A gay historian has revealed that in major western countries, gay men were more likely to vote for right-wing parties.
Samuel Huneke of Stanford University looked at voting data from 14 elections in five western countries US, UK, France, Germany and Brazil.
He found that in the US, LGBTI people overwhelmingly supported the Democratic Party. But gay men were more likely than the general electorate to support conservative or far-right party in other western countries.
‘LGBT voters in other [non-U.S.] countries were less likely to support the conservative (or in some cases far-right) party by an average of only seven percent,’ Huneke wrote in the LA Review of Books.
‘And when you look only at gay men, the results are even more striking. In other countries, gay men were, on average, more likely than the general electorate to support the conservative or far-right party.’
In 2018 US midterm elections, 82% of voters who identified as LGBTI voted for the Democratic Party.
But ‘in virtually no other country have LGBT groups and leftist parties forged such a durable or fruitful alliance’.
‘In many other Western countries, right-wing and virulently homophobic parties enjoy considerable support among gay voters,’ Huneke wrote.
In France a 2015 poll showed 26% of gay and bisexual male voters supported the anti-gay, conservative Marine Le Pen. Whereas only 16% of straight voters supported her. The poll also showed that, 38% of gay male couples voted for Le Pen’s party, the far-right National Front. But only 29% of straight couples did the same.
Gay men throw those with less status under the bus
Huneke argued that gay men voting more for conservative parties ‘makes a certain degree of sense’.
‘As Michael Segalov wrote in The Independent in 2017. Gay men have begun to “throw those with less status under the bus to cling onto their new found privilege”,’ Huneke wrote.
‘Endowed with the right to marry and no longer encumbered by sodomy laws or employment blacklists, gay men have begun to vote more like men, full stop.
‘Lesbians and trans individuals, who still face considerable prejudice and even legal barriers, have more to gain by supporting left-wing parties and more to lose should the right triumph.’
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Punk Lust: Raw Provocation 1971-1985 is an exhibit at NYC’s Museum of Sex. It explores the intersection between sexuality and the punk movement.
When people think of punk, images of skinny white boys (Joey Ramone, Sid Vicious) might come to mind. However, this exhibit will feature lesser-known punk icons, including LGBTI punks.
The Exhibit
Curated by cultural critic Carlo McCormick, writer/musician Vivien Goldman, and artist/Museum of Sex curator Lissa Rivera, the large exhibit includes over 300 objects. These items include rare photographs and personal objects, such as Johnny Thunders’ leather jacket, owned by Manic Panic founders Tish and Snooky. It will also feature visual pieces by LGBTI artists like David Wojnarowicz.
‘The exhibition explores everything from punk’s intersection with the sex industry, gay leather culture’s influence on punk fashion, the deep impact of queer culture on punk’s roots, and more,’ writes Emily Colucci for Them.us.
‘More than sheer shock value, Punk/Lust asserts that punk’s transgressive aesthetics were a radical and rebellious political critique of heteronormativity, which continues to resonate today.’
The exhibit begins with punk’s queer influences, including John Waters, Divine, Andy Warhol, and more.
In the Curator’s words
‘I wanted to be able to connect everything back to Andy Warhol and David Bowie,’ Lissa Rivera told Them.us. ‘If you read all the history, especially of British punk, they all worshipped Bowie and androgyny in general. Similarly, Warhol did exciting things with the Velvet Underground and their intersection with the queer and trans community in the 1960s, with songs like “Venus in Furs” or “Candy Says.” It would be completely revelatory to any young person that listened to them. Another person who often gets lost in this history is Jayne County, who was roommates with Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis, and was also a part of the Stonewall riots.’
‘It was also interesting to see who Malcolm McLaren was looking at. He was looking at Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising and leather culture. There’s more of an intersection with gay leather culture than you would normally assume.’
Punk vs. Disco
Rivera goes on to discuss the differences between the punk movement and the disco movement, both of which were influenced heavily by queer culture.
‘With disco, it was about an ecstatic release coming out of Stonewall. Pre-Stonewall, LGBTQ+ people were used to horrible abuse, having to be in mob-run bars and pay off the cops in order to exist. Disco came out of this opportunity to be public,’ Rivera explains.
