Out Back Home: An Exploration of Queer Identity & Community in Rural Nova Scotia

by

Kelly Baker

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at

Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia April 2009

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Appendices Copyright Releases (if applicable) Table of Contents

Abstract vi Acknowledgements vii

Chapter 1: Introduction Uncovering Rural GLBT Communities 1 Rural Nova Scotia as a Case Study 2 Sexuality and Space 6 Rural/Urban Hierarchies 8 Identity, Community, and the Anthropology of Sexuality 10 Sample/Recruitment 22 Research Methods - Interviews 15 Research Methods - Oral History 16 The "Native" Anthropologist 17 Chapter Breakdown 18

Chapter 2: Locating GLBT People in Rural Space 20 Sexuality and Space 20 Situating Participants: "Coming Out" in Rural Space 25 Choosing to Live in Rural Space 27 Acceptance & Homophobia in Rural Space 31 Summary 37

Chapter 3: Constructing GLBT Identity & Community in Rural Space 39 Queer Theory Critiques of GLBT Identity & Community 40 Accessing GLBT Identity and Community Within Rural Space 44 GLBT Identity, Community, and Urban Space 48 Limitations of Urban GLBT Community 53 Summary 57

Chapter 4: Exploring Rural GLBT Identity & Community 58 The Rural/Urban Binary and GLBT Identity 58 Situating GLBT Identity & Community in Non-metropolitan Contexts 60 Space, Place, and Rural Identity 69 "They Already Knew Me": Rural Identity & Community Interdependence 71 Rural GLBT Identity: Contesting the Closet Model 74 Summary 79

Chapter 5: Conclusions 81

iv References 85 Appendix i: Profile of Participants 90 Appendix ii: Map of Nova Scotia 94 Appendix iii: Chronology of Rainbow Flag Issue 95

v Abstract

Historically rooted in cities, GLBT identities and communities have been mapped onto a narrative of rural-to-urban migration. Often mythologized as homophobic, rural space is valued insofar as it is left behind; the symbolic role played by the urban/rural distinction in the construction of GLBT subjectivity has been largely overlooked. Indeed, while there was evidence of pressures to conform, participants experienced a surprising level of tolerance and acceptance. On the other hand, some noted the "closeted" nature of many rural GLBT individuals. The isolation of rural life also required in some cases, additional effort to find or access GLBT community. For some, this involved, in various ways, access to, or, physically going to, the city. On the other hand, however, the urban GLBT community was not always experienced as "home". Class and cultural differences between urban and rural queers overshadowed the sharing of a GLBT identity. At the same time, many participants spoke of the thriving rural GLBT communities throughout Nova Scotia.

VI Acknowledgements

I would like to begin by thanking my research participants, whose time, energy, passion, and benevolence made this research possible. This project is dedicated to you. I would also like to thank my supervisor, Liz Fitting, whose guidance and support throughout this entire process I could not have done without. Thank you so very much. I would also like to say thank you to my parents, whose unconditional love and support throughout my university career has given me the confidence and the will to succeed. And last, but not least, thank you Casey. Your enthusiasm and support during the final stages rekindled my passion and inspiration. To the rest of the graduate class, thank you very much for your friendship and support. I wish you all the best of luck in the future.

VII Chapter 1; Introduction

"After attending Pride parades in Halifax and Moncton, I realized that there was little visibility of rural LGBT folks. This has been in stark contrast to what I see and experience. For the past five years my spouse and I have been a part of a thriving, growing, and fascinating LGBT rural community. Perhaps this is one of the best kept LGBT secrets " - "A Rural Point of View" Wayves Magazine, Halifax, June, 2008.

Uncovering Rural GLBT Communities

As local historian Robin Metcalfe points out, Halifax has had a prominent history of gay and lesbian community organizing and activism (1997). But as a small city located in the Maritimes, Halifax's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT)1 community has had to struggle to get its particular issues raised and its voice heard within the wider GLBT movement (ibid.). These issues have been even more difficult for GLBT communities in rural areas. Indeed, many of the problems faced by rural gays are similar to the problems faced by those in cities almost two decades prior; many rural GLBT communities are still relatively isolated and are struggling to establish networks and create spaces within which GLBT people feel safe (Warner, 1994, p.308). They are becoming increasingly concerned about getting their particular issues raised and their voices heard - yet the presence of such communities, "rarely penetrate[s] the consciousness of the mainstream [GLBT] movement" (ibid.). Since GLBT

11 use GLBT, queer, and gay and lesbian interchangeably in this thesis. See page 11 for a further discussion of participants' self-identification.

