Going Down (South): The Gospel of The Southern Divas, Part I

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing. 

Header by Rosa Middleton

At a gathering of gay friends last spring, my iPod became the default white noise maker. After songs by Metric and Joan Jett that we all seemed to know by heart, Vickie Winans’ tambourine-slinging gospel anthem “Long As I Got King Jesus” began to play. In a matter of seconds, the white noise was no longer white, and the conversation changed from cute girls to Vickie’s wailing.

“Sarah, what the hell?” someone said. “Why do you have this?”

I shrugged. This was a valid question that I couldn’t answer. I don’t really “have King Jesus” in my life (neither did the woman I was seeing at the time, a conservative Jew). I just knew that I liked the song. Not really sure how to explain myself, I clicked my iPod’s forward button until shuffle settled on a track by Frank Ocean or Le Tigre or Rufus Wainwright or someone more palpable to our queer ears.

But my foot kept tapping to Vickie.

***

 My hometown’s population is just under 8,000. In that same town’s weekly newspaper, there are over 40 churches listed.

To put this into perspective: That is one pastor to every 170 residents (less if we were to include associate pastors, of which each church has between one and five). Whenever I’m in a college lecture and realize that the ratio of students to professors is 350 to one, I laugh to keep from crying. Whether I like it or not, I’m forced to acknowledge that there have been far more religious leaders in my life than there have been academics.

I have Georgia red clay stains on my heels from constantly being barefooted and outside. Yet there are less visible marks, tell-tale indicators of my upbringing, which come from being raised in the church. Even though I’m now nonreligious, I still subconsciously live by the Golden Rule; half of my favorite quotes are actually Bible verses, and I’m still trying to teach myself to say “goddamnit” without cringing over breaking one of the Ten Commandments.

When I say that I “grew up in the church,” I mean the Baptist church…which actually means the Southern Baptist church. And when I say, “the Southern Baptist church,” I actually mean Southern Baptist churches. My parents were notorious church hoppers, and they changed my family’s house of worship membership a minimum of two times a year (with every move, we inadvertently scandalized a new racially unmixed congregation with our strange little multiracial family).

The Countyville Baptist Church, Dudleyville, Alabama

For my parents, Christianity came with a high; a promise of redemption, transcendence, and the overwhelming visual of someone dying for our sins — one which was often depicted in stained glass windows of those clapboard buildings. When the ethereal high that came from a particular religious institution waned for them, we moved onto a shiny new one. While my time under each steeple was fleeting, I noticed that we lingered the longest in congregations with choirs. Not stoic Sistine Chapel choirs or TV show choirs which deceptively promise a spot for every socially disenfranchised youth, but choirs as in, you know, “I’m about to break a sweat right now in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” gospel choirs.

Maybe my parents stayed in churches with choirs longer because gospel music echoed and reaffirmed a pulpit preacher’s alluring promises of Heaven, love, peace, and prosperity. But gospel music, when done well, is also entertaining. An eight-hour service on a Sunday morning goes by a heck of a lot faster when there is not only music but physical movement, a chance to stretch your legs, clap your hands, use up some restless energy.

Appalachian State University Gospel Choir

Christianity justifiably gets a lot of hell from queer people, myself included. But I’m not really here to beat the “religion is hypocritical” dead-as-a-doornail horse today. Instead, I’d like to talk about the ways in which these small churches function as accidental safe havens for the scarlet-lettered, the eccentric, the musically talented, and the queer. For many, salvation doesn’t come in the form of Christ hanging on a cross, but a gospel choir and a piano accompanist who can keep up. Willie Nelson’s heroes might be cowboys, but mine are these working class men and women — more often than not, people of color — who have voices as big as their hearts. I’m as much of a fan of Adele’s blue-eyed belting as the next person, but let’s be forthright and honest here: There are ~17 members of the Ebenezer Baptist Church Choir right down the road who can do the same thing better and while wearing musty old robes in 105-degree weather.

In The Fighting Temptations, Beyoncé plays a bar singer-turned-gospel headliner, exploring the gospel’s relationship with immorality and acceptance in the process.

This is not to say that Southern gospel is accepting of girl-on-girl action or even hetero promiscuity — it isn’t. However, choir culture is all about unity and — if you have some sort of musical talent or at least the patience to develop it — a choir between here and the Mississippi River is bound to take you in. This has less to do with gospel’s acceptance and so much more to do with its resourcefulness. These churches do not perpetuate Glee‘s hoity-toity acceptance, and they certainly do not have the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir‘s budget. The ethos of Southern gospel is one that dates back to the postbellum South: You’ve got to do the best with what you’ve got. And sometimes, all you’ve got is century-old choir robes, a thirdhand bass guitar, and talent in unlikely places.

Gospel is velvet robes detailed in gold, swaying hips, sweat, and a tempo that can easily rival that of any Benny Benassi remix. It is perfectly fine to be aggressive or flamboyant, as long as your audience thinks you’re flaming in Jesus’ name (as opposed to that of the cute lady in the front pew). Gospel is performance art. Gospel is up for interpretation: What seems like the exorcising of personal demons in song and dance form might really be one’s only way of expressing desire in an otherwise intolerant culture. Gospel is a masquerade. Gospel is a survival strategy.

This sort of talent doesn’t always stay behind the pulpit, however. It goes on do big things. Perhaps this is why many of our allies, gay icons, and even queer family are Southern gospel choir alum: The church has not only taught them priceless lessons about turning the other cheek and Sarah’s impossible laughter. They are also well-versed in regional accounts of brutal racial and sexual inequality, and the personal empowerment that musical unity necessitates.

Tina Turner. James Brown. Little Richard. Britney. Elvis. Dolly. Beyoncé. Britney “bitch” Spears. In this series of posts on Autostraddle, Going Down (South) will explore these revolutionary voices in entertainment who are rooted in Southern gospel traditions, and how they continue to “perform” them in both their art and philanthropy.

Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah in A Joyful Noise

See ya’ll next Wednesday. Like me, you might not have King Jesus, but these folks just might make you just wish you did.

Going Down (South): Profiles In Southern Queerness

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing.

Header by Rosa Middleton

A recent article in Atlanta Magazine struggled to answer the age-old question of what it really means to be Southern:

An entire academic subculture is devoted to “Southern Identity,” but even its scholars haven’t reached consensus. World libraries contain more than 630,000 books categorized as “Southern”—forty-three times as many as those filed under “Midwestern.” Editors of the New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture just released their twentieth volume. Here’s a sampling of topics: Black Elite; Demagogues; Hillbillies, Crackers, Rednecks, and White Trash; Jazz; Lynching; NASCAR; Radicalism; Rap Music; Secession; and Stereotypes (subcategorized by gender). If that list doesn’t speak to the South’s complexity, consider: Just one entry separates “King, Martin Luther Jr.” from “Ku Klux Klan and Other White Racist Organizations.”

‘Southern’ is an ambiguous identity. It doesn’t really have a singular identifier, just a kitschy handful of vague qualities or interests one might possess. At times, regional boundaries aren’t even enough to make someone a Southerner: The US Census Bureau happily considers Texas and Oklahoma Southern states; the television show Supernatural swore that Missouri was one. When people start fussing about whether or not Florida is “Yankee state” at family dinners, I’m quietly relieved that Georgia is unanimously considered to be Southern. I don’t think I could handle being told that I am not something that I’m so certain that I am.

Because of this, I’ve had a lot of people ask me, “Am I Southern enough?” Maybe they grew up in a more cultured city south of the Mason-Dixon, or maybe they’re a transplant of two or so years, or maybe they don’t fit the rough and gritty/prim and proper stereotypes. My answer is always along the lines of , “Yes, honey. Yes. If that’s an identity you want to take, with the understanding of its historical burden and endless list of cliches, have at it.”

