Maxwell turn his own personal experience into a delegation to connect vernal queer multitude with each other and assist them retrieve community when they might not have one around .
Maxwell Poth is an LA - based professional photographer that hasphotographedsome very freehanded celebrity over the years ; likeRicky Martin , Emily Hampshire , and Imagine Dragons ' frontman Dan Reynolds . But , it is his work in document LGBTQ+ spring chicken that is the nidus of his tremendous and powerful first book , Young Queer America : Real Stories and Faces of LGBTQ+ Youth . The book features LGBTQ+ kids aged 11 to 18 , from across the US , sharing their stories of what it is like being fagot in America today .
It all started in 2019 , when Maxwell — who grew up in Utah and was raised Mormon — learned that the lead cause of demise in his home DoS for new people between the age of 10 and 17 is felo-de-se . This startling statistic led him to move around to Utah to document what it ’s like for Kyd grow up " where no one is out … where being queer is n’t an option . " finally , his work document LGBTQ+ youths would develop intoProject Contrast — a nonprofit that helps gay tiddler who are struggling to find biotic community , tie in with one another , and apportion their fib .
Maxwell turned his own personal experience into a mission to connect young queer people with each other and help them find community when they might not have one around.
Recently , BuzzFeed got a chance to utter to Maxwell aboutYoung Queer America : Real Stories and Faces of LGBTQ+ Youth , what it is like to document young queer people , spiritual harm , and what form of feedback he has gotten on the book ( especially in this time of idiotic LGBTQ+ volume BAN ) .
I want to pop off by call for about Project Contrast — for people who not might not be familiar with it . Because away from you being a lensman , you have a nonprofit , and I was interested to recognise what made you want to start it ?
Maxwell Poth : I bug out it because it just felt like what I need to do . I pop it in my home state of Utah , and I start it there because I grew up gay — I was the only openly cheery kid in my entire town , Bountiful , Utah . And I kind of just felt alone , and I had no one to utter to , or , like , even compare my life to and see other multitude like me . I also originally started it there because of the gamy self-annihilation rates within queer youth in Utah alone ; in fact , teen self-annihilation was the leading cause of demise . Since I am a lensman , it first did just start as a photo project , and from there , it just flower into a non-profit-making , because I wanted to take it to more lieu than just Utah . And I want to highlight singular youth all over the country , and assist struggling rummy youth across the country find other queer masses like them to hopefully build residential area . And that ’s kind of how Project Contrast set about .
You actually sort of went into my next question , which is : What made you want to commence documenting LGBTQ+ untried mass in fussy ?
MP : So yeah , I just want to play up them , you know , for the understanding that I just said : assist them find community of interests and showing these kids that there are other people like them . But , I did learn by doing it that these kids are just young advocates , because they have to be . And they ’re just wise beyond their yr .
I wanted to stir a little bit on your religious upbringing , because I believe for a heap of people , that can hamper them coming out , or it could it could go forth them with a spate of internalized homophobia . So , what would you need to say to someone who is religious and is struggling with coming out ? Or perhaps is suffering from spiritual trauma ?
MP : Yeah , you know , spiritual trauma . And that interrogation is so complex to me , because I do n’t need to be angry at religious belief , and I do n’t require to be wild or mean toward religion , but you know , grow up Mormon , I do have a lot of ira toward it . I was prosperous enough to get out of internalized homophobia with religion , like I never rent organized religion tackle it , harness me , and put down me as much as I see a lot of other equal , specially peers back home in Utah , where it really just haunt them .
But , if you ’re struggling with organized religion and particularly struggling with a religion that does n’t support you , it ’s really elusive , because for so many of these people in that situation , that ’s all they know , it ’s all they ’re conversant with . So they ’re so afraid to leave because they think that ’s the only residential district they have . And I just desire to give them the advice of essay to find people who accept you , formalize who you are , and formalise your oddity . get them know that substantiation and community does n’t have to add up from an organized faith , that can make out from so many dissimilar mass in dissimilar group to help you find that love and that confidence that faith is causing trauma for .
