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Queering the Midwest: Forging LGBTQ Community

Online ISBN:
9781479801893
Print ISBN:
9781479801862
Publisher:
NYU Press
Book

Queering the Midwest: Forging LGBTQ Community

Clare Forstie
Clare Forstie
University of Minnesota
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Published online:
18 May 2023
Published in print:
25 October 2022
Online ISBN:
9781479801893
Print ISBN:
9781479801862
Publisher:
NYU Press

Abstract

For the LGBTQ community in River City, drag shows that test the capacity of bars persist alongside wishes for stronger community. In this examination of LGBTQ community, I highlight the ambivalence of LGBTQ lives in a small city in the rural Midwest. Drawing on in-depth interviews, ethnographic research, and friendship mapping, I reveal how community spaces are disappearing and emerging, LGBTQ people feel safe and unrecognized, and friendships do and don’t matter. In this community, non-LGBTQ allies are essential support for their LGBTQ friends and organizations, but sometimes their support comes at a cost. Those who find they feel most comfortable and safe also align with community norms, forming with and connecting to families and identities that are the majority in River City. I share the story of a community that does not fit neatly into a narrative of progress or decline. Rather, it’s a little bit of both. My ambivalent community framework reveals the ways we might think about our communities and relationships more authentically, embracing the contradictions that inform the possibilities for change.

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