Being queer is a lot like being Southern. Both identities refuse to be contained by border or stereotype. There’s no one way to be queer, just like there’s no one way to be Southern. You can stray away from either place but still identify with it; call it home. They are nomadic identities, and both queer and Southern alike have a remarkable sixth-sense when it comes to picking one another out of crowds in the biggest of cities.

What does it mean to be both queer and Southern? What happens when two vague identities fuse together? Does your identity become as slippery as the backside of a gecko, or do you have a heightened understanding of who you are?

I asked a handful of LGBT-identified, Southern-identified this question and this is what they told me. Feel free to chime in with your own ideas in the comments; let’s have this conversation together, yeah?

 Clare, Tennessee

It means reading Southern Weddings and swooning, then hoping that the editors would give me the time of day if I wrote in asking to see a non-hetero couple, and learning to fall in love with where I came from (bigots and all) by watching someone else love it first, and finally understanding why we’re always talking about blessing hearts and counting blessings, and realizing that black-or-white alternatives are often self-imposed.

 Jessica, Louisiana

Being queer and Southern means leaving home and going to live two thousand miles away, in Ireland. It means the constant heartache of missing home and the relief of not having to dodge questions from my family. It means dodging questions from new friends (Did your family vote for Romney?) but, most of all, it means homesickness for good food, Mardi Gras and a family that loves me, but isn’t quite there yet.

 Jessi, Alabama

To me gay and southern means family. At my house, you will definitely not leave with an empty stomach or heavy heart. My mom will greet you with a hug and feed you dinner if you stay long enough. If you can share a laugh and a smile then the door is open no matter how you identify in life. Gay isn’t an issue. It’s all about love for family and friends.

 Zach, native Texan, current Chicagoan

When I lived in Texas, my identifying factor was that I was queer; here, in Chicago, it’s that I’m Texan. No matter where I’ve lived, I wear my own uniqueness like a badge of honor. But to be honest, being queer and being Southern have rarely intersected because they feel so separate and distinct. I think it’s all about the perspective you give your identities.

 Being a southern queer person of color means I am fulfilling legacies of survival; it means I am honored and blessed every day with the resilience of my peoples’ and my region’s history. It means that I am constantly learning how to be a better person in the face of opposition – my life is dedicated to love and compassion, for myself and for others. And it means I’m damn fierce.

 Jenna, South Carolina

As a queer Southern person of color, its really important to me to stay here and remake the South into a place where all people can survive and thrive. Living in a city that was built off of slavery means that when I do organizing work as a queer person, I must ask myself whose liberation I am fighting for–is it just mine? Or is it for all oppressed people in the South?

Alysia, Dallas

Growing up queer in Dallas, Texas meant to be a secret. It also meant to be in love over and over privately and painfully. It created a welling want inside of me. This welling at some point became a Tsunami that lifted me up and carried me out of the south to live in the Pacific Northwest. As much as I freely loved and learned there, things didn’t come full center for me as a southern queer, until I moved to North Carolina over a year ago. Living in this south I discovered what a hot house Femme flower I really am. I have finally unfurled my petals and allowed them to lilt around my queerness with heady ambrosia. Being a southern working class writer and a queer femme in this body and this life is to be a piece of the sun on earth. It is to be a gleaming glinting chunk of fancy. It is a honey coated southern drawl, a loud unabashed laugh, and the sound of my heels on hot pavement.

Shannon, Virginia

Being from Virginia, I never feel quite Southern enough. Identifying as bisexual, I feel like I’m not queer enough. It’s like wearing a succession of poorly-fitting, itchy winter coats; none of them is quite right, and I’m always self-conscious about it. But I went from lady-like femme to baby dyke lesbro overnight when I came out four years ago, and then back again, and I’m still trying to find that middle ground.  Most of the time I’m flummoxed.

Alyssa, Texas

What it means to me to be queer and “southern” (on the Mexico border) is to be weary. Some of our culture is very cold and traditional. On the other hand, it also means to have pride because our culture is dripping with diversity, strength, and revolution.

Jackie, Arkansas

For me, being queer in the South means totally and completely loving a deep-fried, gravy-smothered, God-fearing, foul-mouthed, sweat-stained, beautiful place that doesn’t always love me back.

Going Down (South): On Taking Your Sweet Time

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing.

Header by Rosa Middleton

I once knew a woman from Grand Rapids who’d spent a summer in rural Texas. She complained about two things: the humidity and the slow pace of life. “It threw me off,” she said of the latter. “I went back home, and I felt so swamped. It took me forever to get myself back up to speed.”

As it turned out, the cure for her lethargy was not to avoid the lazy, laughing South, but return. And she not only found herself in Georgia, but dating one of her denizens; this one.

It’s hardly a secret that people frequently condemn the things that they really love. The most intense desires are often rooted in repression and self-containment. As a gay Southerner, this is something that I know all too well. The Sunday school tale about  Peter’s repeated denial of Christ came to life when I later witnessed it it manifest as a fire and brimstone pastor with a sashay in his step and a racist politician whose attractions were anything but.

I have no doubts that my then-girlfriend found comfort in the languid people and lifestyle she once ragged on. If you have a singularly observant bone in your body, the South will shamelessly indulge it. The film reel containing rural life’s footage is all too hospitable. It’ll slow down for you, allowing you to pick up on the smallest, most mundane details within each frame.

It’s hard to miss a beat when they’re spaced so far apart.

via americancountryside.com

After the relationship ended, I caught myself mentally dividing country hours into city hours. If a day in the rural South equals four days in a busy metropolis, did this mean that our six-month courtship felt like two years to her? And if time is the standard by which all things are measured, did that mean that the relationship meant more to her?

I began to understand why so many of my high school peers have married their middle school sweethearts. It makes sense to pair off with someone who is attuned to the same sense of place and time as you are. Your relationship means no more or less to one another. My old classmates might be slow, but at least they are slow, together.

Just having at least one chance feels good,
feels like it’s all you’ll ever need.
That’s why Southern people marry young.
– “After The Bachelor Party” by Derrick Brown

***

While Southern identity is often associated with a vast array of deep-fried culinary masterpieces, muggy accents, and political stubbornness, the most Southern thing about me is that I am as slow as molasses during an ice storm. When a friend says “Give me a minute,” I have to ask her, “How long is a minute?” for the sake of my own sanity. For many of us, a minute could be anywhere between 60 seconds and a half-day.

I only know this because I am guilty of making people wait.

I am the most likely to request an extension from an editor at the very last minute. I’m pushing 24 and am still working on my undergraduate degree. Last September, I was days late to A-Camp (I was waiting on a check in order to buy my plane ticket; a check which my employer had promised to put in the mail “in a minute” a month beforehand). While a nuisance, my slowness can be a dangerous thing, as well. My grudges last longer; they are difficult splinters which fragment and slip further under the skin when someone tries to remove them prematurely.

While I like having a bona fide regional excuse for having a sense of time with the viscosity of preserves, my slowness is often confused with its immature cousin (procrastination) or its defeated uncle (laziness). To procrastinate is to deliberately put off work; to be lazy is to…not work. To be slow, however, is to work your rear end off while being a little bit ignorant about it.

In spite of this, I somehow manage to hold my own in cities. The sense of urgency is refreshing, as are the bright minds that seem to congregate in such places. But after awhile, the urgency begins to feel fabricated and magnified by rush hour traffic, pulsing neon lights, sheer vanity, and perplexing impracticality. In June, I remember being so surprised by Los Angeles’ never-ending sprawl. The extensive commutes necessary to get from Point A to Point B, from isolation to insulation, seemed so uncharacteristically rural, so much like the South that for a moment I felt like I was back in Georgia.

