Queer Appalachia Says Y'all = All (Photos)

Feisty politics meet down home aesthetics at Queer Appalachia. If you live in one of the big cities, you may be feeling, dread, fear, and disgust at the state of the union. Now set a spell and think about being a queer person in the rural South and what that's like. These people kick shit. And they do it with heart-warming humor and a unique perspective.

Here’s a mission statement: "So often with undocumented cultures & communities there is a gatekeeper. An archivist, sociologist, anthropologist, or historian that curates, that decides who & what is documented and who or what is omitted and left out of history. Someone with access to higher education and resources, that most, especially in our impoverished region do not have. That does not happen with Queer Appalachia / Electric Dirt, we rely heavily on submissions. The underrepresented and misrepresented get to represent themselves. We get to define Queer Appalachia & the Queer South with your own images & truths. By embracing a combination of contemporary technology and social media, we are in a constant state of documenting our #culture, #community, #lives and #history / #herstory. Queer Appalachia is a place for us to share those truths and find each other. We survive and even thrive through sharing tales of wildcrafting our queerness, foraging for pieces of ourselves within the intersections of coal mines and class, race and religion, food, justice, and colonialism.”

“How can I help?” you ask. Step right up to the Electric Dirt crowdfunding page and take a gander at the great rewards for helping make the Electric Dirt zine a reality. 

We really want the enamel license plate pin. Good stuff.

And don’t stop there. Be sure to follow them on Facebook and check out their Instagram page. (All the images in this slide show were contributions to their Instagram page.) Follow them on Twitter here.

Art above by Matthew Conway.