“You Can’t Leave Your Folk at the Door.” On Queer Life in Appalachia

Elandria Williams · they/them, 34 years old
Anitsalagi (Cherokee), S’atsoyaha (Yuchi), and Miccosukee lands · Knoxville, Tennessee · interviewed on August 11, 2013

Article continues after advertisement

Remove Ads

I first met Elandria, also known as E, in 2012 through the STAY Project. Over the next several years, I was blessed to get to learn from them, and to laugh and dance with them. Elandria was the kind of organizer whose brain and words moved so fast that the rest of us had to work hard to keep up. Without them, STAY wouldn’t exist, and without that early STAY crew, Country Queers wouldn’t exist. 

I interviewed E at the 2013 STAY Summer Institute, which took place at the Highlander Center, where they worked at the time. We spoke in the office building—which later, in 2019, would be burned down by white supremacists. On that hot August day, E sat at the conference table, stapling together packets of paper for a workshop they were preparing to lead. We laughed a lot. 

*

ELANDRIA: I live at the nexus of Appalachia and the South, in a city that thinks of itself as a town. Knoxville is the largest city in Appalachia, but one thing that’s different about it from every other place I’ve been to is that nobody only hangs out with one type of people. It’s not small enough where you feel like you have to close in and only hang with a certain type of people, and it’s also not big enough where—especially if you’re from here—you can just let go of all the people that you grew up with. You’re almost forced to have friends that are cross race. You’re forced to have friends that are everything.

So my friend group is all races of people, but also all sexualities. Which is different than a lot of places where people only have lesbian friends or they only have gay boy friends or they only have trans friends. But I’m like, “Nope, I have friends that are all those categories, and all different races of those categories, and we all hang out together.” It’s beautiful, and it’s one of the things I appreciate the most about Knoxville.

I was born here. The county where I grew up is mostly white, but I went to a pretty diverse school. I went to high school in Powell, not in a diverse school. As a young Black person, Powell sucked, in many ways, and I spent most of my time there doing organizing work trying to get rid of Confederate flags, trying to stop race fights, and all that. But they were good people. Because Powell was so intense, the people that I met there that I’m friends with, I’m really good friends with now.

I love basketball. It was actually all I really liked for a long time. My dad was a little freaked out about me playing on the basketball team because the coach was lesbian and he was like, “Oh my God, no!” So it was a fight to play sports, even though he wanted me to play, because he was like, “I already have a daughter who doesn’t want to be a girl.” So literally: I was not a girl in my life until I had a period and I thought I was internally bleeding, and I was like, “I need to go to the hospital immediately!” I was in Miami with my cousins, and they were like, “You are not dying. You are having a period.” And I was like, “No. We don’t have these!” Gender was always one of those complicated things where I was like, “I want to be a boy. I do not want to be a girl. Girls suck! I want to play football and basketball and enjoy my life.” I also have a twin brother. So there were decisions made at different points in my life around what gender looks like for me in terms of expression.

Sexualitywise, I identify as pansexual, which for me means, I date some dudes, some women, and trans folk, mostly trans men. But I’m pretty picky! Gender stuff for me is complicated. I’d rather not do either one. I also live in a place where I don’t feel like having a conversation about it all the time. There’s a whole group of people that I work with in the Brown Boi Project, and we talk a lot about what it means to be in the middle, and for us ourselves to be in whatever gender presentation we’re in—because there’s something bigger. We have other things that need to be moved, and the primary conversation doesn’t need to be about gender; it needs to be about other things. So yeah, I don’t know if I identify as a girl. But, you know, that’s how I present. It’s easiest for me to do what I need to do.

I don’t actually know if I identify as a country queer. I mean, I feel like I identify as someone who is from a small zone. I feel like I identify as someone who is tied to the land. I mean, country is complicated, and it’s partly based upon my own internalization. Let’s just go there, right? I hated East Tennessee. My entire life. Hated it. My family is from rural Florida, and that was fine with me. When I think country, I think East Tennessee, and it took me twenty-three years to be fine with East Tennessee. Now I’m okay, but it took a long, long time. I mean, I couldn’t identify as an urbanite, so I guess that’s the other option—country or small town.

Here’s actually how I feel—I’m able to straddle everything, and I am just as comfortable going into the country bar and doing the thing and just having a good-ass time as I am sitting at the football game, as I am being at the gay bar in the city. Like, all of it is fine. And I think that is what it means for me to be a country queer, is that you can’t leave your folk at the door. You can’t act like you grew up with people that weren’t like the people that are acting all kinds of crazy in all kinds of ways.

And it’s different! I go to New York all the time, and there’s definitely a difference. I can’t handle New York but for so long, and I’m like, “I got to go!” And what being queer means in New York is not what it means for me.

So now, I’m very happy with it. I wasn’t for a very long time. But I’m very happy now, and one thing that I feel is really important is for other people to feel happy and rooted in who they are, and from whence they came, and to be really thankful.

*

E passed away unexpectedly on September 23, 2020, following a heart surgery. E was a brilliant, energetic force of nature who dedicated their life to organizing and uplifting many communities across the United States and the global South. E was the executive director at PeoplesHub at the time of their passing, after spending the previous eleven years working at Highlander. They were active with many other groups, including Black Lives Matter-Knoxville and the Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism. You can hear more of our conversation in season 1 of the Country Queers podcast.

E did more than any other individual I’ve known to support new generations of southern and Appalachian queer, trans, and youth of color in sharpening our analysis, claiming our seats at the table, and fighting for a future in this region where each one of us can thrive. 

My last communication with E took place via email, a couple months before they passed, when I wrote to get their approval on their interview excerpt for the podcast, E shared the following:

*

The only other thing I would add is that I identify as a Black, southern/Appalachian, disabled, genderqueer, pansexual, no college degree-having, Unitarian Universalist “auntiemama” to three incredible nieces and nephews and four godkids. I’m 41 and I have been organizing since I was 14. Much of my work is now rooted in disability justice and spiritual fortification. As a disabled person who comes from deep spiritual and faith roots, I know we must put fortification, restoration, love, community care, wellness, and transformation at the center of all that we do.

We are in a battle for humanity and for all living creatures to be seen and respected as the divine. Until we see the divine in ourselves we cannot see the divine in others. That is the work that is ahead of us and has been for generations: loving ourselves and our folks enough that we can transform this world into a place that we have never seen.

Rest in peace and power, beloved Elandria Thank you for teaching us.

__________________________

Excerpted from Country Queers: A Love Letter, by Rae Garringer. Copyright © 2024. Available from Haymarket Books.