***

Last week there was a familial matter — a difficult to talk about and personal event — and the South did not love me back. This is hardly anything new, as I’ve encountered my share of odd stares and nervous laughter about being openly gay. But this particular time, being so very literally close to home, marked the first time that the line between words and action had been crossed, leaving me a bit banged up in the process. Afterward, I couldn’t be anything but as bitter as the stuff between two halves of a pecan. I once again found myself picking apart the apex of religion, politics, and patriarchy that often makes LGBT advocacy and existence in the South such a pain in the neck.

So we’d been stuck in Georgia so long we had exhausted our tiny supply of activities. By then it was starting to feel like my hometown, too. The novelty of the Waffle House waitresses calling out my hash brown orders had faded completely.
– Valencia by Michelle Tea

It’s infuriating to have people use the phrase “the gay agenda” against you when your politics aren’t actually about being gay, but loving and inclusive. It’s frustrating to have to explain that Leviticus isn’t really condemning homosexuality when justifying my queerness with theology feels irrelevant while living in a society which deigns to label itself “free.” I become impatient when I have to take a step back and acknowledge that many people still believe things that feel primitive to me. My empathy for rural ignorance is rapidly becoming as obsolete as the prototype for Eli Whitney’s cotton gin.

“I can’t believe it’s twenty-f*cking-thirteen and we’re still having these discussions,” my progressive Southern friends and I will say to one another after encountering someone who either refuses to have a civil conversation about homosexuality, or says or does something so mind-bogglingly hateful that we’re rendered speechless.

There are days and even weeks where I think, “To hell with the South.” I heavily consider calling in favors and accepting invitations from city friends who’ve made countless, “My couch is open whenever you’re ready”-type offers. My Southern pride wavers. I think back to last summer, when I crudely asked Dorothy Allison if she felt like today’s queer Southern writers had a responsibility to stay in the region.

She laughed and said, “I don’t know, but I do know I like being alive.”

“The language of the place goes wherever you go,” Jewelle Gomez added.

But I’m not scared of losing my heritage, or my ability to interpret Here Comes Honey Boo Boo without Closed Captioning. I’m scared of losing my pace, my gratitude for the smallest things that I know I’d overlook if I ever lived elsewhere. (Maybe I’m a little scared of leaving behind the beautiful women, too.)

Maybe I am as masochistic as the woman from Grand Rapids who had her fill of Texas humidity and then dated a Georgian, but setbacks like last week’s are reminders that if the South’s taught me one thing, it’s to be slow. I need to use this to my own advantage and acknowledge that I’ve gotten too big for my activist britches by expecting too much, too soon; that progress does not occur overnight, nor is it a race. We don’t have to be among the first 20, 30, or even 40 states to garner marriage equality or legal protections.

We just have to do it.

Going Down (South): The Sass Manifesto

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing.

Header by Rosa Middleton

If I had my say, the award for Best Comeback of 2012 would not be bestowed upon the new gender-neutral Easy Bake Oven or even the nightmarish Furby redux. And despite being in mad, masochistic lesbian love with every track on The Idler Wheel, the title wouldn’t even go to Fiona Apple.

Nope.

It would go to sass.

Sassy Magazine, June 1990

Aside from being the namesake of  one of Autostraddle’s favorite magazines, sass is in my blood, as is the case for many Southerners. From “bless your heart” to “kiss my grits,” we’ll argue that sass never went out of fashion down here. In our minds, everyone’s finally catching up to speed with us and not the other way around.

You might be asking: What the hell is sass, anyway? Who has it? How do I get it? Do I even want to get it? Should I be getting vaccinated against it instead?

Sass’ origin is much easier to pin down than its definition. Dating back to the early 1800s, the term is a fortunate bastardization of the Brit English word “saucy.” In the saucy-versus-sassy debate, I am a huge proponent of “sassy.” The notion of telling someone I’ve had just about enough of your sauce just sounds nasty.

Tara Thornton, True Blood

While sass is typically associated with the feminine and the flamboyant, this isn’t always the case. It has more to do with semantics than aesthetics. Sass transcends appearances, so much that the sassiest of comments have been known to fly out of the most reserved mouths. While “bitch please” eyes and Z-snaps are frequently associated with it, sass is purely linguistic. It’s about rolling provocative words off  of the red carpet of your tongue at the precisely right moment, aimed at the precisely right person. A matter-of-fact hand on a hip might drive a point home, but ultimately it’s all about the mouth (yes, I went there).

Without the whipsmart, occasionally self-deprecatory comebacks that are so unique to them, Dolly Parton would just be another country singer in a skintight dress; and NeNe Leakes, a yawnable reality teevee star. The term “smartmouth” is often interchanged with “sassy,” and for good reason: Sass requires a certain amount of interpersonal and linguistic intelligence. Quality sassy comebacks tend to be quick, nonchalant, and completely unanticipated.

Nene Leakes

Sass is a gumbo of varied literary devices, from double entendre to irony to assonance and maybe a hyperbole or two thrown in for good measure. A sassy remark might be one sentence long or three; the recipe varies from occasion to occasion. A new spin on an old saying may be used, or the dish could wind up containing an expletive or two (good sass should be able to stand on its own without relying upon a dash of profanity to enhance its flavor, however). Sass might sound repulsive in theory, but it always smells and tastes nothing short of amazing in person.

One of the reasons I think Southerners are so darned good at sass is because most of us have taken a prerequisite course in hospitality. If you’re gonna sass, kindness, or at least the illusion of it, is a must. Southern folks are well-aware that a sassy remark coming from an accommodating person with a very long fuse is more effective than one coming from a person who explodes in anger on a daily basis. This is why my own Mama was able to call me earlier this summer and sigh despairingly, “I was afraid you were gonna want to be a writer when you were three years old and rhymed ‘duck’ with ‘f*ck.'”

Sass is deliberately offensive, yes, but never abusive. However, the historical consequences for being sassy have been anything but, particularly if one happened to be a person of color and living in the South.

While the harshest punishment I’ve ever received for sassing was a half-hearted threat of having my mouth washed out with soap when I was five, it wasn’t that long ago that keepin’ it sassy could get you killed. The scene in which Sofia is thrown in jail for “sassing a white woman” in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is not an exaggeration. Tuskegee University records show that, between the years of  1882 and 1952, the charge of “sassing a white individual” resulted in numerous lynchings in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Kentucky.

As someone whose existence is an ongoing, often stumbling exploration of what it means to be biracial, my sass takes on an entirely new meaning because of my regional history; my sass becomes political. I mouth off with the acute awareness that words coming out of me, no matter how cleverly crafted, might’ve been silenced by death half a century ago. The same holds true for outspoken female-bodied and queer folks who would’ve been accused of talking back, impudence, or even insanity in a previous era.

Ouiser Boudreaux, Steel Magnolias

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the sass masters in my life have been racial, gender, and sexual minorities. Sass is a nod to those ran off at the mouth before you did, often to grave consequence. Sass is the language of the oppressed and the downtrodden; those who have had it up to the gills and aren’t going to take it anymore. Sass is a way of spitting fire when all you really want to do is fade to embers. It’s both fine art and survival skill, wrapped up in a four-letter word which isn’t one.

If you happen to be a minority, sass isn’t just sass.

It’s sasstivism.

Going Down (South): Strapping It On

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing.

