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Country Queers

@countryqueers

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An oral history project gathering rural & small town LGBTQIA2S+ stories since 2013. Links in bio for Podcast, Patreon, & Book!

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[UPDATE: Application window extended to Nov. 4!]

We are delighted to announce a winter writing retreat for adults (18+) led by celebrated authors Samaa Abdurraqib, Eli Clare, & Rae Garringer. Tap through for short workshop descriptions & see the full workshop descriptions at the link in our bio!

18 writers of all genres & experience levels are invited to apply to join us for a retreat over five days (Tuesday - Saturday December 1 - 5, 2026) with:

- three mornings of workshop time in small cohorts
- additional whole-group gatherings with OITO staff, the host writers, and other attendees
- optional 1:1 sessions with host writers
- open retreat time for creative work and to explore this southern Vermont campus
- dinner Tuesday; breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks Wednesday-Friday; breakfast & lunch on Saturday; and workshop materials will be provided.

This experience will be residential, with an option for local people to commute daily. We will be meeting at a rural campus within 30 minutes of Brattleboro, VT.

This Retreat is offered on a sliding scale, with no one turned away for lack of funds.

Tap through to learn about the workshop facilitators and their offerings during this retreat and the application process.

We hope to see an application from you! <3 by @countryqueers

This book came out 2 years ago today and it never ceases to amaze me how it keeps finding its way to new people and places without me having to do anything to make it happen.

In the eleven years of the project before the book was born I drove who knows how many thousands of miles in multiple now-dead cars. And I spent so many days, and weeks, and months at the computer working with the editorial team to thread these stories together. There were so many people at every step of this project who helped make it happen, from the people who shared their stories with me, to the friends and family who supported me behind the scenes, to all the many people who donated to crowdfunding campaigns over the years, to the volunteers who transcribed interviews, to the folks who sent in recordings of their voices for the intro of the podcast, and of course Lewis, and Sharon and hermelinda: the editorial dream team!

That’s also been true for the book portion of the project over the past two years: soooo many people have helped spread the word, or bought the book, or organized and come out to book events ++++. But never before in going-on 14 years of this project have these stories traveled around so far and wide without me having to do a single thing. It’s just mind-boggling to me, and such a relief, that the book keeps finding its way into new homes, new libraries, new porches, new living rooms, and libraries, and bookstores. Thank you to all the people who keep making that happen, thank you to @haymarketbooks, thank you to everyone who’s bought a copy or requested one at your library, thanks to all the independent bookstores who decided to honor these stories by giving them a spot on your shelves, and thank you thank you thank you to all the country queers in these pages, and beyond, who trusted me to come sit with you awhile and listen to what you wanted to tell me.

I still can’t believe that fantasy of taking a roadtrip to meet other country queers way back in 2013 ended up becoming this whole tapestry of stories all these years later.

happy second birthday book. I love watching you do your thing out there in the world without me.

💜✨🪩 by @countryqueers

RIP to the Queen of Fabulachia. Thanks for teaching us how to sparkle with mountain pride.

“Rae: How do you feel about being a country queer?

Ethan: Oh I love it! Both identities have such a strong sense of community, so I’m able to be a better gay person because I’m a better Appalachian. They play into each other very well.

I also think we see the world in a very different way. Like the gay community at large has this really weird obsession with country music queens like Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. Cause they speak to us, the gays, in general.

But see, the country queers can appreciate it a little bit more because those are our girls. Them girls was raised where we was raised.”

✨🪩✨excerpt from an interview with
Ethan Hamblin from Gays Creek, KY
recorded on the porch of the Highlander Center in east Tennessee at the 2013 STAY Project Summer Institute by @countryqueers

💫 Get to Know the AppalCore 💫

🏁 What’s your name + where are you from?
🐐 My name is Rae Garringer. I grew up on a sheep farm in southeastern West Virginia and now live about a county and a half away from where I was raised.

🏁 How long have you been involved with Waymakers Collective?
🐐 I just joined AppalCore in January of this year! I was honored and grateful to receive a Queer Arts Liberation Fund Grant in 2024 which enabled me to dig deeper into my practice and study of different styles of creative nonfiction writing through taking multiple online workshops with writers I admire. In-person writing workshops are often financially and physically inaccessible to me as a chronically ill, solo dairy goat farmer in southern WV, so it was a real gift. Before that, I’ve admired Waymakers from afar since its founding, and have followed along through updates from friends who’ve been involved since the beginning.

