Writing the self: queer identity, faith, and resistence in Christina Lauren's Autoboyography

Abstract

The present study proposes a deep dive into the novel Autoboyography (2017), by Christina Lauren, focusing on the struggles faced by the queer characters in the story while they try to navigate their coming-of-age amidst the conservative religious doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). The work attempts to understand how the narrative articulates the intersection between identity, faith, and social expectations by analyzing a collection of excerpts in light of established and contemporary scholars — covering queer theory, studies on identity, otherness, and contemporary literary criticism. The analysis reveals how the main characters, Tanner and Sebastian, simultaneously, yield to and defy religious and heteronormative standards whilst attempting to come to terms with and affirm their identities. This study also calls attention to the lack of academic research on Autoboyography, despite its potential to enrich the field of literary criticism even further, more specifically when it comes to the intersection of queer experiences in Mormon contexts.