1 identity, and more recently "queer" identity - as a reclaimed, and more inclusive term2 - emerged historically in urban areas (ibid; D'Emilio, 1989;

Phillips, 2000), gays, lesbians, and transgendered people are often assumed to live in cities (Weston, 1998). This assumption is reflected in both Queer Theory

and history which trace such sexual identities and collectivities back to major

coastal cities but often fail to consider or include the histories of rural folk

(Phillips, 2000). In this way, rural experiences can be marginalized, and rural

space has been either ignored or misrepresented within much GLBT or queer writing (Phillips, 2000; Halberstam, 2005).

Rural Nova Scotia as a Case Study

It's very unique...what is happening here in northern Nova Scotian communities... for counties the size of Truro and Amherst and Pictou ...to be having Pride celebrations of their own. That doesn't happen too much in other small communities in Canada. -member of Wayves magazine collective speaking at the LGBT Town Hall Meeting, June 17, 2008.

Unlike many other Canadian provinces, Nova Scotia continues to have a high percentage of rural dwellers. With a rural population of nearly 50%, Nova

Scotia has the third highest rural population in the country.3 Having faced a decline in both agriculture and fisheries - Nova Scotia's two primary industries -

2 Please see Chapter 3 for a discussion of how "queer" can also destabilize a unified identity claim. 3 This includes Cape Breton. Statistics Canada. Nova Scotia's urban and rural population, 2002.

2 many rural communities are currently suffering from high unemployment rates, low levels of income, and high levels of out-migration (Harley, 2001; RCIP, 2004).

While sustainable community development has been recognized by the provincial government as crucial to the strength and prosperity of rural areas, local efforts on the part of rural communities to develop sustainable communities have often been under-appreciated and under-funded (Elliot, 2005, p.14).

In recent years, multiple research initiatives have taken place to help bolster the development of healthy, sustainable communities throughout rural

Nova Scotia. The Coastal Communities Network (CCP), along with the Rural

Communities Impacting Policy Project (RCIP), has been active in helping to

"promot[e] the survival and enhancement" of the province's rural communities

(ibid, p.l). Official reports borne from such initiatives have lauded such Nova

Scotian communities as having a strong sense of community spirit and community values, as well as a deep appreciation for those who help work to strengthen them (ibid, p.30).

Last summer, however, tensions emerged among a number of northern counties when the mayor of Truro started what some have called a "rural trend" of refusing to raise the pride flag during Nova Scotia's gay pride week celebrations. Citing his religious convictions, he stated that "God says 'I'm not in favour'...and I have to look at it and say, I guess I'm not either" (cbcnews.ca,

3 Aug, 2007). Both Pictou and Cumberland counties followed, implementing policies which would prevent non-government flags from being flown on municipal poles. While the mayor's position may have confirmed for many the stereotyped beliefs surrounding small town backwardness and oppression, this incident was also covered in the media and allowed the issues and experiences of rural GLBT Nova Scotians' to gain visibility and recognition throughout the province and across Canada. It illuminated the fact that Nova Scotia contains a number of rural GLBT communities, who are actively promoting acceptance and equality within their wider rural communities.

My research explores the identities and experiences of "community" among lesbians, gays and transgendered people living in rural Nova Scotia.

Using in-depth interviews and participant observation, I consider how sexual identity is spatially constructed outside of the urban centre, and uncover the ways in which rural GLBT identities and communities are experienced. Because academic and popular representations of rural areas often portray them as traditional — and thus are assumed to be heterosexual — I look at peoples' reasons for living outside the city. How do rural settings influence the ways rural GLBT individuals identify? Do those who decide to stay in, or return to, their rural hometowns feel integrated within their communities? Do they experience a sense of commonality with other people in their area? Is

4 "community" actively sought? In examining such questions, I hope to illuminate the continued presence of GLBT communities throughout rural Nova Scotia, and highlight the ways they may challenge dominant notions of sexual identity, community, and space.

The experiences of my participants were varied: On the one hand, individuals experienced a surprising level of tolerance and, in many cases, acceptance. On the other hand, however, there was evidence of pressures to conform. Some participants noted the "closeted" nature of many rural GLBT individuals, while others appeared to negotiate their sexuality or their

"difference" as a way to foster inclusion within the rural community.

