The Wildcrafting Our Queerness ProjectMain MenuThe Wildcrafting Our Queerness ProjectMain PageArtExplore the art of queer AppalachiansTheory BlogSome major theories grounding queer Appalachian artQueer Appalachian Reading ListResources for further learningAboutLearn more about the project, oral histories, and the project's creator, Maxwell CloeMaxwell Cloed8840c620fc20aeee2b1f40a1e54c0e3967fa30d
Terms Footnote 4
12020-11-23T00:31:13+00:00Maxwell Cloed8840c620fc20aeee2b1f40a1e54c0e3967fa30d11plain2020-11-23T00:31:13+00:00Maxwell Cloed8840c620fc20aeee2b1f40a1e54c0e3967fa30dAnother common umbrella term that many of my narrators used is “gay,” used in a pan-LGBTQ+ sense. Dustin Hall refers to having a “gay old time” in the woods and Raina Rue expresses her desire to make art for all “country gays.” This use of “gay” is common in casual speech between queer people, I myself often use it. I refrain from using “gay” in this sense in my writing, however, due to the potential confusion between the universal “gay” and the specific “gay” which refers to a homosexual man. Moreover, to use “gay” to describe all people along the LGBTQ+ spectrum also implicitly centers queerness on homosexual men, diminishing the experiences of women and nonbinary people.
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1media/new-pride-flag-01.jpg2020-10-04T00:33:02+00:00A Note on Terms13What's the difference between "queer" and "LGBTQ+?"plain2021-08-23T16:22:47+00:00Throughout this project, I refer to gender and sexual identity using a handful of different terms. Where appropriate, I employ the specific term that the oral history narrator uses to refer to themselves—“gay” for Bob Morgan and Dustin Hall and “lesbian” for Raina Rue, for example. When speaking more broadly about how these narrators’ work relates to a range of people and experiences across Appalachia, I use two different umbrella terms largely interchangeably, “queer” and “LGBTQ+.” This is not a perfect system, however, and both umbrella terms can have different connotations for different people and networks that make their use potentially inaccurate. For many LGBTQ+ people, especially those who are older, the word “queer” is unequivocally a pejorative slur, thrown at them by bigots to wound and to marginalize. The acronym, then, is an “imperfect” though dignifying term, providing a means of expressing solidarity with other different, yet related identities in a way that is not harmful.
Still, for others the reclamation and resignification of the slur “queer” embodies the radical resistance to heterosexual and cisgender cultural norms and the political solidarity that emerges from this resistance. “Queer” also refers to the academic fields of “Queer Theory” and “Queer Studies,” which use the word to describe both the intersectionality of sexuality, gender, race, class, and disability as well as the process of rejecting norms surrounding these identity categories in order to construct a more egalitarian future. For those who prefer “queer,” the acronym may not be as effective in describing the political action and intersectionality that upholds marginalized gender and sexual identities. In short, using anyone term to describe a large group of people who possess certain identities will be incomplete and will inevitably refer to someone in a way that does not perfectly describe their identity or their approach to visibility.
Political scientist and activist Cathy Cohen additionally raises an essential intervention in the academic conceptualization of queerness in her essay “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens.” Lamenting the overuse of solely queerness in political organizing and theorizing in leftist circles, Cohen (echoing legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw) argues that “identities and communities, while important to this strategy, must be complicated and destabilized through a recognition of the multiple social positions and relations to dominant power found within anyone category or identity.” This destabilization of social categories, an essential feature of queer politics and theory, means that discussions of gender and sexuality must necessarily include discussions of race, class, disability, and geography. My understanding of queer Appalachian people and cultures, while not always touching on every aspect of identity, is nevertheless indebted to this intersectional understanding of queerness. Moreover, all present and future research and political work in Appalachia, in order to be ethical and precise, must similarly include such intersectional analyses. By using “queer” and “LGBTQ+” interchangeably and with an understanding of their intersectionality, I hope to reflect the slipperiness of all such umbrella designations and open the rhetorical space for complex identities to emerge.