Obviously you , the LGBTQ+ multitude you photograph in the future , in your new Quran are Gen Z and Gen Alpha . Do you call up the process of come out has begin any easier ? And what new challenges do you see ?
military policeman : Yes and no . I would definitely say it has become easygoing for the L and the gigabyte and the B of the LGBTQ+ community . But at the same prison term , it ’s not that it is n’t as easy . So , it bet on where you go . I have seen a raft of white cis , gay human being / boys come out and be capable to live their life .
This is something I really like to mention , I have cite that in the past where if I went to some location , let ’s say I go to South Dakota , I have a white gay boy , a Black homophile boy , and trans someone — and they go to the same eminent schooltime and live in the same townspeople — all three of their response will be different . unremarkably , the white gay boy now are saying , " Yeah , it ’s been moderately well-off for me , my mob accepts me , I have friends . " And then , the Black homosexual boys I ask usually say something standardised , but fight primarily more with their family moral force . And then , a trans person , it ’s kind of the whole nine yards , they ’re really struggling at home with their family , and they ’re struggling with citizenry around them . Whereas , when I was younger , as a white gay boy , it was n’t talked about still . And so a portion has changed in that gumption .
Online there seems to be , like , an obvious generational watershed between older LGBTQ+ people , and , like , Gen Z , and Gen Alpha . What do you think millennials get amiss about younger LGBTQ+ multitude ?
MP : Oh , interesting . I would say a destiny of them feel decidedly misunderstood , specially with the coevals sometime than me . You know , I recall my generation as I ’m a millennial , a lot of us at the younger side , we tend to try and I estimate , infer more , but it is definitely more about this engagement on grammatical gender , that I see that a raft of erstwhile queer people scramble to understand . Like , with pronouns , and so many unlike agency of identifying yourself .
I did desire to ask you about the subjects that you ’ve documented over the years . Do you hear from them still ? And how do they feel , in retrospect , about share so much of themselves publicly ?
military policeman : Yes , I try and stick in contact with as many kids as possible . But , I kind of lead that up to them . I always will the door open or have that outreach available . Some I only hear from when I gather them and document them , and then you know , they do n’t resolve an electronic mail ever again , but others I talk to almost hebdomadal if not , sometimes day by day . So , it ’s kind of all up in the breeze there . There ’s so many of them , but I definitely do keep my tabs on them . And see them grow and have trivial , I call them zoom catch - ups . So , they kind of allow me know when they need to flow out again and talk and say me what ’s new .
Do you project on maybe making this into , like , a series ?
MP : Yeah , I definitely would have it away to keep go . If this book does well , I would get laid to do a Volume 2 . I have , like , other idea that are n’t just queer youth . And I would make love to , in a perfect world for me , which I see happening , is doing a young queer Canada , doing a untested queer UK , and finally belong to other places , and figuring out how that would function . Because these young fry are the time to come of the queer community . And I feel like even though people interview homophile kid in the past tense , and even now , like , I experience like nobody ’s necessarily doing on the button this , and I would love to keep go and make that a reality .
In an era of , like , all these nonsense Koran prohibition , how has the feedback been with your new book ?
MP : So far , because it is only been out a month , I have n’t seen too much in the book ban about my book . I ’ve been seeing that they ’ve been banning a lot of peculiar books in libraries . I just do n’t know if mine have reached those library yet , because we did just publish . But I can tell you that I am preparing for it . So are my small fry .
eventually , what ’s the unspoilt feedback you ’ve baffle with your project , from someone who issue forth across it or participate ?
MP : I mean , I get amazing feedback from the kids themselves . You know , once this book was published , a bunch of these small fry were just share the most , like , loving content and surprising messages . Usually , when I do a project like this , these stories get brand pretty quickly , like within a calendar month or few month after , but these small fry , they wrote these story about two twelvemonth ago . So , a lot of them have come back and been like , " Holy shite , like , I ca n’t believe I write this , like , I needed to hear this even now . "
Aside from that , just seeing other kids share this , a lot of these kids are getting outreach themselves after partake in it on their own platforms . And I ’ve also gotten a lot of parents who have told me that they are happy this book exists , and that it even helped them interpret their own queer youngster more . So , that ’s astonishing .
You can buyYoung Queer America: Real Stories and Faces of LGBTQ+ Youththrough thislink. And if you want to see more of Maxwell’s work, you can check out hiswebsite, and learn more about Project Contrast over on theirsite.
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