LaDarius Doaks

Professor Reed
Composition I
Fall 2015

Rhetorical Analysis- Visual

The image above explicitly explains how tragic LGBT homelessness can be. In the
graphic, there is a member of the LGBT community holding a sign that says: 1 in 4 Americans
will be homeless the day they come out. This goes to show how dire it is that the importance of
LGBT homelessness needs to be addressed and a lot of action needs to happen. What is being
implicitly communicated is the actual problem of LGBT homelessness. There is more to it than
LGBT homelessness than homelessness. The rate of diseases and prostitution/escorting is higher
in LGBT homelessness than heterosexual homelessness. The source of this picture is Fairbanks
Youth Advocates. This is a program to help at risk students around the Fairbanks area and the
greater Interior Alaska community. Even though its based in Alaska, they want to spread this
idea around the country and they help cities surrounding them. They provide assistance and
support to move not only LGBT youth, but all youth into a stable, healthy, environment, and selfsufficiency. The image implies that every now and again when a LGBT youth comes out to their
family, they end being put out on the street because of it.
The images position is for helping the LGBT youth find home and assistance. The
graphic targeted audience is most likely the government. The government provides the safety and

shelter they need, so bringing it to their attention would be important. To persuade the audience
they used statistics. On the sign it says that 1 in 4 Americans which is a statistic. It also
looks like its a march, so it shows that this is a movement and they have marches to raise
awareness about it. The assumed values of the audience would be family. If they had a family
member who was put out on the street because of their sexuality, they would not be okay with
that. With the audience being the government, the goals should cleaning up the streets of
America. Getting all homeless off the street would bring the rate of crime, doing sexual things
for finding things they need, rape, and diseases.
No, I dont think this graphic is successful. As far as raising awareness, it does, but
solving the problem it does not. Getting the government to understand the importance of the
LGBT being homeless is going to take more than protesting. It is still taking them a while to fix
homelessness as a whole. The graphic itself is a great representation of how LGBT youth
homelessness is something people are passionate about changing.