It’s Pride month, sinners, and with that comes a melange of
rainbow-slathered everything. Yay, love! Yay, parades! As queerness becomes
more marketable, however, it risks becoming more whitewashed. So! To keep
the “homo” out of homogenization, we spoke with the city’s queer and
creative about the media that influenced them most as they were coming
out—a reminder that there’s no one right way to forge an identity.
Devlyn Camp, creator of the Mattachine podcast
Dolly Parton as a whole entity was very important to me growing up. There
are few country icons who are both meaningful to queers and traditional
Appalachian families. Dolly Parton was that crossover for me. I could sing
along to her songs with my country-proper grandpa and nothing about it felt
strange or forced, and I knew it was meaningful to both of us. I remember
seeing Dolly playing the banjo with inch-long acrylics, and my country
femme idol appeared just like that. Being a high, hard femme from the
country (or what I lovingly call a “dirt femme”), I try to show that there
are more dynamics to us Appalachian queers while still doing work to
support my home, even from a distance—I learned that from Dolly.
39, he/him
Morgan Martinez, editor in chief of Hooligan Mag
In high school, I started listening to a lot of feminine punk bands and emo
music made by nonbinary folks and noncismen. I’d internalized so much
misogyny when I was younger and had just dismissed womanhood, so that was a
way for me to reengage.
