Reconciling LGB and Christian Identities in the Rural South

Abstract

Drawing on in-depth interviews with rural Christians living in the South who identify as lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB), this study analyzes how they negotiate their religious, geographic, and sexual identities. We find that most interviewees employed two strategies to reconcile their Christian and gay identities: emphasizing a personal connection to an accepting God and finding a local church in their rural community in which they felt accepted. We argue that rural contexts influenced interviewees' reliance on these strategies and show how individuals can construct multiple interpretations about themselves, which do not always align with existing cultural assumptions. In addition, we argue that gender differences exist with regard to participants' residential choices and the importance they place on "community". We find that, in general, women value the privacy and freedom afforded to them in rural areas, a sentiment that is echoed in their religious choices while many of the men value the close knit community they find in their small towns.

Understanding Sexual Minority Health Disparities in Rural Areas

“…Research on sexual minority health disparities by rural/urban status finds conflicting results with some work reporting no significant differences between rural and urban sexual minorities (Fisher et al, ; Wienke & Hill, ), others reporting positive LGB experiences in rural areas (Oswald & Culton, ; Woodell et al, ), and others still who document challenges for LGB people living in rural environments (Brotman et al, ; Swank et al, ). This review provides three avenues for future directions that could help to better understand these conflicting findings.…”

“…However, most previous literature examining sexual minority health disparities by location draws on participants from only one geographic region (Farmer et al, 2016) or includes no mention of region (e.g., Barefoot et al, 2015; for an exception see Swank et al, 2012). The regions of study in the articles discussed in this review include the Midwest (e.g., Fisher et al, 2014;Holman & Oswald, 2011), the South (e.g., Barton, 2012;Woodell et al, 2015), the Northeast (e.g., Kirkey & Forsyth, 2001), and the West (e.g., Leedy & Connolly, 2007). While these studies each examine the experiences of sexual minorities, most do not acknowledge the impact that regional culture may have on the health and well-being of this group.…”

Theory Making from the Middle: Researching LGBTQ Communities in Small Cities

“…), especially rural LGBTQ communities in the South (Gray ; Mattson ; Whitlock ; Woodell et al. ) and Midwest (Forstie ; Kazyak ; Schmitz and Woodell ), although, as Stone () notes, this research is far from common in sociological research on LGBTQ lives more generally. This research has consistently responded to the ongoing “metronormativity” (Halberstam ) of LGBTQ community research that reinforces a normative narrative of rural‐to‐urban migration (Myrdahl ; Weston ) while neglecting “middle”‐sized places like small cities almost entirely (Mattson ; Stone ).…”

“…Early research on rural LGBTQ communities focused largely on the histories and lives of rural and small-town gay and lesbian people (Bell and Valentine 1995;Fellows 2001;Forsyth 1997;Johnson 2013;Kirkey and Forsyth 2001;McCarthy 2000;Weston 1995). Over the last decade or so, there has been a kind of explosion of research on rural LGBTQ communities (Gray et al 2016), especially rural LGBTQ communities in the South (Gray 2009;Mattson 2018;Whitlock 2009;Woodell et al 2015) and Midwest (Forstie 2018;Kazyak 2012;Schmitz and Woodell 2018), although, as Stone (2018) notes, this research is far from common in sociological research on LGBTQ lives more generally. This research has consistently responded to the ongoing "metronormativity" (Halberstam 2005) of LGBTQ community research that reinforces a normative narrative of rural-to-urban migration (Myrdahl 2013;Weston 1995) while neglecting "middle"-sized places like small cities almost entirely (Mattson 2018;Stone 2018).…”

Introduction to special issue “Geographies of Sexualities”

“…As scholars work to create knowledge about same-sex sexualities in areas of the globe where there has been little attention thus far, scholars also acknowledge the barriers and challenges to doing such work (Blidon & Zaragocin, 2019;Piton ak & Klingorov a, 2019;Silva & Ornat, 2016). Further, scholarship focused on small towns and rural areas in the United States provides another challenge to dominant narratives that posit these spaces as wholly unfavorable for lesbian, bisexual, and queer-identified women's lives (Barton, 2012;Eaves, 2016;Forstie, 2018;Gray, 2009;Oswald & Culton, 2003;Oswald & Lazarevic, 2011;Woodell, Kazyak, & Compton, 2015). Such work highlights how some lesbian, bisexual, and queer-identified women experience small towns as spaces where they can be out, accepted, and visible, and that their interpretations rely on making distinctions between urban and rural LGBTQ identities (Kazyak, 2011(Kazyak, , 2012Thomsen, 2016).…”