Header by Rosa Middleton

The first time someone told me to make use of my bootstraps, I was eight. Another player in my coed soccer league had deliberately punted his ball in my direction before the start of practice, aiming squarely at my stomach. He succeeded. My 80-pound frame was no match for his muscled 12 year-old abilities. I promptly found myself lying face-up on the pitch, the wind knocked out of me, and in way more pain than I was willing to admit.

The coach jogged over to me, slowing down to a walk once he realized that I was only bruised. He didn’t ask me how I felt, or if I wanted to sit the practice out.

“C’mon, Sarah.” He sighed. “You’ve just gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” It was one of those situations where I understood what he was saying without really understanding what he was saying. I just knew that it was expected that I get up and pretend that nothing had happened. According to my coach, the solution to defeat was one simple word; two syllables that, when combined, sounded like spitting followed by guttural throat clearing:

Bootstraps.

noun

1. loops of leather or cloth sewn at the top rear or sides of a boot to facilitate pulling it on.

2. a means of advancing oneself or accomplishing something by relying entirely on one’s own efforts and resources; meritocracy.

While the term bootstrapping actually originated from 18th century British lit, it’s since become a very American ideal, one which is often referenced alongside the ever-elusive American Dream. It’s intensely embraced in rural working class communities like the one I grew up in. While the South’s complex relationships with race, gender roles, religion, and sexual morality must not go unacknowledged, so much of our regional identity is entrenched in the belief that independence and hard work will get you absolutely anywhere you want to go. The ideology is a spool of flaxen thread, and it’s common belief that anyone who disagrees with it is probably holding a pair of scissors behind their back, waiting to steal a piece.

During adolescence, the roster of people who told me to yank myself up by my bootstraps grew to include pastors, neighbors, family friends, and even several teachers. It didn’t matter what sort of event resulted in me being down on my luck, or if any injustices or trauma had occurred in the process. The phrase was always uttered with the tenderest sincerity. In their minds, they were taking it upon themselves to teach me two very important lessons: One, that any of my ailments — be they financial, physical, or emotional — could be remedied with my own gumption and elbow grease. Two, the opposite of hard work wasn’t laziness; it was freeloading.  I have no doubt that these people had my best interests at heart. It’s so difficult to wriggle away from my past. I struggle to cut myself out of the photos where my arms are interlinked with those who still believe in the things that I once did. When I look back, I experience more empathy for conservative Southerners than any queer bleeding heart liberal ever should.

via nibsblog.wordpress.com

Like so many other Southerners, the notion that I could somehow snatch myself out of poverty with my own two hands appealed to my teenaged self. Me, need help? Ha! I didn’t need help. The only ones who needed handouts were those who didn’t work hard enough; who lacked ambition. These sentiments were only cultivated by my educators, resulting in political confusion. I distinctly remember the day that my 8th grade history teacher explained the difference between the democratic and republican parties by simply saying, “Republicans like to do things for themselves and democrats believe in getting help from others.”

Today, I fundamentally understand that meritocracy is bullshit, and I did a victory dance in July when the President said the very same thing, sans expletives. We’ve all benefited from public services of some sort, from the roads we use during our daily commutes to the fire fighters who’ve put out our deep-fried turkey fires on Thanksgiving. I have a decent understanding of socioeconomic privilege, and I get that one can’t pull herself up by bootstraps if she don’t have any damned boots to begin with. The social services that I was taught to scorn kept me fed during rough patches through childhood and, more recently, young adulthood. I’m uncertain of how I would’ve managed to attend college were it not for federal aid.

Tennessee, 1943

Even though I now believe that bootstraps are about as real as Thumbelina, I still struggle to ask for help and accept help because it once implied weakness. How do I, as a progressive Southerner, even begin to deconstruct this myth while acknowledging that my own unhealthy work ethic is a product of that very same environment? After all, I learned about bootstraps before I learned about strap-ons. Much to my chagrin, my Southern upbringing impacted my politics before my queerness did.

Bootstrapping was a huge part of who I once was, and is still a pretty big chunk of who I am today. For the most part, I love this about myself. I enjoy breaking a sweat while working outdoors, I still foolishly believe that all hard work pays off, I love competition, and I think most of my charm lies in my perpetual underdog status. At the same time, my residual bootstrap mentality has resulted in me being chronically unable to ask for help, be it from peers or professors.

When Contributing Editor Malaika interviewed me for her article on Canadian perspectives of the US election, her outrage over the United States’ lack of universal healthcare was not entirely mutual. Instead, as someone without insurance, I found myself becoming irrationally unnerved about the idea of actually becoming sick and needing medical care. I’d trained myself for so long to not think about these things that, when I do, I feel as if I’m falling head-first into a vat of self-pitying vulnerability. It’s so easy for me to shove those thoughts under the rug, but navigating my own odd brand of internalized guilt is much more important.

I’m not alone in my self-flagellation. At a recent GSA meeting at my rural university, I asked the question, “Which one is a worse insult to you, being called ‘lazy’ or being called a homophobic or transphobic slur?” A majority agreed that “lazy” stung the most. As evidenced during the recent election season, words like “lazy” and “freeloader” take on a harsher connotation when the bootstrap mentality meets lingering racist sentiments:

The Republican Party of Mecklenberg, Virginia posted this to their Facebook Page during the election. Official state party representatives ordered them to take it down.

This all being said, the most ironic thing about all this talk about problematic self-reliance is the origin of the phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Despite the lie we’ve all been told, it never meant “to become successful on your own.”

It actually meant “to attempt an impossible feat” — an apt description of attempting to thrive without any sort of public services.

The next time someone tells me to make use of my bootstraps, I think I’m going to buy them a pair of boots.

Then, I’m going to say, “After you.”

Going Down (South): Midnight in the Garden of Marriage Equality and Hate Crimes Laws

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing.

Header by Rosa Middleton

via dearest-city.tumblr.com

With the recent Atlanta City Council and mayoral endorsement of marriage equality, my (very much red) homestate of Georgia stands a chance of becoming one of the first Southern states to legalize gay unions. But while the 1,138 rights, perks, and securities that come with marriage are of utmost priority to many LGBT couples throughout Georgia and America alike, we queers who are single, waiting on our pumpkin carriages/U-Hauls, or just plain disinterested in the institution may feel left a bit out in the cold. Georgia doesn’t even have a hate crimes law to speak of, let alone one that recognizes crimes based on gender identity and sexual orientation. While pleasantly surprising, this highly-publicized endorsement feels like the Peach State is putting its gay marriage cart before its hate crimes horse.

This wasn’t always the case, though. In 2000, Georgia did indeed instate a hate crimes law. The problem, however, was in the wording. Defining a hate crime as an incident in which a victim is chosen based on ‘any bias or prejudice’, the law somehow succeeded in protecting …everyone, from actual survivors of hate crimes to Florida Gators fans. In 2004, the state’s Supreme Court threw out the law, thus proving that Georgia’s tragic 17% illiteracy rate apparently includes some of our own progressive policy authors.

Keisha Waites

Fast-forward seven years. In February 2011, Keisha Waites — a lesbian underdog who’d previously run for public office not one or three or five but eight times to no avail — was finally elected to Georgia House of Representatives in a special election. Waites became the state’s fourth openly LGBT legislator (fun fact: three of those four are people of color). She was later re-elected for a full term in a landslide election this past summer.

Representative Waites isn’t just worthy of her own Lifetime biopic because she’s Black, gay and successful in a region where Black and gay have been historic indicators of second class citizenship; she’s also worthy of her own Lifetime biopic because she’s presently at the forefront of the movement to bring a hate crimes law back to Georgia — a well-written one, at that.

And man, is she on top of her shit.