Experiences of community were also mixed: the isolation of rural life required, in some cases, additional effort to find or access a sense of collectivity or shared sexual identity. For some, this involved, in various ways, access to, or, physically going to, the city. Yet the urban GLBT community was not always experienced as "home". Class and cultural differences between urban and rural gays overshadowed the sharing of a GLBT identity. At the same time, participants spoke of the thriving rural GLBT communities throughout Nova

Scotia. The relationship between rural space and GLBT identity and community

5 is complicated; thus, we must move beyond notions of rural space as being either

"hostile" or "idyllic".4

Sexuality and Space

My research takes up the notion of "space" as a useful lens through which to understand identity and community, as well as relations of power and oppression (Brown, 2000; Ingram et. al., 1997, p.32). No longer seen as a backdrop or container for social relations, space is deemed crucial to the constitution and reproduction of social relations and identities (Valentine, 2002, p.146). As such, space is also fundamental to the exercise of power (Foucault,

1990; Lefebvre, 1991; 1996; Brown, 2000). As Lefebvre points out, space "permits fresh actions to occur, while...prohibiting ...others" (1991, p.73).

Anthropologists Rubin (1984), Weston (1998), and Leap (1999), and geographers such as Bell (2000), Valentine (2000, 2002), and Brown (2000), uncover how GLBT identity and community are spatially constructed, and how heterosexuality is embedded and maintained, via window displays, advertisements, and gendered mannerisms and dress, as well as contested, within everyday public spaces. Foucault points out that during the late seventeenth century, medical and legal definitions of non-normative sexual

4 As Bell & Valentine (1995) point out, 'the rural' is sometimes portrayed within urban queer culture as a Utopian space in which sexuality is freed from social constraint and homosexual groups, such as lesbian feminists and Radical Faeries, can escape from the city and live communally. The notion of rural idyll will be further discussed in Chapters 3 & 4, in relation to identity, community, and urbanization.

6 practices resulted in their debasement and degradation, as well as their segregation and compartmentalization (1990, p.3). Certainly, more than two centuries later, "regulatory regimes", which include religious and legal institutions and discourses, continue to produce everyday spaces and environments as heterosexual (Valentine, 2000, p.4). However, such work has also pointed out the instability of everyday space whereby queer individuals can

"read heterosexual space against the grain" (ibid, p.5), experiencing and constructing it differently (Valentine, 2000; Ingram et. al, p.3). Such spaces can, in some cases, become marginal spaces which nourish collective resistance and help to create radical perspectives of new, alternative worlds (hooks, 1991 cited in Soja, 1996, p.97; Valentine, 2002).

The "queering" of both public and private spaces has been crucial to the historical formation of GLBT or queer politics and collective identities (Ingram et. al, p.3; Taylor et. al, 2002; Valentine, 2002). Throughout the 20th century, gay spaces such as bars, clubs, and cruising grounds created the possibility for collective consciousness, struggle, and activity (D'Emilio, 1989; Ingram et. al,

1997; Valentine, 2002). The establishment of gay spaces such as parades, cafes, centres, and neighbourhoods provided public space in which political consciousness and movements for public recognition could emerge; they provided safety, visibility, and a sense of commonality (ibid.). The establishment

7 of such spaces eventually led to a grassroots liberation movement, and became

the essential means of combating homophobia and maintaining a sense of a

collectivity (ibid; Rushbrook, 2002, p.190).

Rural/Urban Hierarchies

Work on identity and space has been criticized for neglecting the important

distinction between urban and rural space (Creed & Ching, 1997, p.7). As Creed

and Ching point out, work on space and identity "unquestionably posits an

urbanized subject" (ibid.) without considering the vital role of its opposition -

the rural or rustic. This "cultural hierarchy" has overshadowed the significance

of rural-based identities, and has devalued, and sometimes erased, rural space

(ibid.). For anthropologist Kath Weston, this hierarchy has also falsely located all

gay people within the city, and has overlooked their presence outside of it

(Weston, 1998, p.41).