‘It was feminine, queer, and embraced people of color. If you’re repressed for a long time and all of a sudden being celebrated, you become much more expressive and realize there’s so much more to discover about life. It was about creating a world to explore that didn’t just relate to heteronormative expectations. It was also a way to transcend the music charts, because Billboard was controlled by a few white men in a really corporate world. There weren’t many ways to break through, but in clubs, when they were spinning records, they could compete. There was immense power.’
‘Punk was very anti-commercial; I relate it more to the sex industry,’ Rivera continues. ‘If you think about the landscape of New York City at the time, people were working in peep shows, and as professional dommes and sex workers. It wasn’t necessarily seen as taboo, but as an exciting way to explore your identity. This was a group of people who worshipped Rimbaud, Jean Genet and William S. Burroughs. There was freedom because rent was so low. You could do phone sex a couple nights a week and have enough money to go out every night. And because it all worked to combat moral norms, there was a sense of excitement.’
Punk’s subversiveness
‘Punk looked at the hypocritical society of the 1970s, which was simultaneously a return to the restrictive morals of the 50s while Deep Throat became the highest-grossing film of 1972. Punk engaged with these conflicting ideologies and the absurdity of it all. There’s also a certain level of nihilism in punk and a desire to see how far you could push yourself. This is actually true of disco as well. There’s a desire to see how much you could experience life, whether your pleasure was risk or ecstasy.’
New York Dolls
One band in particular, The New York Dolls, started to play with gender-bending. They’d often perform in makeup, heels, and women’s clothing.
‘The New York Dolls were directly influenced by Warhol and the Theatre of the Ridiculous, for sure,’ Rivera says of the group. ‘It’s really interesting because if you listen to Johnny Thunder’s solo work, he has a song called, “I’m A Boy, I’m A Girl.” I wonder what they were tapping into. In the early 1970s, there was a certain level of ambiguity that the movement evolved away from. It seemed to evolve into something that was more specifically geared toward queer offshoots of punk. Like homocore or Derek Jarman’s films. There were more directly queer works that weren’t necessarily ambiguous.’
From the 70s to Now
‘With our current cultural climate being less dependent on gendered binaries, many people I talked to were able to speak more freely about their attractions or their desire to be between binaries,’ Rivera says of putting together the exhibit.
‘The literature in rock magazines at the time was very misogynistic. Now it’s much less so. Looking at it now, there is a kind of freedom this 1970s generation is feeling. There’s not as much shame now about the spectrum of sexuality or desire.’
Saturday February 23 @ 11 am. Gospel Brunch at Occidental Center for the Arts.
Please join us for a festive and inspirational event celebrating Black History Month at OCA! featuring the Joyful Noise Gospel Choir and traditional Southern cooking by West County’s own ‘Saucy Mama’! This event is generously sponsored by The Sonoma County Gazette and The Mirabel Lodge. OCA Art Gallery offers the stunning private collection of Raynetta James and a juried exhibit by local artists celebrating Black History; Feb. 1-24th. Tickets to the brunch (advance registration required): $35 Adults; ages 14 and up. $15 Youth 9-13 years; Free to ages 8 and under. Wheelchair accessible. www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org for reservations and information. 707-874-9392. 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental, CA. 95465
Arkansas’ highest court on Thursday said a city can’t enforce its ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, saying it’s already ruled the measure violates a state law aimed at preventing local protections for LGBT people.
The state Supreme Court unanimously reversed a Washington County judge’s decision to allow Fayetteville to continue enforcing its anti-discrimination ordinance while the city challenged the constitutionality of a 2015 law preventing cities and counties from enacting protections not covered by state law. Arkansas’ civil rights law doesn’t cover sexual orientation or gender identity.
The court in 2017 ruled the ordinance violated the state law. Citing that decision, justices on Thursday reversed Judge Doug Martin’s ruling and dismissed the case. In Thursday’s ruling and the previous decision, the court did not rule on whether the state law was constitutional.
“Because the circuit court exceeded its jurisdiction on remand, its actions following remand are void,” Justice Robin Wynne wrote. “The order denying the preliminary injunction is reversed, and, because the sole issue over which the circuit court properly had jurisdiction was conclusively decided by this court in our 2017 opinion, the matter is dismissed in its entirety.”
