Country Rednecks and City Cosmopolitans: Rural Sexual Minorities’ Interpretations of Race, Class, Geography, Safety and Belonging

• In Event: 192 - Regular Session. Culture and Identity

Abstract

Drawing on data from sixty interviews with gays and lesbians from rural backgrounds who live in small towns and cities, this article employs an intersectional analysis to assess how interpretations of safety and belonging are made in everyday life. I show that these understandings of sexuality are co-constitutive with interpretations of race and class across rural and urban spaces. Urban spaces are constituted as more racially diverse and as a site of both greater wealth and greater poverty. Rural spaces are constituted by class distinctions as well (hick versus redneck) but racial sameness (white). The greater racial diversity coupled with the greater wealth leads sexual minorities living in a city to interpret urban spaces as allowing for greater safety, but not necessarily greater belonging. In contrast, those living in small towns narrate a sense of belonging. They also interpret small towns to be safer, yet posit “rednecks” as potentially dangerous. This analysis illustrates the importance of employing an intersectional analysis in studies of sexuality.

Author

• Emily Kazyak, University of Nebraska-Lincoln