Scared straight: LGBTQIA+ trauma as worldmaking and breaking

Purpose Anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder generate intense emotions, flashbacks and avoidance of situations that are reminiscent of primal trauma. Research has indicated the potential for enduring trauma on LGBTQIA+ individuals who experience the effects of adverse childhood experiences (Rokach and Clayton, 2023). In this article, LGBTQIA+ trauma is interwoven with(in) “the messiness of the marginality, identity, materiality, and politics of [gay/queer] lives” (Lara et al., 2017, p. 33), and situated as the material for exploring what we have named as being scared straight. Design/methodology/approach Scared straight is more than rhetorical: it is a material reorientation to the world and is used in the article to re-narrate the re-lating-ship of cultural violence, societal stigma, negative bias and rejection based on dissident gender identity and sexual orientation. Trauma is nonteleological: it always in “the process of forming and becoming without predetermined or final borders; it is conceptually elastic, unrestrained, and open-ended” (Yep, 2003, p. 35), finding expression in the psychosocial real: most notably, emotional resilience and social connectedness (Landry et al., 2022). Findings The zeitgeist of profuse neo-fascist rhetoric and politics has the potential to (re)interpellate LGBTQIA+ subjects, reigniting a reexperiencing of temporal, affective and psychic disruption. Originality/value This article examines LGBTQIA+ trauma as a socio-political threat (Sease et al., 2023), exploring the psychological entanglements of Author 1 (Mark) and Author 2 (James) through the narration of embodied narratives.