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have non-discrimination laws based on sexual orientation and gender identity covering employment, housing, public accommodations, credit and insurance, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Fayetteville, the home of the University of Arkansas’ flagship campus and a gay pride parade that organizers tout as the largest in the state, is considered a liberal enclave in a conservative region of the state. It’s one of several cities that approved local protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in response to the 2015 state law. The court in 2017 rejected the city’s argument that it was allowed because LGBT protections are included in other parts of state law.
“Today’s unanimous decisions reaffirm the state’s authority to ensure uniformity of anti-discrimination laws statewide and to prevent businesses from facing a patchwork of nondiscrimination ordinances,” Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, a Republican who had arguedagainst the ordinance, said in a statment. “These decisions show that the city of Fayetteville is not above or immune from State law.”
Fayetteville City Attorney Kit Williams said he would likely ask the court to reconsider its decision and said the city’s argument that the law is unconstitutional remains undecided.
“The city has never had an attempt to defend a citizen-passed ordinance by showing that the state law was an unequal protection of the laws,” Williams said. “It seems very strange that they would deny us the right to at least present that constitutional argument to them for their decision.”
In a related case, justices said Martin incorrectly ruled that Arkansas’ constitution only protects lawmakers from testifying about what they say on the General Assembly floor or in committees but did not say how far that protection went. Martin had ordered sponsors of Arkansas’ law on local LGBT protections to testify and produce documents in the lawsuit.
Today, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed a law requiring Boards of Education to include instruction, and adopt instructional materials, that accurately portray political, economic, and social contributions of persons with disabilities and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals.
This law would require that LGBTQ Americans, as well as Americans with disabilities, are included and recognized for their significant historic contributions to the economic, political, and social development of New Jersey and the United States. Specifically, this legislation would add LGBTQ people and individuals with disabilities to the existing list of underrepresented cultural and ethnic groups, which are covered by current law related to inclusion in textbooks and other instructional materials in schools.
“It’s critical that our classrooms highlight the achievements of LGBTQ people throughout history. Our youth deserve to see how diverse American history truly is—and how they can be a part of it one day, too,” said Executive Director of Garden State Equality Christian Fuscarino. “I’m thankful to Governor Murphy for making New Jersey the second state in the nation to have a law promoting LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum.”
This law would bring classroom materials into alignment with Core Curriculum Content Standards by ensuring that students receive diverse instruction in history and the social sciences, which will cultivate respect towards minority groups, allow students to appreciate differences, and acquire the skills and knowledge needed to function effectively with people of various backgrounds.
Many executives were in attendance at the Park Plaza Hotel in London. Guests included UK government aviation minister Baroness Liz Sugg and British Airways CEO Alex Cruz.
Activists crash the stage at the Airlines UK gala | Photo: LGSMigrants
The 14 young activists donned borrowed tuxedos and dresses. Some also dyed their hair, bought wigs, removed piercings and covered tattoos.
Entering through two separate ends of the hotel, the group marched into the function room.
They said they also managed to get in by walking in with a ‘huge sense of entitlement’.
They then waited until all guests were seated and the speeches were underway.
LGSMigrants said a team of eight handed out sick bags to guests. Four stormed the stage, revealing a banner saying ‘Deportation Contracts Make Us Sick’. Security then removed each activist as they chanted one by one.
‘We saw this as a way of getting in front of the CEOs of all the major airlines in the UK,’ Sam Björn, of LGSMigrants told Gay Star News.
‘We managed to hand a sick bag to BA’s CEO Alex Cruz – if he didn’t know about us before he does now.’
Virgin Atlantic last year changed their policy to stop accepting deportation contracts from the Home Office.‘Deportations endanger the lives and safety of migrants’
Activists hand out sick bags reading ‘Deportation Contracts Make Us Sick.’ | Photo: LGSMigrants
Björn added in a statement: ‘Deportations endanger the lives and safety of migrants.
‘While the airline industry elite enjoy a luxury three-course meal, thousands of migrants are stranded in countries where they have little to no connections and are vulnerable to severe harm and potential death.