Certainly, the social and economic conditions within many North

American cities after World War II provided a space within which gay identity, collectivity, and politics could emerge (D'Emilio, 1989, p.458). The city, with its anonymity and heterogeneity, as well as its population size and density, has been theorized as a beacon of tolerance and the ideal arena for sexual outsiders

(Bell & Valentine, 1995, p.114; Weston, 1998, p.40; Phillips, p.129). The city may well have played this role historically, but in representations of urban and rural

8 spaces, the latter is portrayed as inherently backward and oppressive (Bell &

Valentine, p.115; Little & Leyshon, 2003, p.269), and as "a locus of persecution and gay absence" (Weston, 1998, p.40). Much writing about the lives of gay people has not only overlooked their presence outside of the city, but has discounted the significance of rural space in the construction and experience of

GLBT or queer identities.

While the "great gay migration" (Weston, 1998) from rural to urban areas has been, in many cases, a historically accurate account, Halberstam points out that today many queers need not leave home in order to "come out" (2005, p.27).

In fact while rural environments do sustain varying degrees of homophobia and sexual oppression (Bell & Valentine, 1995; Riordon, 1997; Phillips, 2000), the malleability of rural identity may allow rural environments to actively nurture alternative communities, even while appearing socially and politically conformist (Halberstam, 2005, p.35). Recent enquiry into the lives of rural queers, albeit sparse, has revealed a significant number of rural same-sex couples

(Bell, 2000; Weston, 1998) and has uncovered large numbers of queer-identified individuals who live in small towns, and really enjoy it (Wilson, p.214). Many rural gays and lesbians have developed support networks which "facilitate...the creation of spatially disparate but strongly interwoven communities" (Bell &

Valentine, p. 116). Developments in global communication technologies have

9 bolstered this, and phone lines, internet, and satellite television have offered alternative ways in which rural queers can locate, experience, and participate in various forms of "community" (Riordon, 1996; Smith & Mancoske, 1997; Bell &

Valentine, 2000; McCarthy, 2000; Phillips, 2000; Wakeford, 2002).

Identity, Community, and the Anthropology of Sexuality

Despite all of this, Queer Theory has pointed out that the notion of a "gay" subject - as a cohesive sense of self and as a basis for a collective group - is problematic (Jagose, 1996; Sullivan, 2001; Roseneil, 2002). Such theory has rejected the idea of a unified homosexual identity and rendered the notion of community, with its claims of sameness and its reliance upon a fixed sexual identity, as inherently unstable (ibid.). Similarly, anthropology has long argued that sexual identity and community are not fixed or stable; rather, they are culturally and historically constructed, and are thus approached and understood differently in non-western and non-metropolitan contexts (Rubin, 1984; Weston,

1998; Boellstorff, 2007).

Boellstorff points out that critical anthropological work on same-sex sexuality has helped to destabilize, as well as localize, dominant understandings of sexuality and sexual identity (2007). Such work has approached and represented non-metropolitan and non-Western queer subjectivities as authentic and legitimate forms of selfhood (ibid, p.22). Therefore, while Queer Theory has

10 been criticized for being Eurocentric and for having a lack of engagement with material, everyday life and social practices (Roseneil, p.29), anthropology has critically examined how "such apparently unprecedented categories of selfhood"

(Boellstorff, p.23), that is, GLBT identities, are shaped by specific historical, economic, and social contexts (ibid.).

Anthropology has also argued that regardless of the heterogeneity and inequality that may exist within a community, members experience a "deep, horizontal comradeship" (Chavez, 2002, p.220). Similarly, Kath Weston demonstrates that the notion of a gay community, although "imagined", reflects a real attachment to a necessarily fictional group (1998, p.34). As such, identity does not pre-exist community. Rather, it is constituted in and through relations with others; it is always in process (ibid; Sullivan, p.149). Community, like identity, is historically and socially constructed, and is continually being reworked and negotiated (ibid; Taylor et. al, p.111). Therefore, sexual identities and communities, as they exist in non-metropolitan contexts, may be spatially constructed and experienced in specifically rural ways; they may intertwine the

"sexual" and the "rural", creating alternative modes of social identification (ibid;

Bell & Valentine, p.120). Uncovering and examining these constructions and realities may challenge us to revisit dominant understandings of GLBT identity and community (Wilson, 2000, p.214).

11 Sample & Recruitment

My sample consists of fourteen participants: eight self-identified lesbians, five self-identified gay males, and one self-identified transsexual. The term

"GLBT", though inclusive., is not exactly reflective of my sample, which consists primarily of those who identify as "lesbian" or "gay". And while I sometimes use the terms "GLBT", "gay and lesbian", and "queer" interchangeably, only three participants actually used the term "queer" themselves; of those who did, only two self-identified with it. Because my sample is small, it cannot be considered representative of rural queers in Nova Scotia. However, anthropological studies which are based on individual cases rely more on depth than breadth (Sobal, 2001, p.185). Often utilizing a variety of methods such as in- depth interviews, group interviews, and participant observation, anthropologists consider sample extensiveness to be less applicable to qualitative research; rather, sample size is considered adequate when repetitiveness in data occurs

(ibid.).

