Navigating Queer and Rural Identities and the Insider/Outsider Paradox in Higher Education Settings

• In Event: Supporting the Higher Education Access and Success of Rural Students With Additional Marginalized Identities

Abstract

This study navigated the authors autoethnographic analytical method to explore the insider/outsider paradox of gay men from rural Wyoming as they explore their intersecting queer and rural identities attending higher education. The authors use narrative exploration detailing their experiences while having both minoritized and marginalized identities of being LGBQTIA+ and rural in higher education spaces all while meeting personal, professional, and social challenges and seeking a sense of belonging. Although scholars center the complexity of multiple identities in higher education (Jones & McEwen, 2000), as well as how rurality and queerness interplay in modern U.S. society (Annes & Redlin, 2012; Lee & Quam, 2013).), the authors address the lack of research regarding both queer and rural identity development in current, contemporary postsecondary literature. Pulling from research, lived experiences, and collaborative narrative autoethnography the chapter addresses: 1) How do queer, rural students experience higher education, based upon their overlapping geographic and LGBTQIA+ identities? and 2) How do queer, rural students navigate the insider/outsider paradox of rurality and queer identity?

The narrative perspectives dive into the straddling of identities in undergraduate and graduate levels of higher education across the U.S. at varying institution types, sizes, and locations. These stories offer unique insight into the lived realities of gay men in higher education with multiple identities, seeking personal growth and even self-acceptance in spaces where their heterosexual counterparts did not have to deconstruct and reconstruct themselves in the same ways. Higher education is shown to exclude both rural and queer ways of life, representation, and support. The hybridity of queer rurality forces folks, as mentioned in the paper, into a liminal space with one part of themselves in the “in-group” and one part in the “out-group” being pulled in different directions that do not often reconcile easily.

The study recognizes and applauds the previous scholarly work of those that came before them and also notes that queer and rural identities are not static but changing and shifting in different environments. This paper concludes with recommendations for staff, faculty, and leaders in higher education to support students that are both queer and rural in aspects of their lives like career development, LGBQTIA+ centers on campus, social engagement, and life after college. The authors further iterate the need for continued support and research for both rural and queer-identified students in postsecondary education, noting that fostering a sense of belonging at the interplay of their two identities can lead to further higher education success for queer, rural students.

Authors

• Ty C. McNamee, University of Kentucky

• Brody C Tate, University of Chicago