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xxiv Introduction Rural youths especially benefited from the Internet. Often, there are no LGBT resource centers in small towns or small colleges or GSAs at public schools. The Internet provides access to a world of information and per- sonal connections impossible to locate in a rural setting. Coming out is always new for adolescents. Often there is fear of rejection from parents that could result in being ejected from the home and becom- ing homeless. There is the fear of harassment and bullying in school. One safer path for adolescents is to slowly come out on the Internet to selected gay communities. This way the adolescent does not face possible harm from family or peers, although sometimes the anonymity of the Internet is breached, and the adolescent is “outed” to family and friends the Internet can facilitate terrible harassment on social-media outlets like Facebook. As many commentators have observed, the anonymity of the Internet seems to allow virulent, hateful, antigay statements and threats to be made to a degree not usually seen in face-to-face settings. Still, coming out in steps is easier and safer with the Internet than in pre-Internet days. Mobile communication devices have also had their impact. Sitting at home in front of the family’s computer can be limiting to adolescents com- ing out. They fear parents and siblings peering over their shoulder and viewing LGBT Web pages. Mobile devices like cell phones and tablets allow adolescents to view these materials or make contact with other gay adolescents away from home with assured privacy. Cell phones also facili- tate greater interactions between adolescents, including following “out” celebrities with Twitter and showing support for gay TV programs, people, and commentators through hashtags. The Internet and social media are also liberating straight people by allowing them to interact with LGBT people in private ways that reduce the need, particularly in males, to assert their dominance through oppressive masculinity. Overall, the Internet and the devices that connect to it are liberating LGBT adolescents. **** Identity politics has evolved, expanded, calcified, and evaporated all at the same time. Adolescents seem to be challenging traditional concepts of what LGBT means and embracing more the emerging concept of being queer. Eva M. Jones of Middlesex Community College, Middletown, Con- necticut, explores the ever-expanding definition of “queer” as related to modern culture in “The Kids Are Queer: The Rise of Post-Millennial Amer- ican Queer Identification.” Just what does it mean to be queer? Of course, the word “queer” evolved over hundreds of years, from describing someone as simply being odd