Three of my participants are in their early twenties; two are aged 30-35; two are in their 40's; five are in their 50's; and two are over 60. My sample is primarily within the range of working- and middle-class; of my participants, five hold steady part-time/full-time white collar jobs; two are supermarket clerks; and

12 two are retired. The remaining four include an eel fisher, an elementary school teacher, a farmer, and a medical student.

Reflecting on the fact that many communities throughout rural Nova Scotia are predominately white, thirteen of my participants are white, while one is native. Kennedy & Davis argue that race and class have a crucial impact on individuals' perceptions and experiences of GLBT community (1993, p.16).

Likewise, Creed & Ching explain that rural identity inflects, and is inflected by, other dimensions such as race, class, and gender (1997, p.22). Containing only one non-white participant, my sample does not represent those rural GLBT individuals whose experiences and sexual identifications are inflected by racial and ethnic identities.

While seven of my participants were born-and-raised in rural Nova Scotia, two grew up in Halifax County and moved to rural Nova Scotia as young adults.

Two of my participants grew up in other provinces (rural P.E.I and suburban

Quebec), and the remaining three grew up in other countries (England, the

United States, and the Netherlands). Riordon points out that rural queers' isolation from urban queer culture has, in the past, often resulted in a more complicated and delayed process of coming out (1996). I found this to be the case among some of my "older" participants, who briefly moved away from their

13 rural hometowns for work or school, "came out" in urban areas, such as Halifax, but moved back to their rural hometowns later in life.

Since queers in rural Nova Scotia are, to a certain extent, invisible and scattered, my method of recruitment was snowball sampling. As Kennedy &

Davis point out, this technique is often used among hidden populations, who are difficult for researchers to access (1993, p. 15). This method proved particularly useful, as it allowed me to examine in motion the interconnections and experiences of community that exist, on varying levels, between individuals as they are dispersed throughout the province. In this sense, my research was also multi-sited; while eight of my participants reside along various parts of the South

Shore, six reside in more northern parts of Nova Scotia.

Multi-sited research methods have emerged in response to both "empirical changes in the world" as well as new understandings of "the field" (Marcus,

1995, p.97; Green, 1999, p.413). Indeed, Green argues that "the field" must be understood not as something that is "effected once and for all" but as "an emerging process...made of social encounters" (1999, p.413). As such, strategies of following various connections, associations, and relationships are at the "very heart" of multi-sited research (Marcus, p.97). Such methods therefore allowed me to investigate the social encounters which constituted rural Nova Scotia as

"the field". Witnessing and engaging the various interconnections and networks

14 among my participants, who are geographically dispersed, yet socially connected, was essential to my understanding of identity and community among

GLBT individuals scattered throughout rural Nova Scotia.

Research Methods - Interviews

One of the primary methods of qualitative research, in-depth interviews, have allowed me to uncover the meanings my participants assign to their particular experiences, and to examine how they understand them (Locke et. al,

2007, p.97). My initial interview questions stemmed from individuals' "coming out" stories and the levels of acceptance and/or homophobia they experienced while coming out as gay, lesbian or transgendered in a rural area.

Anthropologist Kath Weston suggests that coming out stories are very useful for research among GLBT communities because they represent a category that is meaningful and familiar to participants (2004, p.203). She notes that they can also be an important point of departure for investigating issues surrounding identity as well as relationships with home and family (ibid.). Individuals' experiences of "coming out" in a rural environment are therefore pivotal in that they help illustrate the ways in which queerness and queer identity were constructed, approached and experienced within a rural place. They also highlight important notions surrounding the ways in which a sense of

15 community becomes imagined, sought or achieved within a supposedly isolated space.

Research Methods - Oral History

Kennedy & Davis (1993) also point out the importance of oral history. Oral history, they note is "an invaluable method for documenting the experience of the invisible" (1993, p.15); it captures the voices of those who are marginalized by their age, class, sexual orientation, or spatial location. While oral history has been criticized on the grounds that memory it too subjective and thus unreliable

(ibid, p.15), oral history has provided isolated or stigmatized communities with a prominent voice. As such, it has allowed me to construct a brief history of rural

GLBT organizing here in Nova Scotia - a history that is to my knowledge otherwise unwritten.