‘We call on BA and other commercial airlines to end their deportation contracts with the Home Office and take a stand against the Government’s racist hostile environment’.
Gay Star News contacted Airlines UK to see if they had a different view of last night’s events. We asked if they would be taking any action after the infiltration. We also asked whether they would address the protest group’s concerns or even tighten security at future events.
An Airlines UK spokesperson told GSN: ‘We’re not commenting on this.’
A Home Office spokesperson explained the government makes ‘enforced returns’ on charter and regular scheduled flights.
Seats on scheduled flights are also quickly arranged in service of individual cases.
A Home Office spokesperson told Gay Star News: ‘When someone has no legal right to remain in the UK they should return to their home country.
‘We will always help people who wish to leave voluntarily, but when an individual refuses to return to their home country and we are confident that no other approaches will work, then we will seek to enforce their removal.’
A Drag Queen Storytime protester allegedly trespassed in the Freed-Montrose Library this weekend after previously being banned from the premises. James “Doc” Greene Sr., who was issued a trespassing warning last month by the Houston Public Library (HPL) stating he could no longer visit its Montrose location, was detained, disarmed, and escorted out by police on Saturday, Jan. 26, for entering the building and refusing to leave.
Greene, a conservative radio show host for Raging Elephants Radio, recorded the incident and posted a video of his exchange with HPL staff and police on YouTube. At the start of the video, Greene is inside the library surrounded by around seven police officers. He repeatedly asks a library worker for her name and the reason why he is being asked to leave the library. “We have a bunch of homosexuals that are molesting children,” Greene says in the garage. “They are doing it with your help.”
CBS News confirmed with Chicago police that the two masked attackers cited President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan after physically attacking the actor. Chicago police released a statement Tuesday, describing the attack as a “possible racially-charged assault and battery.”
“In the initial reports there was no mention of MAGA,” a police statement provided to People reads. “When detectives [followed] up with him later in the day, he recalled the offenders making those comments and detectives completed a supplemental report.”
Smollett, a gay actor who plays the character Jamal Lyon on Fox’s “Empire,” was admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital after the assault. Police report he is in “good condition.”
“The alleged assailants made racially charged comments to the victim implying that they knew he was a star from the show,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the Chicago Sun Times.
Police told HuffPost that two unknown men began “yelling out racial and homophobic slurs” before physically attacking the actor. During the attack, the two men “poured an unknown chemical substance,” possibly bleach, on him and one of the attackers wrapped a rope around his neck. Police and FBI are currently investigating the attack as a “possible hate crime.”
The FBI has taken over the investigation in the wake of news that Smollett has received a threatening letter prior to the attack.
“Given the severity of the allegations, we are taking this investigation very seriously and treating it as a possible hate crime,” Chicago police said in a Tuesday statement. “Detectives are currently working to gather video, identify potential witnesses and establish an investigative timeline.”
The Jewish Film Institute (JFI), presenters of the world renowned San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, have announced the dates for the sixth annual WinterFest, which will take place February 16-17, 2019 in San Francisco. The program will take place at the Alamo Drafthouse New Mission Theater on Saturday, February 16th and at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco on Sunday, February 17th and will feature the best new Jewish film and media for a diverse Bay Area audience.
The full WinterFest 2019 program will be announced on Tuesday, January 22. Individual tickets will go on sale to JFI members at this time, with general public tickets on sale beginning Thursday, January 24. For more information visit www.jfi.org/winterfest
Early confirmed titles from the 6th annual WinterFest include:
Carl Laemmle
Dir. James L. Freedman
Carl Laemmle is the extraordinary life story of the German-American immigrant who founded Universal Pictures and saved over 300 Jewish refugee families from Nazi Germany.
Family in Transition
Dir. Offir Trainin
Israel, 2018 Bay Area Premiere
The story of the only transgender family in an Israeli small town whose lives change completely after their father decides to become a women. Their mother chooses to stay with him through the whole process but as it seems that life is back to normal, she takes a sharp turn and shifts everything upside down.
