"The assumption is that queer history begins at the city gates.”
June 11, 2021 9:34 PM   Subscribe

The total percentage of rural queer Americans mirrors the percentage of rural Americans overall: around 15-20% of queer Americans live in rural areas, while around 19% of total Americans live rurally. Rural Queer History: Hidden in Plain Sight from The Daily Yonder ["Keep It Rural"].

Links to things mentioned in the article:

Just Queer Folks: Gender and Sexuality in Rural America

Country Queers Podcast

Penpal Zine For Rural Queers Not Alone, Never Was
posted by hippybear (5 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hippybear, thank you! I am here for ALL the pride, especially the gems you're sharing. Thank you!
posted by esoteric things at 9:46 PM on June 11, 2021 [5 favorites]


I am so sad about the end of Queer Appalachia from last year.
posted by oceanjesse at 10:22 PM on June 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


Ha! Initially I made the fallacy leap that if 20% of Americans are queer, and 20% of Americans live rurally, therefore 100% of rural Americans are queer.. wait what??… I can’t be the only one skimming this with a buzz. Happy Pride Month!
posted by GrandPunkRailroad at 10:42 PM on June 11, 2021 [4 favorites]


One of my great-aunts lived with another woman until she (the other woman) died, in a little ranch house right next door to one of her brothers and his wife, who were still actively farming when I was a kid in the 70s.

Another great-aunt, a spinster all her life, once took me to lunch with a group of her women friends. I'd never been in a group of women with no men present before. I was maybe 10 or 12, and I found I liked it. They exchanged small gifts to show their affection for each other (one of these was quickly repurposed and given to me, a little desktop pen organizer I used all the way through college), and they ate dessert first. It wasn't radical, exactly, but it was very memorable to little small-town proto-queer me. They were so affectionate and having so much fun.

There might not have been anything queer in that gathering or among those friendships—it might just have been a get-together of teachers, say. But it made an impression on me.

Rest in peace, Aunt Hazel. Rest in peace, Aunt Hazel's longtime companion Lillian. Rest in peace, Aunt Doris.
posted by Orlop at 7:21 AM on June 12, 2021 [10 favorites]


Previously. If you can find it, there is a related film to this subject - Farm Family: In Search of Gay Life in Rural America and to a certain extent the director T. Joe Murray's other film Fish Can't Fly (which is about Gay men and women of faith but does cover people who are living in rural settings as well). I was friendly with the director for a bit and found his stories of rural queer people struggling with who they are and how they fit in very compelling.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:25 AM on June 13, 2021 [1 favorite]


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