With the remainder of my interview questions, I aimed to uncover participants' present-day experiences of being queer in rural Nova Scotia. Such questions examined their affinity towards other queers in their area, as well as their experiences of hostility, or, conversely, tolerance and acceptance, from the local residents. These questions also touched upon participants' involvement within the local community and the familial ties they have within it. As Wilson explains, familial ties and small-town loyalty can play a significant role in establishing tolerance and acceptance for rural GLBT individuals (2000, p.214).

16 Participants' experiences of acceptance or homophobia can therefore be

dependent upon their level of integration within the community, and the extent

to which they have established community and familial ties within the area.

The "Native" Anthropologist

Oral history is a method which also necessitates a personal relationship between the narrator and the researcher (Kennedy & Davis, p.21). Although

"indigenous" to queer participants, stories of coming out are also quite personal

and can sometimes elicit sensitive subject matter (Weston, 2004, p.203). My own

identity as a queer-identified individual who grew up in a rural area is therefore

significant; it allowed me to obtain a degree of trust that a non-queer researcher, or, an urban queer researcher, may not have. Indeed, Weston points out that her identity as a lesbian anthropologist had a huge impact on her research among lesbian participants; while it sometimes blurred her roles as researcher and lesbian friend-of-a-friend, it also proved useful in gaining trust and rapport from those who were wary of being exploited or misinterpreted (ibid, p.202).

Anthropologist Kirin Narayan, however, is critical of the fixed "native" vs.

"non-native" distinction; she points out that factors such as age, class, race, gender, and education can outweigh a shared cultural or (in the case of my research) sexual identity (1993, pp. 671-2). At the same time, Creed & Ching point out the identity politics of being an intellectual; they note that

17 intellectualism can actually be read as urban (1997, p.10). In this way, while I may have shared a sexual identity and, in some cases, rural upbringing with many of my participants, the fact that I am a young, urban academic rendered me in many ways an "outsider".

Chapter Breakdown

In Chapter 2, I examine the complicated relationship between queer identity and rural space. Drawing upon theoretical examinations of sexuality and urban/rural space, along with popular depictions of rurality, I introduce the ways in which certain notions of "the rural" are embedded into notions of

"gayness". I then discuss how my interviewees' experiences of coming out in rural Nova Scotia support, as well as contradict, these prevalent assumptions.

Chapter 3 examines queer identity and community as they are constructed in rural space. I will introduce prevalent debates in both anthropology and

Queer Theory surrounding community and identity, and examine how interviewees began to construct, experience, and negotiate their GLBT identities and communities in rural Nova Scotia.

Chapter 4 utilizes theories of urbanization, and examines the urban/rural divide through the lens of modern social theory. I discuss the complex relationship between urbanity, rurality, and notions of queer or GLBT

18 "community", and examine how a distinctly rural GLBT community and identity is constructed in rural Nova Scotia.

19 Chapter 2: Locating GLBT People In Rural Space

For some of us you can take the homo out of the country but you can't take the country out of the homo, and like a flock of geese in fall we eventually find our way back home. - "A Rural Point of View" Wayves Magazine, Halifax, December, 2008.

Often theorized as inherently urban, gay and lesbian identities and

communities have been mapped onto a narrative of rural-to-urban migration,

and the symbolic role of the urban/rural binary in the constitution of gay and

lesbian subjectivities has been largely overlooked. However, research participants' experiences contradict many prevalent assumptions: not only do

rural-born gays and lesbians remain within, or move back to their rural hometowns, but urban-born queers have, for various reasons, relocated to rural places. Often mythologized as backward, traditional, and homophobic, rural areas, for my participants, were a source of varying levels of acceptance, as well as collectivity.

Sexuality and Space

The notion of "space" can be generally characterized as "a delineated or loosely bounded area occupied cognitively or physically" (Ingram et. al; p.20).

Space is both material and metaphoric (Brown, 2000), and plays a fundamental role in the formation of individuals' identities, outlooks, strategies for survival, and communities (Ingram et. al; p.32). As such, space is also crucial to the

20 constitution and reproduction of social identity (Valentine, 2002, p.146).

Likewise, social identities, meanings and relations play an active role in producing and reproducing space (ibid.).

