LGBTQ+ in a Rural Community

Being LGBTQ+ in a Rural Community

When most people think of the LGBTQ+ community, they think of a big city. Not many would think that a number of LGBTQ+ people reside in rural areas, and often do so by choice. A study conducted in 2019 by the Movement Advancement Project found that there are between 2.9 and 3.8 million LGBTQ+ people who live in rural communities across America. 

Rural areas tend to be white, socially conservative, less tolerant of difference, religious, and economically disadvantaged (Boso, 2019). LGBTQ+ people can stand out in this environment, which can make them more vulnerable to discrimination. Rural areas also tend to have less support structures, meaning that LGBTQ+, and other people, have fewer options to turn to when they are struggling with something. Rural LGBTQ+ people may not speak publicly about their sexual orientation or gender identity to feel accepted if their community denounces LGBTQ+ people as a whole (Boso, 2019).

Even in communities where LGBTQ+ identities are acknowledged, full acceptance isn’t always guaranteed. A friend I spoke with who grew up in a rural community said that in their school, and wider community, it was okay to be LGBTQ+ in theory, but “if you actually knew a person was gay they were looked down on or not taken seriously” (personal communication, September 10, 2020). There were only a few individuals who were out at their school, and they felt that those students were “brave for being able to express themselves like [that] in this environment” (personal communication, September 10, 2020). Even though they were lucky to grow up in a supportive family environment, they were more comfortable not publicly coming out. This stemmed in part from the fact that in many rural communities anything that gets into the public sphere then exists under the town’s microscope. It’s much easier to get by if you keep the things that make you stand out from the crowd to yourself.

Schools in rural areas tend to face resource and teacher shortages, and tend to present a more hostile environment than urban schools with no educational alternatives available. In rural communities, a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) in their school may be the only place that LGBTQ+ students can receive support and feel accepted (Calzo et al., 2018). GSAs function as safe spaces for students to be themselves, and also typically advocate for policy changes that will make the school environment more friendly to LGBTQ+ students. But GSAs aren’t always as helpful as they could be: my rural high school didn’t have a GSA and in talking to the same friend I learned that their high school GSA only had 3-4 members and there was a certain amount of stigma associated with being a member (personal communication, September 10, 2020). We’ve talked before on this blog about the importance of LGBTQ+-inclusive sexual education, and neither my experience nor my friend’s was reflective of an inclusive approach. They stated that there was no non-heterosexual geared education or discussion in their sexual education classes, and that this fact wasn’t a point of contention; no one in the community “was like ‘We should be talking about that’” (personal communication, September 10, 2020).

When we both looked back on our time growing up in a rural, and in particular Midwestern, community we came to the same conclusion: being LGBTQ+ didn’t even cross our minds as an option, even in a supportive family environment. Approximately 10% of youth identify as LGBTQ+ (Movement Advancement Project, 2019), and at least some portion of those youth live in rural communities, facing the same doubts and perhaps not so supportive environments we did. I can only hope that someday LGBTQ+ people, myself included, enjoy acceptance and equality - no matter where they reside. 

References:

Boso, L.A. (2019). Rural resentment and lgbtq equality. Florida Law Review. 71(4), 919-978. 

Calzo, J. P., Yoshikawa, H., Bogart, L. M., Poteat, V. P. & Russell, S. T. (2018).

Person-environment fit and positive youth development in the context of high school gay-straight alliances. Journal of Research on Adolescence. DOI: 10.1111/jora.12456 

Movement Advancement Project. (2019). Where we call home: LGBT people in rural America.

Retrieved on October 4, 2020 from https://www.lgbtmap.org/file/lgbt-rural-report.pdf