Georgia House of Representatives

Months before the start of January’s legislative season, Waites filed three bills with Georgia’s House of Representatives. The week after Thanksgiving, she submitted HB 12, an anti-hate crime measure that would double the penalty for misdemeanor hate crime offenses based on race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or national origin. HB 12 is everything that Georgia’s previous hate crimes law wishes it could’ve been. If signed into law, HB 12 would mirror the super-progressive hate crimes laws of California, Oregon, and Massachusetts. Not too shabby for a red state! As if filing this bill once wasn’t a bold enough statement, Waites re-filed it again as HB 24 on December 11. She also pre-filed HB 15, which would require public schools to report bullying and develop strategies to prevent bullying. If put into law, HB 15 would be huge step for a state that vaguely requires its teachers to implement anti-bullying strategies of their choosing.

Even with the implementation of the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2010, state hate crimes laws matter immensely. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act only applies to felonies, not state crimes. What’s more, the hate crime stat tracking like Waites is trying to implement in Georgia is not a feature of the federal hate crimes law, but it’s one that could be of benefit to public school administrators, parents, and even authorities. The fact that the Georgia’s little lesbian that could is working to get this all turned into state law makes me feel safer than any gay marriage endorsement ever could.

Going Down (South): Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Child, Southern Progressive Icon

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing.

Header by Rosa Middleton

As with most things, I learned that Here Comes Honey Boo Boo would be filming in my college town by word of mouth. It was early March then and Statesboro, Georgia was in the awkward throes of springtime. Every Bradford pear on campus reeked of stagnant bodily fluids, triggering my allergies.

I was trying to figure out whether I should hold my breath or blow my nose when several students walked past me on the pedestrium.

“That Honey Boo Boo thing is going to be filming here. Ugh.”

That following weekend, Alana Thompson showed up at Rum Runners, one of several redneck dive bars conveniently circling the perimeter of Georgia Southern University:

And later that spring, Alana and company returned to make use of Statesboro’s humble waterpark:

While I’d never watched TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo before, I’d seen the show’s protagonist, seven year-old Alana Thompson, .gif’ed all to hell on Tumblr. I’d also heard several reality television-loving friends reference the program in passing. I got the gist of it: Alana was on some child beauty pageant show. The network found her so nifty that she, her three sisters, her mama and her mama’s boothang ended up with their very own program.

Oh, and Alana is also Certified Grade-A Podunk Redneck “Roadkill Is Palatable If Harvested Within Three Hours” Georgia Trash.

This — not the fact that Alana’s guardians may or may not be participating in some loony form of modern day child exploitation — is a subject of much contention in the American South. When news of Alana’s visit to Statesboro made it to a local newspaper, an op-ed columnist seethed:

I am all for being country and being yourself. I know families with the same level of education, same lifestyle, and same lack of desire to change. That’s one thing – but to blatantly celebrate everything negative about your life on television is beyond my understanding. I know it is a “reality” show, but really? The nation already makes fun of Georgia and the South, but shows like this perpetuate the stereotype. Why in the world would someone produce a show about a family who embraces ignorance and wears it as a badge?

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is fucking with a lot of Southerners’ immaculate images of themselves, for liberals and conservatives alike. We love to be known as the belles and beaus who dress in Lilly Pulitzer and Vineyard Vines for Saturday football games. When someone says “Deep South,” we want you to think of comfort food, yes ma’ams, no ma’ams, lilting voices, sticky sweet weather and Rhett Butler straddling Scarlett O’Hara a stallion.

We do not want you to think of a sassy, mud-caked family from McIntyre, Georgia.

There’s an old Confederate saying that goes, “If they’ve made it into a someecard, well, I’ll be goddamned, it must be true.”

But while so many Southerners break their necks in the attempt to distance themselves from the “hick” aesthetic that the Shannon-Thompson family exemplifies, I’m inclined to embrace it for a number of reasons.

First off, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is dismantling the romantic image of the South which prevents Southern progressives like myself from addressing present day racism, sexism and homophobia within the region. While antebellum plantation homes and cotton fields look lovely on a television screen, these images mask the region’s past and ongoing struggles with racism and poverty. As a gay woman, the prevalent patriarchal narratives (demure belle meets man, demure belle loses man, demure belle damned near kills herself trying to get said man back) surrounding love and marriage in films set in the region erases the experiences of queer Southerners (and Lord know there are a lot of us).

Secondly, my own background is irrevocably Certified Grade-A Podunk Redneck “Roadkill Is Palatable If Harvested Within Three Hours” Georgia Trash. My first animal was a stuffed dog named Hoofy who came out from “The Green Store” (AKA a public dumpster) circa 1989; I still have him. I hail from a long line of Southerners with bad teeth due to malnutrition. My upbringing was more Jack Daniels than mint juleps, more prison tattoos than monograms, more trailer parks than plantation homes. I spent most of my adolescence trying to hide two things: The fact that I liked women and that my family was uneducated and impoverished. Somewhere along the way, I realized that owning up to being gay shattered a lot of peoples’ preconceived notions about queer folks – we can be moral, tenderhearted and even a little bit cute. In its own way, the same proved true for owning up to being rural trash – we can be moral, tenderhearted, and even a little bit…whipsmart.

Which brings me back to the this fall when I finally sat down to actually watch Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, and my head and heart simultaneously exploded. In one episode, Alana hangs out with her “Uncle Poodle.” In the narration which follows, she turns to the cameraman and utters the following:

Out of the mouths of babes. I never would’ve imagined that we Southern progressives would find a mouthpiece in a tiny girl from Bumblefuck, but it totally happened, repeatedly – from June Thompson’s endorsement of Obama to the fact that Here Comes Honey Boo Boo beat out the Republican National Convention in the ratings race.

The only thing that I love more than the least likely of people saying, “gay is okay!” on national television is when that endorsement comes from someone with a drawl who fancies grammatically incorrect English. At the end of the day, this is all I really want.

Going Down (South): Home Is Where The (Queer) Heart Is

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing.

Header by Rosa Middleton

For the last three years, Oregonian staffer Casey Parks and cinematographer Aubree Bernier-Clarke have been traveling to rural Louisiana in search of answers about an old Parks’ family friend, Roy Hudgins. In doing so, they’ve dismantled a lot of preconceived notions and stereotypes about Southerners, queers, and acceptance.

No one really knows how Hudgins wound up in Delhi (population: 2,951), but there are plenty of tall tales and wild guesses, as is to be expected in a small town. Hudgins was kidnapped as a child. Hudgins was left in a shoebox on the front steps of a church. Hudgins was a traveling country music songwriter.

Roy Hudgins

The unknown did not stop there. Mere days before she died, Hudgins’ mother told Parks’ great-grandmother that Roy was “as much a woman” as she was. “Allegedly, that was the first that anyone knew that Roy was not born male-bodied. In the years that followed, word got around town that Roy was different. A story we hear frequently was that Roy was a morphodite–that’s Louisianan for hermaphrodite,” Bernier-Clarke told me. The rumor spread gradually in the years following Mrs. Hudgins’ death, yet did not deter Delhians from letting Hudgins mow their lawns and even look after their children. Despite being of ambiguous gender and sexuality, Hudgins managed to live a seemingly content life in one of America’s most conservative states. “Roy was universally accepted,” Bernier-Clarke said. Hudgins passed away in 2006.

When I first watched the Kickstarter campaign video for Parks’ and Bernier-Clarke’s for Diary of a Misfit: The Roy Hudgins Story, I found myself growing nostalgic for trailer parks and overgrown grass in the exact same way I did when the rooster crowed at the beginning of Southern Comfort.