A Fortunate Man
Dir. Billie August
Denmark, 2018 West Coast Premiere
Set in the late 19th Century, an ambitious young man from a devout Christian family in Denmark rebels against his clergyman father when he enters into the intellectual circle of a wealthy, Jewish family and seduces the eldest daughter.
The Ghost of Peter Sellers
Dir. Peter Medak
Cyprus, 2018 California Premiere
In 1973, director-on-the-rise Peter Medak nabbed notoriously difficult comic genius and box- office star Peter Sellers for his new pirate comedy, Ghost in the Noonday Sun. Outrageously, Sellers immediately began sabotaging the film.
Home Page (20th Anniversary)
Dir. Doug Block
USA, 1999
The story of pioneering personal blogger Justin Hall, set during a pivotal, transformational year in the early life of the internet. Director Doug Bloch and subject Justin Hall in person.
Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People
Dir. Oren Rudavsky
USA, 2018
Pulitzer is an American icon who spoke of “fake news” over one hundred years ago. He fought the dangers that the suppression of news had for a democracy long before our present threats to press freedom.
Redemption
Dir. Joseph Madmony and Boaz Yehonatan Yacov
Israel, 2018 Menachem, a former frontman for a rock band, is now religious, and a father to a six-year-old. When his daughter is diagnosed with cancer, he must find a creative solution to fund the expensive treatments.
Untogether
Dir. Emma Forrest
USA, 2018
Jemima and Lola Kirke co-headline this ensemble drama about a cluster of Los Angelenos feeling around in the dark for emotional connections—as siblings, lovers, friends. In the process, they learn to grant themselves permission to do things that are, as one character describes them, “un-together”—to mess up, to get it wrong. Co-starring Billy Crystal
Working Woman
Dir. Michal Aviad
Israel, 2018
Orna, is the mother of three young children with a husband struggling to start his own restaurant. To help support her family Orna returns to the workplace, landing a job with a former army superior, Benny who is now a successful real estate developer. While Orna embraces her new position and tries to balance its demands with her home life, she begins to experience escalating sexual harassment from her boss.
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT WINTERFEST
WinterFest – presented by the Jewish Film Institute – features impactful Jewish film and media for diverse Bay Area audiences in between editions of JFI’s signature San Francisco Jewish Film Festival each summer. The 2019 WinterFest edition will be held on the weekend of February 16-17, 2019 in San Francisco at the Alamo Drafthouse New Mission Theater and at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Regular tickets are $15 general public, $14 student/senior and $12 JFI members. The all-access WinterFest Pass is $90 general public, $80 JFI members. For more information visit www.jfi.org/winterfest or contact the Box Office at boxoffice@jfi.org or 415-621-0523.
ABOUT THE JEWISH FILM INSTITUTE
The Jewish Film Institute is the premier curatorial voice for Jewish film and media and a leading arts and culture organization in the Bay Area. Built on the foundation of the world-renowned San Francisco Jewish Film Festival – the world’s first and largest Jewish film festival – the Jewish Film Institute catalyzes and inspires communities in San Francisco and around the world to expand their understanding of Jewish life and culture through film, media, and dialogue. Year round, the Jewish Film Institute promotes awareness and appreciation of the diversity of the Jewish people through multiple mediums – including original online programming that reaches a global audience of 2 million. All of these services, along with artists’ support and educational initiatives, give viewers around the world even greater access to Jewish culture and the visionaries who shape it. www.jfi.org
Gale Massey, Kelly J. Ford, and I have quite a few things in common. We’re debut crime novelists. We’re queer. We’re Southern.
Growing up gay in the Bible Belt undeniably shaped us, but how deep do Southern roots penetrate our fiction as adults? How do we reconcile identities that are often in conflict with one another? And, importantly, which of us are cousins and how far removed?
Y’all best believe we have Things to Say™, and we’re grateful to Lambda Literary for the opportunity to say ‘em. Pour a little Coke in that bourbon, and buckle your biscuits ‘cause this unflinching roundtable’s heading South. Literally.
And possibly metaphorically.
–P.J. Vernon
P.J.: Everyone’s South is different; these are simply ours. Let us introduce ourselves, and describe our relationship with home in three words.