Space is also fundamental to the exercise of power. As Brown argues,

"space does not just represent power, it materializes it" (Brown, p.3); it is the dimension of social relations through which power and knowledge become actualized within the world (ibid.). Spatial relations segregate and compartmentalize human interaction (ibid.). They control presence and absence, as well as inclusion and exclusion, thus materializing oppressive and disciplinary relations of power (ibid.).

In The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, Foucault (1990) points out that during the late seventeenth century, sexual acts were expected to be both "utilitarian" and

"fertile" (p. 3). Any others, he notes, were deemed abnormal, and silenced

(ibid.). Similarly, Brown explores the space of "the closet" - a term that describes the denial and concealment of queer individuals from a society which both subtly and blatantly dictates that heterosexual is "the only way to be" (2000, p.l).

For Brown, the closet can be read as a materialization of heteronormative power in time-space, with its spatiality or "whereness" serving to inhibit or constrain social relations (ibid, p.3).

21 The heterosexing of space is an act of performance that is naturalized on the body through repetition and regulation (Butler, pp.25, 33; Little & Leyshon, p.260). The seeming naturalness of heterosexual space is maintained through subtle and repetitive performances including bodily displays of public affection, advertisements and window displays, gendered mannerisms and dress, and conversations and music (Valentine, 2000, 2002; Little & Leyshon, p.261).

However, because sexuality and space are socially constructed as well as I performative, the heterosexuality embedded within everyday spaces is not fixed or stable (Butler, 1990; Valentine, 2000, 2002; Casey, 2004; Valentine, 2002, p.155;

Little & Leyshon, p.258). In other words, the instability of heteronormative space allows queer individuals to "queer" or restructure it (Valentine, 2000). They can produce their own spaces or "read heterosexual space against the grain, experiencing it and producing it differently" (ibid, p.5).

The reproduction or queering of various spaces has been crucial to the creation of inter-personal networks and the formation of collective gay and lesbian identities (Ingram et. al; 1997; Taylor et. al, 2002; Bell & Binnie, 2004).

And because the queering of everyday space most visibly occurs in public, the reproduction and establishment of public territory has been the primary means by which individuals and communities have resisted heternormativity and have politically mobilized (ibid.). As Ingram et. al point out, "public space is the space

22 of power" (1997, p.22); gay publicity will establish visibility and will "confront people's unsubstantiated fears" (ibid.p.19). Indeed, the queering of public space has been historically linked to the emergence of gay politics during the mid- twentieth-century (D'Emilio, 1989; Kennedy & Davis, 1993; Taylor et. al, 2002;

Casey, 2004). Gay and lesbian bars and clubs, and eventually, "villages", began to flourish throughout cities all over Europe and North America, creating the possibility for collective consciousness and activity (Kennedy & Davis, p.29).

Such spaces initiated a struggle for public recognition and acceptance, leading to an increased level of collective mobilization and a high degree of public awareness (ibid; D'Emilio, 1989, p.465).

Ethnicity has long served as grounds upon which segregated urban space is constructed (Tonkiss, p.9). Jewish communities, for instance, have offered a model for understanding urban minorities' relationship to urban space (ibid, p. 16). Formed around common traditions, histories, and experiences of exclusion, urban Jewish communities have been understood as both defensive and assertive; they have been formed in response to prejudice and discrimination, and as an assertion of identity and mutuality (ibid.). Queer spaces have also served as places of refuge and belonging, and, like ethnic enclaves today, have served as markers of cosmopolitanism, tolerance, and diversity for the urban tourist

23 (Rushbrook, p. 183). Such spaces often function as a form of ethnic diversity, promoted by cities as equivalent to other ethnic neighborhoods (ibid.).

Gay and lesbian history has mirrored the history of the city, with major urban centers being intrinsically linked to the formation of global gay politics and the historical construction of gay identity and community (Halberstam, 2005, p.34; Smith & Mancoske, p.4; Weston, 1998, p.33; Bell, 2000, p.548). Halberstam and Weston point out that gay subjectivity is embedded within a narrative of migration that equates the psychological journey of "coming out" with a physical journey to the city (Halberstam, 2005, p.36-7; Weston, 1998, pp.39-40). "Gayness" is configured through an opposition between urban and rural life whereby "the rural" is positioned as a closet from which an authentic, metropolitan sexuality must emerge (Weston, 1998, pp.39-40; Phillips, p.183; Halberstam, 2005, p.37).