***

Home is where the heart is. Growing up, it wasn’t just a saying but a literalism. It was painted on a wood placard and nailed onto the front porch of my parents’ house. It’s still there, even though my definition of “home” has evolved into something much more abstract than lakeside home in Georgia. For me, home is the vague place where queer and Dixie overlap, often uncomfortably. This is why I’m constantly chasing after other Southern-reared queers; the kind who also had “Home Is Where The Heart Is” wood- or needlework somewhere in their childhood homes; who understand what Allison meant when she wrote, We claim our heritage with a full appreciation of how often it has been disdained; whose bodies are familiar with manual labor; the kind with at least one family recipe that is not a secret but a national treasure which is shown off whenever the opportunity to entertain presents itself.

Roy and Other Delhians

I know that we exist by the barrelful. If I ever meet you and catch the slightest hint of an accent or SEC t-shirt, I’m likely to flip out in the best of ways and bombard you with a thousand personal questions. Because that’s what happens when someone feels like home to me: I say so much–too much–so quickly and with so much unconscious honesty that upon realizing what I’m doing, I immediately want to snatch my words out of your ear canal and gulp them all back down until they’re safe and sound inside of my ribcage. But if I notice that you’re also flailing between similar Southern states of oversharing and self-consciousness, I’ll shrug and continue right along, inquiring and drawing parallels like my life depends on it.

Because it does.

***

With roots in Louisiana and Kentucky, Parks and Bernier-Clarke also feel like home to me. Queer Southerners tend to be acutely aware of the nuances of coming out and staying out. Often, being living openly results in an odd mix of unspoken loyalty, turned blind eyes, and even unanticipated community from others. As evidenced by Roy Hudgins and even yours truly, rarely is coming out in a rural place as cut and dry as being completely embraced or completely rejected. “I think there is a sense of loyalty in most small towns. Kind of like family. It’s okay for me to pick on my younger sibling, but if an outsider tries it, I’d fuck them up,” said Brenier-Clarke.

But while Hudgins was accepted by Delhians, it seems to have only gone so far. The filmmakers are still searching for those who might know about Hudgins’ romantic desires or relationships. “From what I’ve gathered, Roy does seem a bit asexualized by the population. I have a feeling that people in Delhi are curious about Roy’s romantic life, but at the same time might’ve not taken too kindly to it were it something made public while Roy was still alive.” Whether or not Hudgins felt isolated or fulfilled remains unknown, but some of his old possessions may provide clues. “We know that Roy kept journals. In fact, Roy’s neighbor told us that Roy had written Diary of a Misfit across the journal’s front cover. If we could get a hold of those, I think they could answer a lot of questions.”

Casey and Her Grandma

Roy Hudgins matters because the questions surrounding his life have connected two unlikely generations of Southerners in the pursuit of the same goal. “It is interesting how natural Casey’s grandma is on camera. Her family is very close, so I think that helps, but also I think she doesn’t really feel like she has anything to lose at this point. Also, she really believes in us and the project. She wants us to solve the mystery, so she’s willing to do whatever she can to help.”

The Ones We Left Behind: On Being An Ally To Small Town Queers

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing.

Header by Rosa Middleton

During one of my embarrassingly frequent “southern lesbian” google search binges, I ran across an essay by Audri, a gay teen hailing from Mississippi:

I want to stay in Mississippi for college. There’s gay flight in Mississippi because everyone thinks it’s so horrible so they leave. And nothing ever changes when all the gay people leave. And conservative people will never be used to a butch lesbian holding another girl’s hand, or two guys holding hands if they don’t see it.

That was in August. For two months, Audri’s words haunted me. Several weeks ago, they were pushed to the forefront when I returned to my hometown in Georgia.

You see, I was one of those flighty gays who left.

via intrepidation on flickr

For me, leaving was remarkably easy. Because I am educationally privileged, university was my ticket out of Dodge. Scholarships and grants not only funded my tuition, but my exodus. Additionally, getting out was simple because I’d never been truly attached to that tiny town I once mistakenly called “home.” I had few relatives and even fewer friends living there; neither of my parents were even natives of the state. I never had to painstakingly uproot myself. My heart and soul were never planted there to begin with.

Of course you want to visit the place that shaped the girl you’re in love with, watch all her stories spring up around you, and you get to walk right through them. You just don’t realize how you have to undo yourself to walk down the streets.

– Michelle Tea, Valencia

I returned to northern Georgia, if only briefly. And maybe it was what Audri said, or maybe it was the fact that my mama is the only person capable of coaxing my twangy accent out of hiding, or how the word “gay” is only used as a slur in my hometown. Or maybe it was some combination of the three. But I realized something important: Telling queer people to leave their conservative hometowns for the sake of being treated with common decency is not good enough. Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you’re on a constant search for the place that’ll make your heart perform backflips. Maybe your hometown isn’t your real home. That’s great.

…But maybe it is. And that’s great, too.

Rural communities are all about staying power; their residents tend to greet familiar faces with warm smiles and tight embraces, while throwing caution and raised brows to newcomers. It’s not unusual for a family to reside in a house for generations, or reference the long-gone as if they were just sitting at the kitchen table the day beforehand. The connection to the land itself is often as intense as those between residents. Sometimes, you spend so many years breathing the atmosphere of a place that you find yourself exhausted and winded when you spend time outside of that comfortable bubble known as “home.” If you were to ever leave, you would break so many hearts, including your own.  This is the essential conflict of being queer in a small, conservative town: Should you chose to live openly and unapologetically, you might be rejected by the very people and things you’ve spent 14, 2o, or even 47 years loving. You might even come to resent the place for the same reason you love it: It never changes.

For a while, the internet was my home. I began coming out when I was on the cusp of starting high school, at the age of 14. For the next four years, the web was both teacher and therapist; it dulled the silence of isolation and fear and reassured me that I was not alone. It also told me that there were lesbians out there who looked more like me and less like the local EMT lady who’d never been married. We were diverse and plentiful. I existed; we existed.

Yet every gay resource I encountered — from The L Word  to blogs to those seedy old MSN chat rooms with more straight men than lesbians — indicated that I should get the hell out of my intolerant hometown, population: 8,000 homophobes. The message was subliminal but clear: Leave. Move to a bigger city. There’s a big, lesbian world awaiting you on the other side with open, intricately tattoo’d arms. 

If you’re reading this and are currently in love with a tiny place that hasn’t loved you back yet, I want you to know that this is okay. You are not small-minded, unworldly, or masochistic for dismissing the silly myth surrounding the mutual exclusivity of gay life and city life. I want you to also know that, contrary to everything I’ve said so far, it is possible to inspire change and build community in your own neck of the woods. You’re already doing it by holding your ground. The world needs people like you; the world needs Audris. I want you to know that this flighty gay is here for you. I’m not speaking as a saint here, but a Southerner; someone who knows her way around a three-redlight town. I may no longer breathe the same rural air that you do, but my lungs remember it. LGBT solidarity is not locational. It transcends those borders. And if anyone ever tells you to move to a bigger place because it’s easier, bless their hearts and tell ’em they’re doing allyism wrong.

Many queer community conceptions of place equate rural towns with dearth and death. In my own experience, there is some deeply difficult truth to this. However, the flipside of that equation is that cities are believed to home the only resourceful and relevant populations of queer communities, and rural queers are expected to make exodus to the great glittering cities to seek validity and assimilate, regardless of where their grandparents are buried, or what particular shade of light or stink of marsh mud their heart leaps to.