Gale Massey: I’ve been told my family goes back seven generations in Florida but it’s a proven fact I come from a long line of horse thieves and liars, so who really knows? My debut novel is The Girl From Blind River(Crooked Lane Books). My relationship with the South can be summed up in one word: Conflicted.
Kelly J. Ford: I’m based in Boston, but my family’s been lodged in the South for generations. My hometown is nicknamed Hell on the Border and considered a “Top Ten True Western Town.” But it’s also in the foothills of the Ozarks. It’s a weird mix of cultures. My debut Cottonmouths (Skyhorse Publishing) is more focused on those hills, a great place to commit and hide your crimes. At least for a little while. Like many exiles, there’s a lot I love about the South, but much that is deeply disappointing. So, how ‘bout two words: love/hate.
P.J.: I’m a suspense author, and When You Find Me (Crooked Lane Books) is my Southern Gothic debut. It’s dark. It’s twisty. The pages sweat sweet tea and gin in equal measure. I live in Canada (brrr), but I’m an expat from Florence, South Carolina. Nestled in the state’s swampy coastal plains, it’s both had an atomic bomb dropped on it and is vital for drug trafficking as it’s equidistant from Miami and NYC via I-95. Three words that capture my relationship with home: It. Is. Complicated.
Gale Massey
Gale: My father was born and raised near Florence. We might be cousins.
P.J.: Dear Reader, this is such a typical occurrence for Southerners. My first question to Gale upon seeing mutual connections on Facebook was literally: Do you know my cousinso and so?
Kelly: I assume I’m a 4th or 6th cousin to everyone in the South because my kinfolk got around.
Gale: I recently learned of a distant, openly gay cousin who was vice-president in 1853. Yay, pride moment! Then I learned he also owned five hundred slaves and a plantation. Ugh. it’s so typical of the South to offer up equal amounts of shame and pride in a single serving.
P.J.: Neither Kelly nor I reside in the South, but set our books there. Gale still calls the South home, but chose New York for her novel to unfold. A coincidence? Or were our story settings influenced by where we live?
Gale: The question of why I didn’t set my novel in the South keeps coming up. It seemed any story I told would be overshadowed by the complexity and quirkiness of the South and that setting the novel here would overtake the story I wanted to tell. So, I headed north and created a small town as a simple backdrop. I guess setting it up north was a way of gaining distance and space from where I’ve spent my whole life.
P.J.: I’m uncertain I’d set my novel in South Carolina if I still lived there. Residing in Canada liberated me to return in my writing. It’s like a bad break-up: distance deceives memory. You constantly remind yourself why the relationship didn’t work out. But traveling there for the book was cathartic. In fictional Elizabeth, SC, I exert complete control.
Kelly: Almost everything I’ve written has been based in or referenced Arkansas. I can’t seem to separate my upbringing from my work. I spent 22 years in Arkansas before I said yes to a free ride to Boston with a coworker from Walmart. That’s a lot of living during formative years to toss off so easily. All I wanted was to get out of Arkansas, but now that I’m gone, my head goes there whenever I sit down to write.
P.J.: One thing we all agree is that this conversation is challenging. Are our relationships to the South so complex that they’re difficult to write about?
Gale: Growing up in a culture that actively persecutes their minorities makes it difficult to come to terms with the fact that you are a member of an invisible minority. Witnessing bigotry and racism and segregation is scary for most children (unless they’re sociopaths), and being a part of a pack is key to survival. So coming out or even coming to terms with being queer can be or at least feel like a life-threatening proposition. This has made it difficult to have a healthy relationship with my birthplace and my ancestry. Add writing to the mix and it means you are processing these things in a way that is very public.
Kelly J. Ford
Kelly: It’s easier to write about Arkansas now that I have distance, both in miles and maturity. But it remains complicated.
For me, the South is inextricably tied to a difficult relationship with my mother. The issues she dealt with are issues you see all too often in the South and rural areas, and in our fiction: neglect, mental illness, alcohol and substance abuse, poor health, and housing and food insecurity. Just overall deterioration of body, mind, and soul. Time and again, I’ve tried to put that relationship into words via essays or even a memoir. But it’s not something I can touch with any emotion unless I channel it through fiction. I put up a defensive wall for protection years ago, and I’m so used to its comforting presence.
