Allen, in this book, pushes back against the singular narrative of suffering in these states, choosing instead to showcase the resistance, the community-building and the culture of LGBTQ folks who live in Utah, Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia ... Allen shares her path to transition in short anecdotes that unfold over the chapters, cleverly keeping readers enthralled with both her careful reporting and personal narrative ... far more than one trans woman’s coming out story ... The bulk of the book is spent doing what Allen has been doing for years, and doing well: reporting ... doesn’t try to sell middle America as a fuzzy, warm place that is unilaterally safe for or welcoming of queer folk. Real Queer America is a book necessary for anyone in — or allied with — the queer community, especially those of us who see the bad news day after day. But she’s sharing the beauty of the spaces that LGBTQ+ people have carved out for themselves, and she’s giving credit where credit is very much overdue, because it’s the queer folk who live and stay in red states — whether by choice or due to a lack of options — who have to survive there and work to make them better.

In straightforward and readable prose, Allen argues that queerness thrives everywhere, perhaps even more so in states like Indiana, Texas, and Tennessee, precisely because there’s still so much advocacy work to do. Allen’s openness about her personal story—including growing up Mormon, living an angst-filled double life in Provo, coming out as transgendered, meeting her wife in an elevator at the Kinsey Institute, and undergoing surgery to get a vagina—invites respect. She writes with loving curiosity about other people in the LGBTQ community and blends this with national-level reporting on political and historical LGBTQ issues.

Allen’s strategy is different in that she goes for breadth rather than depth. As a result, Allen’s book is a Whitmanesque catalogue of America’s queer population: male and female; cis and trans; young and old; gay, bi, lesbian, pan; white, black, Asian, and Hispanic ... Allen tells their stories—and hers—in a casual, intimate style, effortlessly comparing and contrasting their Red State experiences with the ways LGBT issues are playing out at the state and national levels. In this, her book is admirable, because it allows her subjects to escape both the stereotypes and the condescension that normally surface when east or west coast journalists pay occasional notice to the LGBT population in 'flyover country' ... But there is a problem with Allen’s encyclopedic approach; just as some of the people in Walt Whitman’s catalogs get lost among the sheer number of figures competing for the reader’s attention, so do many of the people Allen speaks to on her journey ... a fun read in which Allen’s copious research informs, but never overwhelms, the many stories of disparate, fascinating LGBT lives.

Suitable for fans of memoirs and travelogs, this collection is a soothing and motivating balm for readers engaged with social justice issues. It is also a revealing and surprising tour through the country for readers both within and outside the LGBT community.

In imagining a new family–one that didn’t have a past with her pre-coming out self–Allen writes beautifully of her chosen family ... [Allen] is smart-as-hell, but inclusive and impassioned ... So many wonderful books get written for the NYC and San Francisco LGBTQ community. I’m glad Samantha Allen wrote Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States for the rest of us.

[A] clever combination of easy travelogue and thoughtful exploration of queerness in America ... [Allen's] approach is firmly inclusive; she acknowledges the limitations of her perspective as a white woman, giving readers a brief explainer on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectional oppression. Queer readers will nod knowingly at the descriptions of finding gay-friendly hangouts and questioning whether public hand-holding is safe in a new area, and readers without that experience will still enjoy Allen’s charming, humorous recounting of the ultimate road trip through rainbow-colored America.

In Search of Gay America is a clear precursor for the present volume by Allen ... Allen tells a more personal story relating to her own transformational experience, which, while often instructive, pulls attention away from the fascinating individuals she encountered on her trip. Though she generously acknowledges the strong work they are doing within their communities and sheds meaningful light on the progress achieved within these red-state regions, she doesn’t allow their portraits to come into clear focus; all too often their stories revert back to her. By the end of the book, few of these folks will be memorable for readers ... While expanding awareness on the efforts being made in the LGBT community within red states, this journey feels somewhat perfunctory, and the narrative rarely sustains the promise shown in the opening chapters.