Queer in the Country, LGBTQ Are Feeling More Comfortable There but..
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| That is what happened but... in the middle of the woods and no cell, no spectacors except a goat. |
Introduction By Adam: The best time of my life have been the time I spent away from cities, NYC or any other. Right in the middle of the country or even bordering. I made my quiet and made my noise.The problem is you can't stay too far unless you are going to grow your own food and how about a medical emergency? When my horse got spooked while I lived in the woods up north Florida not far from Alabama, I fell off or let say he trow me off, I did not fell of horses anymore.And he accidentally stepped on my ankle. Also the force of landing on my back got me damaged there that I feel every day on most waking hours. The ankle was redone with two plates and six screws on each side. The Doctor said maybe they could come off once the bones grew back but they were never taken out, you can still feel them if you touch my ankle. But the point is not my injuries but the problem the ambulance had in finding me. At least I was able to reach my closest gay friends and neighbors. They both came and they went out while my partner stayed with me to get the ambulance that was lost out in the woods on the dirt roads of Northwest Florida. My partner at the time was able to make it but no one could do anything for the pain or even taking out my boot. Eventually the ambulance got there. When I saw the paramedic I was so grateful! But, the hospital only had two ambulances available and one had broken down. They also had a call from a helicopter trying to get the son of a hunter whose dad shot him by accident. Nice decission for that ambulance of who to save? Well the Accident happened around 2:30Pm but did not make it to the hospital until 6:30pm. They didn't even had the Doctor in charge of broken bones there, he had gone home. Well The trip on the amublance I won't tell you about. It felt like I was inside a plane that was going down...At home the parademic Thanks to almighty gave me some injections for the pain, cut my pants and my dear boot I got for a birthday present when I moved there by my then partner. They explained to me that the paramedic will stay with me but the ambulance had to go and pick up the guy that was shot with a paramedic from the helicopter. Only after the ambulance picked up and dropped off the shooting victim then they head back to pick me up wiht the paramedic that stayed with me. It was a hell of coordination but these guys knew what they were doing and managed both situations without loosing anybody. By the the they had picked me up. It was dark already past 6:30pm. The pointt of this true story is just to illustrate what living in the country when an emergency happens could be, I was too hurt to be put in one of the trucks availables from my friends. So I had to wait. The good part was that my friends told me they could not understand anything I was saying and I thank the paramedic for that, they kept me medicated.
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| This was My Horse Zeous |
Not all gay people live in cities. Demographers estimate that 15% to 20% of the United States’ total LGBTQ population – between 2.9 million and 3.8 million people – live in rural areas.
These millions of understudied LGBTQ residents of rural America are the subject of my latest academic research project. Since 2015 I have conducted interviews with 40 rural LGBTQ people and analyzed various survey data sets to understand the rural gay experience.
My study results, now under peer review for publication in an academic journal, found that many LGBTQ people in rural areas view their sexual identity substantially differently from their urban counterparts – and question the merits of urban gay life.
The standard narrative of rural gay life is that it’s tough for LGBTQ kids who flee their rural hometowns for iconic urban “gayborhoods” like Chicago’s Boystown or the Castro in San Francisco – places where they can find love, feel “normal” and be surrounded by others like them.
But this rural exodus story is incomplete. Most research, mine included, suggests that many rural LGBTQ folks who once sought refuge in the big city ultimately return home.
To the extent that American pop culture portrays rural LGBTQ adult life, the focus is on their isolation – think “Brokeback Mountain” or “Thelma & Louise.” The gay protagonists of these films are lonely, seldom able to express their sexual selves.
But my analysis of a 2013 Pew Survey of LGBTQ Americans – the latest available comprehensive national survey data on this population – showed that LGBTQ rural residents are actually more likely to be legally married than their urban counterparts – 24.8% compared with 18.6%. This aligns with what I’ve heard in interviews. The rural LGBTQ people I spoke with placed a high value on monogamy – on what many of them consider a “normal” life.
Those who returned home from urban gayborhoods also told me they found gay city living rarely delivered on its promises of companionship and inclusion. Many said they had experienced rejection while trying to date or develop a social circle. And they had missed the charm of small-town life.
No escape
The rural LGBTQ people I interviewed seemed to place less importance on being gay than their urban communities had. Downplaying their sexual or gender identities, many emphasized other aspects of themselves, such as their involvement in music, sports, nature or games.
They rejected an urban gay culture that they felt was shallow and overly focused on gayness as the defining feature of life.
One married 35-year-old described his big-city life this way: “Going to bars, bitching about how bad we have it in comparison to other cities, or judging people based on what they are wearing.”
Such comments call into question certain assumptions of the contemporary gay rights movement, including that “gayborhoods” are the pinnacle of gay life and that rural America is no place for LGBTQ people.
This may be less true, though, for Black and Latino LGBTQ people. A 2019 report on rural LGBTQ Americans found that “discrimination based on race and immigration status is compounded by discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.”
While I found no direct evidence that LGBTQ people of color were less likely to return to rural areas, the many difficulties of rural living for this population may partly explain why most of my interview subjects were white, despite my efforts to identify a more diverse pool.
But, as some of the people I interviewed reminded me, no matter where they lived they would not be fully accepted.
“As a trans person, I’m always going to have to deal with people discriminating against me,” one woman said.
Living in a rural locale with an active local music scene let her focus on aspects of her identity that were more important to her than her gender identity.
For some LGBTQ Americans, then, rural life allows them to more fully express themselves. Given the variety of issues facing LGBTQ Americans, from health care access to work problems, the rural world is not an escape from discrimination.
But neither are urban areas.
One lesbian from Kansas recalled attending a fundraiser for the Human Rights Campaign – the country’s most prominent LGBTQ advocacy group – in Washington, D.C., where a high-ranking member of the organization shook her hand and said, “Thank you so much. We need you out there in Kansas badly!”
To this the Kansan replied, “Thank me? I’ve been there my whole life. We are the ones who need you in Kansas. You are the ones who forgot about us!”
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Christopher T. Conner, University of Missouri-Columbia
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