🏁 What do you do for work + play?
🐐 I’m a writer, oral historian, and goat farmer and am often working on a few (or way!) too many projects at once. I’m currently working with an organization based in Maine and Vermont, called Out in the Open, to direct a two-year-long oral history project focused on rural LGBTQ+ experiences, histories, and cultures in Northern New England. I’m also consulting on an oral history project with former members of ACT UP D.C. I’m slowly working on a future book which is a collection of personal essays. And I’m hanging out with a small herd of dairy goats: failing miserably at keeping them in fences, chasing ornery baby goats off shed roofs and the hood of my truck, milking and making cheese, and taking lots of walks in the woods with them.

My main source of fun in the summertime is spending time in all these gorgeous ancient WV rivers (which are actually heaven) with my friends and my dogs.

🏁 Tell us something interesting about you or a little known fact…
🐐 I *love* monster truck rallies and rodeos. Alot. I also think the West Virginia State Fair is the best fair in the universe.

<<< continued in comments >>> by @countryqueers

✨TRANS NEWS THAT DOESN’T SUCK✨
Did you know there’s a book dedicated to rural queer life? Check out @countryqueers for some queer positivity this Pride :] #goodnews #lgbtq #pridemonth🏳️‍🌈
If you want more #transnews that doesn’t suck, be sure to subscribe to my newsletter at the link in my bio :) by @countryqueers

popping out of internet hibernation to plug some books that are getting me through these end times:

1. “Pretty: A Memoir” by KB Brookins is out next week in paperback from @aaknopf! The first memoir about Black transmasc experience to be published by a top 5 publisher? Chock full of gorgeously written musings on gender, race, and KB’s deep and abiding love for his home of Texas (even as it grows ever more complicated for many of us to love the places that raised us when they don’t love us back)? Count me ALL. THE. WAY. IN.

2. Happy happy happy pub week to Beth Howard whose memoir “Song for a Hard-hit People: A Memoir of Antiracist Solidarity from a Coal Miner’s Daughter” is out now from @haymarketbooks! A must read, especially for folks outside central Appalachia who want a more complex understanding of this place and for anyone interested in rural working class organizing.

3. Books I’m currently reading and loving are: “Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir” by Zoë Bossiere, “The Dad Rock That Made Me A Woman” by Niko Stratis, and “Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune 2052-2072” by M.E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi

4. Books I read this winter and loved include: “Tar Hollow Trans” by Stacy Jane Grover (finally!! years late!), “The Berry Pickers” by Amanda Peters, “Nearly Roadkill” by Kate Bornstein and Caitlin Sullivan, “Me and My Daddy Listen to Bob Marley” by Ann Pancake, and “Unfurl: Survivals, Sorrows, and Dreaming” by Eli Clare which is gutwrenchingly stunning.

Signing off (to continue being way too overwhelmed by the internet to hangout here anymore), but I hope you’ll read something good amidst the chaos, and prioritize books written by Black and Indigenous writers and writers of color, queer and trans writers, and especially those of us living & writing far outside of big cities on the coasts.

We’re out here and we’re writing for our lives. Beautifully. by @countryqueers

Repost: ✨Queering Indigeneity Artists' Roundtable Webinars! ✨

“The M @mnmuseum announces two virtual conversations with collaborating artists who shaped Queering Indigeneity.

Join us as we take this opportunity to create a resource of knowledge and teachings by Two-Spirit and Native Queer artists. Through their lives and experiences, each artist is a Culture-Bearer who cares deeply about relatives of today and in the future. This webinar represents a rare conversation created to empower and affirm community.

RSVP by filling out the form found at the web address below or by emailing nwatson [at] mmaa [dot] org. An event link will be emailed to webinar participants the day before each Roundtable.

Wednesday April 8, 2026 12-1:15pm CST
Nick Metcalf, Awanigiizhik Bruce, Awanaabe Syverson, Zoe Allen

Wednesday April 15, 2026 12-1:15pm CST
Sharon Day, Ryan Young, Madeline Treuer

Please help us celebrate their diverse perspectives. They’ll be joined by curators Penny Kagigebi @pennykagigebi and Ben Gessner.

https://mmaa.org/mevents/tag/qi/" by @countryqueers

Join us for the 6th Annual 'Rethinking Thanksgiving' webinar!
Date: Sunday, Nov 23 at 4pm ET / 1pm PT
Theme: "Colonialism is the Problem, Solidarity is the Answer"
Register: tinyurl.com/2025rethinking
(Link in bio of @_catalystproject_)

ASL, Spanish Interpretation and live captions in English.