P.J.: It’s been challenging for my therapist[s] to get outta me, too. Growing up, I lived for the day I’d hop on I-95 and head north for a life of fame and gay fortune. I left South Carolina, but it changed me far less than I’d hoped. I was still insecure, still carrying wounds. You can’t escape the South any more than you can crawl outta your own skin. One day, I stopped trying. That was an inflection point. Home evolved from a monster to be fled to something layered and begging to be understood. I’m still deep into that part of the journey.
The South doesn’t make it easy to be different, and all that baggage makes talking about it candidly tougher than we expected.
The South also yields an impressive repertoire of literary greats like Frederick Douglass, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Mark Twain, Flannery O’Connor, and Britney Spears (kidding, maybe).How did growing up queer in a region wrapped in a Bible Belt inform our writing?
Gale: Yes, voicing our collective experience is challenging. It seems we have many issues in common. I also grew up bearing witness to the profound impact of poverty on women. You never shake that off. As a child I also saw a lot of duality. Allegedly good men doing hateful things to POC, their wives, and children. Deacons sipping grain alcohol out of brown paper bags before Wednesday night prayer meetings. The closeted choir leader not being true to his nature. But I also saw good men and women helping out impoverished families. The South taught me all about human complexity.
Kelly: I didn’t even realize I was queer until I was in my mid-twenties in Boston. Lord knows there were signs before that. I was madly in love with Dale Arden and Princess Aura from Flash Gordon, Andromeda from Clash of the Titans, Maggie from Escape from New York. Not to mention all the neighborhood girls with whom I developed deeply felt, close friendships. I even had an out gay cousin. But it didn’t even occur to me that women could love women. Gay men? Sure. Anything else on the queer spectrum was not part of my lexicon. I always felt different, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I was also hit in the head with a metal bar while working at the Hardee’s at 16, so that could explain it.
Honestly, I was so desperate for love and nurturing from anyone who offered it to me. That mix of emotions—confusion, desperation, anxiety, love, hypocrisy—are mental scars. That confusion about who I was and what I meant to people bleeds into my work.
P.J. Vernon
P.J.: The duality was stark, sometimes traumatizing, and is omnipresent in my writing. The religious hypocrisy, victimhood, and substance abuse were as pervasive as the mosquitos. Generational cycles of abuse thread every society, but Southern families seem to bear these burdens frequently. Just my perception, but unsurprising given the income inequality, religious dogma, and marginalization of communities. Hostility thrives in those conditions. Times are changing as cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, and Nashville experience cultural renaissances, but deep stains don’t wash out easy.
Enter the pathological preoccupation with veneers in my fiction which mirrors life. Patient secrets, toxic relationships, and deceptive masks abound in both. This penchant to hide behind facades is fertile ground for fiction. Writing allows me to vent frustrations with injustice, garish hypocrisy, and the futility of denial. But my pages are also for celebrating the Southern warriors. Like my best friend, Sheri Ard, who was an ally before gay best friends were cosmopolitan. She took heat for her gay friends, and continues the fight. She recently implemented gender nonbinary inclusion in our hometown hospital’s paperwork.
In the end, no one wants a book about well-adjusted adults practicing healthy conflict resolution, and South Carolina makes a hell of a setting.
Must queerness and Southernness coexist in conflict with one another?
Kelly: I don’t see how it can’t when you’ve got people out there that will fight tooth and nail to try to kill us: either through legislation or a thousand microaggressive cuts. God bless the queer folks who can live in the South and tolerate it. They’re made of tougher stuff than I am.
Gale: I agree with Kelly. A thick skin is required to live down here.
P.J.: I want to say no, but I want to be honest. My sexuality and my roots have always been in conflict.
When I came out, I received a letter from an important relative. It contained the most hurtful words I’d ever read. A laundry list of willfully ignorant vitriol to frighten me from a lifestyle. I was fated to AIDS. I received a jarring account of gay sexual practices. Choosing hell made victims of my loved ones. How could I be so selfish? It was written with guidance from our pastor–an educated and articulate man who remains a community pillar. He wouldn’t remember me, but his profound lack of empathy shaped my family relationships for years. It stoked an internal conflict that I still struggle to reconcile. I don’t know if it’s possible, but I do know I’ve let take too much from me.
