Southern Queer Ecologies
Hays, Alister
Citations
Abstract
The queer communities in the United States South have a colorful and rich history that has been neglected by queer scholars for far too long. While homophobic ideas were rampant throughout the South, communities worked to resist oppressive ideas, often by forming their own spaces where they knew they could explore their desires, ideals, passions, and beliefs. In the Deep South, these spaces were frequently divided along the lines of race, class, and gender. This is a story of how queer individuals in Knoxville, Atlanta, and Savannah created their own spaces in an often oppressive, homophobic environment; and what happened when these community groups crossed lines to form alliances to fight against heteronormative institutions in a post-Stonewall South and how they grappled with misogyny, racism, and the AIDS epidemic.
