This is the story of Michael Kennedy's life. Born in 1960 with significant disabilities, he describes his early experiences living in three different institutions for the mentally retarded and how he had to become his own advocate if he was going to survive. He soon realized that, unlike most of the others in institutions, he could make his voice heard. He had to speak up to help himself and other individuals with developmental disabilities to learn about their rights, and how to prevent themselves from becoming trapped forever within complicated state bureaucracies. After moving out of the last institution into various types of supported living settings, Michael describes how he found new friendships, went to school, got a "real" job, and began to aspire to having full control of his own life. "I want to let people know how the state system used to be and that institutions must never be reopened." This is a book about hard work, resilience, and hope. It is an extraordinary life story, but told by an ordinary man with a clear mission to help others like himself.

Rurality remains a relatively unexplored territory when considering the research on men who have sex with other men (MSM). This study addresses the knowledge gap in the research literature about how MSM manage their sexual identities in rural areas and small towns across Ontario, Canada. This unique exploratory study examined the intersection of sexuality, rurality and notions of masculinity in the rural Canadian context. More specifically, this study explored how rural MSM actually negotiate their sexual identities and serves to enhance our limited understanding of context and identity. This study employed a constructivist grounded theory design as espoused by Charmaz (2006) to develop a substantive theory on rural MSM. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 32 rural men across 28 geographic locales consisting of populations of less than 10,000 people. Men were interviewed primarily within their context and to obtain an understanding of their lived experiences. The results indicate that rural MSM are affected by numerous variables but three major themes emerged. MSM manage their sexual identities through on-going negotiations about their sexual identity, through their relationships with their community (local and urban) and their religious/spiritual beliefs. In responding to these negotiations, each participant was affected by how long he had resided in the rural context. Based upon a man's length of time within the rural environment, two general identity groups emerged: 'natives' and 'transplanters'. Each identity group managed their sexual identities in distinct ways. Finally, the general findings from the study are explored in relation to their implications for future research on MSM, and social work education and practice.