– TT Jax

Realistically Speaking

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
– Mahatma Gandhi

A common saying heard during my childhood was, “A true lady never talks religion or politics.” Yet much of progressive activism hinges upon doing just that. Whether your goal is coming out to a new person or starting a queer-straight alliance at your high school, you’re gonna have to eventually speak up. And in doing so, you might feel a little bit insane, particularly if you’re the first of your kind. You may even question your own cause. While I was told to never talk about religion or politics, I later realized that this only applied to belief systems which deviated from those of the majority. Your opposition’s reaction will be two-fold: First, they will ignore you in the hope that you will go away. Someone may tell you that, “We don’t have a gay problem here.” Once your critics realize that you aren’t going anywhere, they will react in terror. You may be painted as a radical. Your sexuality may be equated with promiscuity and immorality, which may make your school’s administration even more reluctant to approve such an endeavor.

I say these things first not to be a total Debbie Downer, but because this may be the biggest uphill battle of your life. Knowing how your homophobic and transphobic opposition will attempt to wear you down is equally as critical as knowing what you’re fighting for.

Do Yr Research

via John Althouse Cohen

Before you seek out an adviser or speak to your principal, have a game plan. Know what you stand for. Be able to talk about why you’re so darned deadset on doing this seemingly impossible thing, and be able to thumb off your rights if necessary.

While The Education of Shelby Knox reminds us that Queer-Straight Alliances in high schools can be ruled unconstitutional if they violate a district’s abstinence-only (read: sex[less] education) policy, the federal government also protects QSAs from discrimination:

QSAs are often formed as non-curricular clubs, which are student clubs that are not directly related to a school’s curriculum. In contrast, curricular clubs relate directly to subjects taught in school. The federal Equal Access Act applies to non-curricular clubs. Under the Equal Access Act, if a public high school allows any non-curricular student group access to school resources, then it must provide all other non-curricular student groups–including QSAs–equal access to the school’s resources. If the school treats some non-curricular clubs differently than others, then it risks losing its federal funding.

What this basically means is: If your school has a chess club or a chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, it’s legally obligated to recognize your organization, too.

Educating others is just as important as keeping yourself clued in. In small towns, word of mouth travels faster than 4G internet. As someone taking a stand, this is something that can work in your favor. Some of your peers might begin taking those first curious and tentative steps toward allyship or coming out, and it’s good to have resource packets on hand for them, as well. GSA Network has a lot of really solid resources available for printout. LGBT Teaching Aids’ comprehensive queer vocabulary list includes All Of The Terms, from pronouns to acronyms. It’s a great primer when working to create safe spaces. When building an info packet, I recommend compiling a nice mix of concrete resources and fun stuff, like personal essays by LGBT folks or even a Get Baked post because no one — not even your haters — can turn down comfort food like peanut butter cookies and homemade blueberry ice cream.

Safety Nets

When fostering community in reluctant spaces, it’s important to remember to take care of yourself first and foremost. Good leaders understand the merits of self-care. Are you fortunate enough to from an accepting household? If not, do you have a place to go if the shit were to hit the fan? Being actively out of the closet while also having a secure roof over your head is definitely a privilege. Before you do community, you’ve got to do you.

If you have all of those things in place, make sure that the members of your organization have those same safety nets in place. If a member requests anonymity and discretion, respect this. Trust their decisions, and they’ll trust you in turn.

If you or the people you know are still experiencing discrimination in any form, there are places to turn, from your nearest ACLU affiliate to GSAN’s legal resources, and HRC’s hate crime department.

This is not about bombarding you with a slew of phone numbers and links. It’s about keeping you and yours safe. It’s important to acknowledge that fucked-up things can and do happen to rural queers, and they’re more inclined to go unreported simply because smalltown community leaders reek of bigotry; you say nothing because you’re “used to it.”

Make It Personal

If you have the ability to be out at home, you’ve got to make that shit so personal that it burns. Where there’s disinterest in headlines and percentages, there’s bound to be an obsession with the anecdotal; stories about one’s day, often paired with colorful language, are staples of working class conversation. The mundane both comforts and inspires thought. Just like you’ve never really seen gay people outside of the local EMT lady who’s never been married, neither have the people surrounding you. You can yell statistics on LGBT teen suicide until the cows come home, but these will never evoke the same amounts of empathy that living openly does. Numbers, even when attached to critical statistics, are cold and sterile. Your behavior and the way you love will always speak louder than words.

More Generational Than Gender: When Roots Dictate Style

feature image via demurefolk

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing.

Header by Rosa Middleton

In every lesbian circle, there’s that one annoying Fencepost Lesbian. You’ll know her by the way she sticks up her nose when someone asks her “type” or “gender identity.” Her responses to those inquiries are as sassy and ambiguous as she is. “Not anyone who asks me that question,” “your beautiful mother” and “Butch, please.”

I am that annoying Fencepost Lesbian.

A Fencepost Lesbian in her natural habitat

It’s not so much about me being mysterious and elusive as it is about labels refusing to stick. When discussing my manner of dress, the “masculine-of-center” label is reluctant to adhere. Fashion is a monetary privilege and an understanding of gender is an educational one. My ambiguity comes from growing up poor and not having access to either of those things until college.

By that point, I already knew that nothing felt better than an oxford button-down tucked into a belted pair of dark denim jeans. When people casually ask those questions, it reaffirms that they have no idea where I’m coming from. More often than not, a snarky answer is easier — and less painful — than a long spiel.

I wear a lot of things that I was raised on: Hardened brown leather, canvas, cotton button-downs, tough denim jeans, khaki pants, bandanas. But despite the masculine connotations behind those materials, my clothing does not have a gender. There are too many threads about family interwoven with those of the fabric.

What my clothing has is a generation.

***

My mom raised me as a single parent while working a custodial job. For us, Southern poverty wasn’t an evening news statistic; it was a reality. While she owned sundresses, they were tucked into the back of a closet. She wore jeans and flannel button-downs. Sleeves could be rolled up; pantlegs could be cuffed. They allowed her to move while scrubbing office floors on all fours. The clothing she began to accumulate was durable and purely utilitarian.

Fonsexxxa circa 1994

Unsurprisingly, my clothing choices began to mirror hers. My favorite outfits consisted of recreation complex t-shirts and grass-stained denim. After all, there were trees that begging to be climbed and Junebugs that needed to be tied to strings. I was Huckleberry Finn, but with a ponytail and a marginally better grasp on grammar.

I didn’t know it at the time, but these little moments would eventually shape me into an androgynous young woman.

“You look like Huck Finn.” – A girl, post-fling, August 2012

While the dominant image surrounding chivalry is that of a knight in chain mail, the noble figures peppered throughout my adolescence were these impoverished Southern women who did what they damned well pleased. The ones who made meals for the widowers; who tilled their own gardens and mowed their own lawns; who never expected anything in return for their efforts.

They were unpolished, unorthodox, and railed against traditional notions of femininity.

The crux of being an androgynous woman is that I am also very naïve. While I am aware that sexism exists, I still travel solo and walk home alone at night without so much as an afterthought. I move through society so fluidly that I forget that there is anything which I cannot do. So when someone tells me that an article of clothing, a hobby, or even safety is off-limits because I am a woman, it is a painful epiphany; one which I will keep on experiencing repeatedly throughout life because gender roles are still such a foreign concept to me.

As a kid, I came to hate dresses because of this.

I was crowbar’d into a dress each Sunday morning for church. My distaste had little to do with the white lace. I began associating dresses with sitting in a hard pew for three hours and listening to a droning sermon. They evoked the loneliness of watching the boys, in their khakis and Ralph Lauren sweaters, playing on the church’s swingset while I stood off to the side in my wedding cake of a Sunday dress. Swinging wasn’t “ladylike” or “appropriate.”

