Flipping the Narrative: Queering in Rural Appalachia—Stories of Strength, Support, and Change

• In Event: Unapologetically Dramatic About Injustices: Anthro-Performances of Minoritized Children/Childhoods

Abstract

Using the processes of experimentation with the performative (Boldt and Valente, 2021), this re- presentation (Denzin, 2003) is part ethnographic reflection and part performance. I share stories of queer/trans children, tweens, and families in rural, Appalachian Pennsylvania. I do this to hold the contradistinctions of their anti-genderqueer, white supremacist Appalachian political climate, alongside their healing, hoped-for futures. Inspired by queer/trans storytelling traditions (e.g., Blaise & Taylor, 2012; Silin, 2017; Sullivan & Urraro, 2019), this performance aims to feature the people, networks and action working toward change rural, Northern Appalachian communities. These stories, provide an alternate narrative spotlighting networks and engagements with school, church, and local formal and informal community networks (family networks) that carve out and disrupt barriers of hate to help shape the lives and communities of the queering young children and their families as a new route is created that is more inclusive, sustainable and offers healing through education and activism. “Coming out” impacts more than one individual. “Coming out” impacts the family and the communities.

Situated around my family and others in a Pennsylvania community, each storied performance offers slices of living queer as a family in rurality. This liminal space fosters unique troubles and obstacles of daily living with pockets of support, love and acceptance hidden beneath the surface for local LGBTQ+ families and their co-conspirators. The stories fluctuate between moments of the joy and horror, glimpsing into the multiple lives and lifeworlds of queer children, youth, and families as they live and move among the white supremacist, heteronormative, evangelical, patriarchal structures. The shared stories aspire to illuminate the needs of the imagined lives and everyday realities of queering families in rural, Appalachian communities.

These accounts are important considering the limited scholarship focused on the LGBTQ+ children and youth in rural areas (Capello, 2021), with much of the available scholarship painting an overly deterministic image that overwhelmingly focuses on anti-genderqueer, white supremacist spaces. This performance recognizes the entire covert network of queering families working to improve resources, education, and communication between queer families and the community at large while taking note of the impact media can play in these “tucked away in the mountain” spaces. This familial network offers support, belonging and safe places for those who may not be comfortable coming out to biological family or local community. I use the word “family” not only to refer to one’s lineage and ancestral belonging, but also families chosen and built through “coming out”.

Each voice aims to help illuminate an alternate path bringing forth equity, belonging and life in Northern Appalachia. This performance aims to be a catalyst for further reflection of ourselves, our biases, and our way of being as well as for expanding larger discussions about action to provide education, resources, and equity for queering children, youth and families living in rural, Northern Appalachia.

Author

• Boni Richardson, Pennsylvania State University