Queer Ruralisms

by Jillian Impastato

introduction:

About 1 out of every 5 Americans live in a rural area. About 7.2% of adult Americans self-identify as queer. Over 3 million queer people live in rural areas in America, which makes up around 5% of the rural population and almost 20% of this country’s queers. I don’t really care about those numbers. But you and you and you and me are in the center of this Venn diagram.

This syllabus is a consideration of queer rural life and a poetic celebration of those who live it. It seeks to complicate the questions “What does queerness look and feel like outside of urban hubs?” and “How can a rural life contribute to my inner sense of queerness?”

I am defining Queer Ruralisms as the myriad ways that Queer people live, love, work, and be in community in Rural spaces. What do I mean by Queer? What do I mean by Rural? You create your own definitions in unit one.

Each unit takes you through a few prompts exploring a specific theme. That is followed by a final project (that you can actually submit to me and I promise I won’t grade you!). Finally, I have some recommendations for things to read and watch that can add to your experience of the units.

a personal note:

I love being a dyke in Maine :-)

I finally cut off all of my hair,
I finally have an intergenerational queer community,
and I finally have both beautiful + REAL examples of what my future could look like.

Please enjoy my silly little tasks and celebrate queer ruralisms! (Even, and especially, when your environment is telling you not to.)

unit one: self

Annotate the definitions of “queer” and “rural” until they feel accurate to you.
- You can start here, here, or with an interesting definition you heard once in a podcast, or how you first learned it as a kid, or how your mom would define it.
- Start by printing or writing them out and then adding marks (underlinings, asterisks, notes, and doodles).

Explore Sarah Stellino’s Queering Rural Spaces portfolio for 10 minutes.
- Who do you relate to? Who do you want to be your friend?

Put a cowboy hat (an object of personal queer significance) on your bookshelf (a location in your living space) and smile every time you look at it.
- Is this a self-portrait? Can it be?

unit two: community

Think for a moment about the queer figures in your rural life.
- The butch that rings you up at the corner store. The gas station attendant who complimented your haircut and had the same one. The barista you hope is queer. The distant co-worker who you know is not queer, but you claim their queerness with a daily wave nonetheless.
- Celebrate them! However you would like!

Find an online message board for your local rural community.
- Read through the posts and think about what this tells you about your community. Does reading these posts make you feel safe or unsafe? What dribbles of queerness do you find? What queerness can you read into it?

Go to a queer event (I know this may require a not insignificant amount of research and miles) and smile even if/when it is a bit silly.
- Does it feel silly because you are viewing it through someone else’s lens? Your friends back in the city? Your co-workers? Yourself a few years ago?
- Bonus: Are there any events or environments that you regularly join/find yourself in that you now realize are a little queerer than expected? Why do you think they didn’t come to mind at first?

unit three: land

Look at these two pictures of/by Laura Aguilar (1 & 2) for a few moments.
- How does your own body mimic your natural world?

Be outside, on a walk or in a forest or just sitting in a field; think about how small you are and how people have weird sex everywhere.
- Contemplate why queers sometimes fuck in the woods. How have the woods felt like a solace or shield to you? How can it help you feel connected to something larger?

Now do something that activates your body outdoors. Like a hike you have had on your list for a while, chopping or stacking wood, tai chi, etc. etc.
- What sensations are you experiencing? Do you feel particularly masculine or feminine? Strong? Self-sufficient? Sensual? Small?
- How do these sensations relate to your experience of your own gender? How do they relate to sensations you feel when you are in queer spaces? When you are in a queer relationship? When you are having sex?

final project:

Create, find, or appropriate a depiction of your Queer Ruralism. It can be a photograph of a place that fits the term for you. It could be a photograph of yourself or someone else that you deem a substantive example. It can be a work of art you made or a text from a friend or a tweet you found or a voice memo you made that one time you were drunk & happy reflecting on life. Anything really.

Maybe I will make a zine of these. Maybe I will just sit and think about each submission. Either way, thank you.

Submit it here (please).