This is where we live: queering poor urban spaces in literature of black gay men

This article critiques the exclusion of working-class and impoverished gays and lesbians of color by drawing on popular and academic theories of the development of gay and queer urban spaces. Through an analysis of black gay men's literature of the 1980s and 1990s, it explores the factors that tie black gay men to and ostracize them from their home neighborhoods. It is argued that black gay writers use textual strategies to question their invisibility in their communities of origin and in white gay neighborhoods, show their positions and roles in the home and neighborhood, and queer these spaces.