I didn’t give a damn about gender or tradition. I just wanted to move freely.

And I still do.

“It’s the way you wear your pants.” – A friend, on why she thought I was gay, spring 2008

While financial situations change and my knowledge of gender is now so extensive that it could be printed and circle the globe five times, I still wear the worn-in jeans and plaid blouses. They are as comfortable as family; as the 71 year-old mother who called me earlier this week, excited over her recent dollar store find: A neckerchief with a built-in ice pack that — when frozen — could be worn while doing yard work.

Can “clever old Southern woman” be a gender identity?

If so, count me in.

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Special Note: Autostraddle’s “First Person” personal essays do not necessarily reflect the ideals of Autostraddle or its editors, nor do any First Person writers intend to speak on behalf of anyone other than themselves. First Person writers are simply speaking honestly from their own hearts.

How The South Made Me A Queer Feminist

Going Down (South) is a regular column about y’all being a gender neutral pronoun, how red states are actually more of a purplish color, boiled peanuts, and the trials and tribulations of being a rural homo — with an emphasis on the tribbing.

Header by Rosa Middleton

With North Carolina’s constitutional ban on gay marriage and the KKK fighting to adopt a Georgia highway, it seems like the South hasn’t made much progress in the history of ever.

But the Confederacy doth protest too much. Underneath the traditional values and worn-out denim is a pair of hot pink Long Johns. When a region is so distant from progressiveness, it’s bound to be a little eccentric, a little otherly, and have more indignant queer subtext than an episode of Rizzoli and Isles.

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The Food

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“I remember women by what we ate together, what they dug out of the freezer after we’d made love for hours. I’ve only had one lover who didn’t want to eat at all. We didn’t last long. The sex was good but I couldn’t think what to do with her when the sex was finished. We drink spring water, and fight a lot.”
– Dorothy Allison, “A Lesbian Appetite”

via Brian

Like many things, rural Southern cuisine hasn’t changed much since Sherman’s March to the Sea. Yet unlike outdated gender roles, this actually works in the South’s favor.* Soul food’s “one part Crisco, two parts social” ethos is so far removed from the mainstream beauty ideal; nutrition and community are valued much more than slim waistlines. You’re more likely to be hollered at for skipping a meal than reaching for a fifth helping of peach cobbler. Unknowingly, I grew up in a fat-positive environment where the bias was often against the slender image that — I later learned — seemed to be glorified elsewhere.

*Yes, I know that the American South is obese. Yes, I know that there is a correlation between obesity and poverty. No, I’m not glorifying an unhealthy way of living. I’m only pointing out a positive side effect. Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion, etc.

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The Books

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“Oh, she say. God loves all them feelings. That’s some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves ’em you enjoys ’em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that’s going, and praise God by liking what you like.
God don’t think it dirty? I ast. Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love.”
– Alice Walker, The Color Purple

Dorothy Allison via Writers Being Real

Alice Walker was writing about lesbian sex before Ellen was having it. In fact, homoeroticism is a big thing in many celebrated works of Southern literature. Queer men abound in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and the same goes for William Faulkner’s protagonist in Light in August, Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away and Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms.

While Rita Mae Brown’s more recent work revolves around cat detectives (um…), Molly Bolt loves up every pretty lady she encounters in Rubyfruit Jungle. Many of Dorothy Allison’s short stories follow that same pattern.

And it’s not just the gays, many authors that weren’t queer were masters at writing resilient Southern women. Jay Gatsby couldn’t hold a candle to Harper Lee’s Scout Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird) or Zora Neale Hurston’s Janie Crawford (Their Eyes Were Watching God).

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The Outdoors

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I felt the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in my life I thought of running away.” – Scout Finch,To Kill a Mockingbird

via Grey Hand Gang

In the rural South, the word “tomboy” is basically a euphemism for “she’s genderqueer, and she may or may not grow out of it. Hell if we know.” No one really raises a brow or bats an eyelash if a woman wants go hunting, fishing, mudding, noodling, camping, cowtipping, corn shucking, or any other outdoor activity — except skydiving and bungee jumpin’ because that sh*t just ain’t conservative. Getting one’s hands dirty and wearing pants are not things that challenge femininity or a Southern identity. On the contrary: It’s seen as being in touch with the land and the assumed heritage that comes with it.

I maintain that this is the reason why the ratio of pumps to deck shoes I own is 1:10.

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The Music

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“There is a connection to the land that just transcends your sexuality, your gender, and your race, and everything. And there’s a connection to the music that came from out of Appalachia and it infiltrates and affects everything that you’re doing. – Amy Ray, The Indigo Girls

via Whistlin’ Dixie

The Indigo Girls — that folk duo that The L Word versed us in not once but twice — actually got its start opening for punk bands in Athens, Georgia in the 80s. It’s an odd match and while I can’t exactly envision mohawked people throwing up rock hands and moshing to “Closer to Fine,” the Indigo Girls’ message is often a very political, very punk one. The duo’s songs rely on rural imagery in the style of country music, yet fearlessly call out social injustice. The song “Shame on You” slaps racist wrists:

They say, ‘We be lookin’ for illegal immigrants
Can we check your car?’
I say, ‘You know it’s funny
I think we were on the same boat
Back in 1694’

The Indigo Girls’ relationship with punk rock came full-circle when the queercore band The Butchies began opening for them. Founded by two former members of Team Dresch at the tail end of the riot grrrl movement, The Butchies weren’t based in Olympia or even Portland, but Durham, North Carolina. In 2000, The Butchies performed a cover of Creedance Clearwater Revival’s “Unfortunate Son” with West-Coast-based Gossip and Sleater Kinney.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AlPVC4lggM&version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0]
While Gossip frontwoman Beth Ditto made her big queer pilgrimage to the Pacific Northwest a decade prior, her Arkansas drawl tints both this song and every interview she gives. Before she was an electropop diva, Ditto was a punk blues maven. Gossip’s debut album, That’s Not What I Heard showcases her without the aid of a synthesizer and, wouldn’t you know, Ditto’s capable of Aretha Franklin levels of soul power.

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The Women

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I’ve often heard tales of strong Southern women. My own past is full of single women who, abandoned by the men in their lives, took extreme measures to care for their children…It seemed the South was full of brave and determined women who had never met one another—distracted by poverty, religion and loyalty to a land that hadn’t done them any favors.” – Ashley Sayeau, “Southern Ms.”

Bessie Coleman, First African American Female Aviator via Grey Hand Gang

Like many Southern women I know, I didn’t have just one mother — I had a team of them, composed of family friends and non-biological aunts and godmothers. The women who raised me were larger than life, commanding space and demanding acknowledgement. Even something a mundane as creating a meal for 12 turned into an Olympian effort. While the diet magazines in the supermarket checkout line collected dust, they wielded their power with the precision of a KitchenAid Mixer and everyone knew that they held Sunday afternoon luncheon in their collective balance.

The first person who introduced me to Fried Green Tomatoes wasn’t another lesbian, but my own mother. I was five and Idgie Threadegoode’s younger incarnation was the only thing capable of holding my attention through the movie. I harmlessly wanted her to be my best friend. In retrospect, I understand that my mom desired that same aspect of Idgie and Ruth’s relationship.

via Universal Pictures

Maybe, while they’ll likely take it to their graves, the women who raised me were just a little bit feminist. And maybe even a little bit queer.

Bless their hearts (and not in the bad way.)

Special Note: Autostraddle’s “First Person” personal essays do not necessarily reflect the ideals of Autostraddle or its editors, nor do any First Person writers intend to speak on behalf of anyone other than themselves. First Person writers are simply speaking honestly from their own hearts.