Qweerness in the South

Since leaving the South, I've encountered a lot of people who have internalised the stereotypes of my home region--it's full of racists, it's full of backwoods hicks, folks have fucked up politics, people talk with hella thick accents, it's hotter'n hell.

So, like, all of these things are true--as they can be for anywhere people travel to, particularly if they're not from there! But I digress....

There's nothing that makes me raise my cackles faster, or gets a side-eye quicker than when people shit on the South. It's usually Northeasters who think they know something about something cuz they read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' or some shit or a 'liberal' West Coaster who imagines that they can change the mindset of one of the oldest regions of the US by simply getting people to 'relax'.

Fuckers, take that shit somewhere else.

The South is beautiful and complex and nuanced and its rich history is re-lived everyday--in the churches, at backyard BBQs, on front porches, in darkened rooms in the wee hours of the morning.

Qweerness functions in the same way. It's there, as it always has been. But to a 'savour-minded' outsider, it's easy to overlook. Because it's often not white, because it's not middle-class, because it's not 'liberal'. It's Black and Brown, it's working-class or straight up poor, it's in the churches, at the family reunions, it's leaning on fences catching up with neighbors, it's got its toes dug in the sand on a quiet beach. 

Qweerness is everywhere, because the South is hella qweer. Hella.