by Rae Garringer
University Press of Kentucky
4/1/2025, paperback
SKU: 9781985901834
Appalachia has long been flattened into a white, Christian, and conservative place. While many Appalachians embrace those labels, they fail to acknowledge the presence of communities of color and of queer, trans, and Two-Spirit people across the region. Religious fundamentalism, white supremacy, homophobia, and transphobia continue to oppress queer and gender-expansive Appalachians, especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. These realities have adversely affected queer and trans folks' ability to claim their rightful places within the region.
To Belong Here delves into how queer, trans, and Two-Spirit Appalachian people make sense of life in the mountains. Featuring contributors whose identities across race, gender, and socioeconomic background make for a uniquely intersectional look at the area, this collection provides a nuanced understanding of Appalachia and what it means to represent it. Themes of erasure, environmentalism, violence, kinship, racism, Indigeneity, queer love, and trans liberation course through the volume and exemplify the writers' resilience in reconciling their complex and often contradictory connections to home.
A collective exploration of rejection and acceptance, To Belong Here calls for a more inclusive future in Appalachia—one where everyone can thrive.
Reviews:
"A superb and necessary collection. Imagine the suffering and suicide that might have been avoided had such a collection been available in the 1960s. I do imagine it. The movement from there to here enables me to keep faith." — Fenton Johnson, author of At the Center of All Beauty: Solitude and the Creative Life
"A vital, provocative look at the gender expansiveness and the racialized experiences of BIPOC Appalachians in rural landscapes. This collection answers 'What is home? Who belongs here?' with a resounding song: all of us. Appalachia is not a monolith; this collection reminds us that even expats are not in exile, but can return home, can belong." — Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza, cofounder of Boshemia
About the Author:
Rae Garringer is a writer, oral historian, and audio producer living on S'atsoyaha (Yuchi) and Šaawanwaki (Shawnee) lands in southeastern West Virginia where they were raised. They are the founder of the multimedia oral history project and podcast Country Queers, and the author of Country Queers: A Love Letter.