ABSTRACT
This chapter explores constructions of sexual identity and gender roles within the working class rural settings. Using an autobiographical lens as a White, blue collar, rural Southern lesbian raised as a fundamentalist Christian, the author theorizes place-making by way of the particularities of race, social class, gender, sexuality, and religion. Recognizing that queer images tend to be associated with urban culture, through her own life, she discusses what it means to think and live queerly within rural Southern cultures. Next the author describes place as social, cultural, and geographical constructs before turning to the specificities of North Alabama where she grew up. Next, she describes rural queerness as multiple, varied, and complex and in excess of (while not losing account of) prevailing images of oppressive and graphic violence against people in rural settings: Offering a description of what it was like to learn about lesbians in a small country town, the author explores queer memory and the formation of her own identity with particular focus on her relationship to the church. She concludes with a discussion of the ways queer fundamentalist Christian conversations complicate the field of curriculum studies.