Gale: Holy shit, P.J. I am so sorry you had this experience. My mother tossed me out of the house when I was eighteen claiming God would not want her to house a homosexual. I carried that wound for years but eventually I began to surround myself with friendships that were healthier and stronger than family of origin bonds.
Kelly: It’s awful to hear these stories and unfortunately all too common. Luckily, I grew up around sinners and didn’t have Bible beaters quoting scripture at me. I had a positive experience coming out. My dad said, “I don’t care as long as you’re happy. I love you.” I’m not sure my mom knew about my sexuality before she died. She was a piece of work, but I don’t believe she would’ve have kicked me out. None of us were so high on our horse that we didn’t fear our own fall and the helping hand we’d need once we were down there.
P.J.: Folks often point to the rapid progress society’s made, but we have to remember our scars. Complacency is fraught with danger.
We might be writing what we know, but Southern Gothic & Grit Lit are having a moment. How do we balance reader expectations and reality?What has the reception been from Southern versus non-Southerner readers?
For me, the difference was stark. Early readers in South Carolina focused on plot holes, narrative disjointedness, and craft stuff. But Canadian critique partners? They wanted the “South” of their imaginations. Where were the race riots and burning crosses? Turnip-eating Scarlett O’Hara swearing never to go hungry again? To them, the South is eccentric and bizarre, and they wanted it on every page. After the book was acquired, my editor helped me craft a balance. You try your best to be true, but at the end of the day, my job is to deliver an entertaining product with wide appeal.
Kelly: A woman at a reading in Boston didn’t have a question but a comment (we’ve all been there): “Arkansas sounds so backwards, so awful.” I felt defensive because yeah, it is in some ways. But it’s also my roots and it made me who I am. It’s been heartening to hear from southern readers—and those who enjoy southern lit. The thing I’ve heard most often from those readers is that Cottonmouths felt real. That’s the best compliment I could receive: they saw themselves, whether they’re from small towns or are in the closet and desperate for the love of that one person who’s awfully bad for them. It might not be a great image, but it’s an accurate reflection for a lot of folks. I feel like I’m doing my job as a writer if I can help others feel a little less invisible, flaws and all.
Gale: Most people commenting on the location simply ask me to set my next book in Florida, and I am doing that. Maybe I needed to start somewhere else in order to come home.
P.J.: The South is storied and complex, and we all experience it differently – especially as queer. What messages should readers take from this roundtable?
Gale: I’ve been out in the South for over four decades and while its ways have left scars on many of us, it’s also brought us wisdom. To quote RuPaul (who, by the way, worked the Georgia club circuits before conquering queer NYC), “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?”
Kelly: Many people are interested in the South as a concept, or as history. They’re less interested in the New South, the one that exists outside of the litany of straight white male authors and Flannery. Every time I see an article with that typical list, I could spit. I couldn’t believe it when I spoke to a professor who taught southern literature and they’d never heard of Jesmyn Ward. I mean, come on. She’s won two National Book Awards for books set in Mississippi. If she can’t get their attention, what chance do southern queer writers have? There has to be an active effort to diversify the reading lists in Southern Lit classes across the board. That would be a good start.
P.J.: I love the South, and I hate the South. I never want to live there again, and I want to breathe my last breath in South Carolina. I am a collection of contradictions. Accomplished and insecure. Self-less and selfish. Queer and Southern. I’m the natural product of a place where paradoxes thrive and reinvention is always possible.
The undeniable truth? The South is me. It’s Gale. It’s Kelly. And whether it likes it or not, it’s pretty queer.
A South Carolina transplant in Canada, P. J. Vernon abandoned gainful employment to write When You Find Me, his critically acclaimed Southern Gothic suspense debut.
Gale Massey’s debut novel, The Girl From Blind River, is a coming of age story of family dysfunction, illegal gambling and small-town corruption. Massey lives in St. Petersburg and is a Florida native.
Kelly J. Ford is the author of Cottonmouths, named one of 2017’s best books of the year by the Los Angeles Review. Kelly is Arkansas bred and Boston based.