We're excited for the 2025 presenters:

✨Lara Kiswani is from Aqir and Beit Iksa, Palestine, and is the executive director of the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC) serving, and organizing thousands of working class Arabs and Muslims across the SF Bay Area.

✨Eve Reyes-Aguirre (Izkaloteka Mexica Azteca), Indigenous rights advocate and organizer working for decolonization and land sovereignty, with @tonatierra_org

✨Nisrin Elamin is an Assistant Professor of African Studies and Anthropology at the University of Toronto. Nisrin is a member of the Sudan Solidarity Collective which provides material support to mutual aid networks and unions at the forefront of relief efforts in Sudan.

✨Cindi Martin is an Anishinaabe Deaf woman from Red Lake Nation, raised in South Minneapolis. She is the Managing Director for Indigenous Interpreters Organization (IIO).

Indigenous-led movements can create a liberated future in these times of climate collapse and fascism! We'll uplift movements of Indigenous Peoples, and confront the ongoing reality of genocide and ecocide, from Turtle Island to Sudan to Palestine.

Sponsors: Tonatierra; Indigenous Environmental Network, Honor the Earth; American Indian Law Alliance; Indigenous Solidarity Network; Catalyst Project; Showing up for Racial Justice (SURJ); Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) Action; Deaf Queer Resource Center; 350.org; Spirit of Mandela, Christians for a Free Palestine; Sudan Solidarity Collective; Jewish Voice for Peace; Anticolonial Arrivants; Land Justice Futures; Olive Guardians; Westchester for Palestine.

#IndigenousSovereignty #RethinkingThanksgiving #Palestine #FreePalestine #Sudan #ClimateJustice #DecolonizeNow #HonorMotherEarth #HonorTheTreaties #SelfDetermination #EnvironmentalJustice #IndigenousPeoplesRights #ArmsEmbargoNow #BDS by @countryqueers

Working in farming can include a large amount of stress, and suicide rates within the agricultural sector are two to three times higher than any other industry. Combined with intersectional identities from minority populations facing political scrutiny, the suicide rates for LGBTQ+ people working in farming is even higher.

🎙️In this conversation with adviser Rae Garringer, founder of the multimedia project Country Queers (@countryqueers), 2025 Mental Well-Being in the U.S. Reporting Fellow Nicole J. Caruth (@itscoleecole) discusses the efforts by a queer farmer couple in Texas to care for their community.

🔗 Listen to the full conversation at the link in our bio. by @countryqueers

✍️ @julesinurpocket Since 2013, West Virginia’s Rae Garringer has been documenting the untold stories of rural queer and trans folks through Country Queers, a multimedia oral history project and podcast turned book, Country Queers: A Love Letter. From isolated beginnings to a movement connecting communities across the South and Midwest, Country Queers' work challenges stereotypes and uplifts queer joy beyond the city. by @countryqueers

This pretty country boy of a book turns 1 today! Thank you to everyone who supported its creation & everyone who has supported it in the wild by coming out to book talks from Mississippi to Maine, buying a copy for yourself or a friend, and requesting that your local small town libraries to order a copy over the past year! Endless gratitude to all of you country queers featured in the book who invited me into your homes & trusted me with your stories over the past 12 years.

To mark the birthday of the book I want to try to raise some funds for the Lill Prosperino Harm Reduction Scholarship & Memorial Fund (link in bio) to honor the legacy of a magical & fierce trans Appalachian country queer organizer we lost this summer. Anyone who donates at least $25 to the fund by 10/18 will be entered into a drawing to receive a signed copy of the book, a country queers Tshirt, plus some other snail mail treats from me. Screenshot proof of donation & send it in a dm to this account by 10/18 to enter your name in the drawing. 🖤💜🖤

(2018 Photo of Lill with banner at @stayproject summer institute by @loumurrey. Last photo from altar at Appalachian Punk Fest 2025) by @countryqueers