualities of
'real'men, boundary maintenance (the things we do to present
ourselves as wed truly like to be seen), and so many other nuanced
components of the gay criminal lifestyle.If the highest praise is
reserved for books that cause us to question deeply held beliefs,
this book ranks among the best."
*Foreword Reviews*
"A gem of contemporary sociology: a potent reminder of the
discipline's power to work past a culture's assumptions and, in the
process, to articulate the reach and influence of those assumptions
. . . its influence is likely to eventually spread far beyond the
academy."
*Pacific Standard*
"Panfil seeks to complicate the popular narratives surrounding gang
members and the hypermasculine, hyper-heterosexual lives they lead.
. .the book functions as an important tool in the recognition and
the dismantling of systems that lead to the marginalization,
poverty, and violence that [these]menface."
*Popmatters*
"Panfilinserts herself into the underground of an underground . . .
to better understand the experiences of gay men in the
hypermasculine context of gang life. Complicates assumptions that
male gang members and active offenders are exclusively heterosexual
and . . . paves the way for a more in-depth understanding of a
marginalized community."
*Publishers Weekly*
"The Gang’s All Queer offers a vivid and textured exploration of
gay gang life that shatters popular and academic assumptions about
the people who join gangs and the reasons that motivate their
sustained participation in them … Panfil effectively illuminates
the tenuous tightrope that gay, bisexual, and queer gang members
navigate to earn respect and protect their reputations in a culture
defined almost exclusively by its toxic hypermasculinity … The
Gang’s All Queer establishes a new agenda in the sociology of gangs
that provokes a necessary reconsideration of how scholars and
activists study gangs, queer identities, and black
masculinities."
*American Journal of Sociology*
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