The city is often represented as "a beacon of tolerance and...community"

(Weston, 1998, p.40) for queer individuals, and a refuge from the oppression and discipline of small-town surveillance (ibid, p.41). Much of the research on queer identity and space has therefore looked primarily at the city, putting the presence of queers in the countryside "under erasure" (Weston, 1998, p.41; also cited in

Halberstam, 2005, p.30).

Indeed, gay culture has been theorized as having a special relationship with urban space (ibid, 2003, p.162). As D'Emilio points out, gay identity

24 emerged in concert with the historical development of urban capitalism; capitalism transformed the role of the family and the meanings behind heterosexual relations (1983, p. 102). Similarly, Gayle Rubin has argued that erotic dissidents required the anonymity and heterogeneity of an urban setting

(ibid, 2005, p.35; Rubin, 1984). Certainly, while the size, density, and diversity of urban populations work to insulate and alienate individuals from one another, such factors have also been theorized as providing the ideal setting for subcultural formations (Tonkiss, p.8). The weakening of family ties in modern urban contexts has resulted in the tendency among urbanites to "create fictional kinship groups" and "form affective voluntary bonds" (ibid, p.24).

Situating Participants: "Coming Out" in Rural Space

Participants' experiences, however, complicate such assumptions. Out of fourteen participants living in rural Nova Scotia, only four began their "coming out" process while living in a city5. For instance, Betty, a 50-year-old self- identified lesbian, grew up in Halifax County, outside of Halifax. While she felt she had to go into Halifax to "find [her] own kind", and did become involved in

Halifax's gay bar scene throughout the 1970's and 80's, she moved to Yarmouth in 1990 with her partner and has lived there ever since.

5 See appendix i for participants' profiles (pp.83-87)

25 The remaining ten participants began "coming out" while living in rural

Nova Scotia. Of these ten, four "came out" prior to living outside of their hometowns. For instance, Randy, a 23-year-old self-identified gay male, was born and raised in Liverpool, Nova Scotia. He "came out" during high school,

and continues to live in the area with his partner Manny.

The remaining six participants came out upon moving to a rural place. For

instance, Charlotte, a 58-year-old self-identified lesbian, was born and raised in

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. After spending two years during her twenties working in Halifax, she returned home to help take care of her sick father, and to be with her family. Upon her return, she also "came out" to herself; she continues to live in Yarmouth today.

Lastly, for three participants, "coming out" was noted as being intertwined with a journey from urban to rural space. For instance, Bonnie, a self-identified lesbian in her early 50's, grew up on Prince Edward Island. After living throughout various parts of Canada, she decided to settle in Pugwash, and later moved to Yarmouth with her partner, Donna. Bonnie began to "come out" to her friends and family upon moving to Pugwash, where she became integrated within a very close-knit queer community.

Of my fourteen participants, four were single, while the remaining ten had partners. Of those who had partners, six met their partners while living within,

26 or after moving to a rural area, while the remaining four moved to a rural area with their partners. Although some did meet partners in the rural area, Regina recounts the difficulty of meeting single women:

I literally remember going to a dance in Halifax and after that going, "I'm never gonna get laid again" because there's these incredibly strong, beautiful loving women that are in these wonderful long-term monogamous relationships, and you get together, and they talk about their begonia beds! (laughs) Like, I just want to meet someone who's actually single!... there was no avenue to meet single people.

For Regina, the rural area contained many "incredibly strong, beautiful loving

[lesbian] women"; however, most of them were in "long-term monogamous relationships". She also points out:

You don't walk around the street in rural Pictou county and go "is she [lesbian]? Maybe? "...if you're new to the area, and you're just coming out, you need a way to meet people. Because if you go to Halifax, you will most likely meet people who live in Halifax, so how do you make a support system, or develop a support system, in where you're living, if you're going to the city to have that outlet.

While she was able to find a GLBT community in the rural area, she saw the city as the place to try to find other lesbians who were visibly lesbian and single.

However, because she saw a need for a GLBT support system in her local community, she founded a local Pride group, which remains active today.

Choosing to Live in Rural Space

In "Queer Country: Rural Lesbian and Gay Lives" Bell & Valentine (1995) point to two groups of gay rural dwellers: those born and raised in rural areas, and those who choose to move from an urban to a rural location (p. 117). The

27 first group, they note, often follows the stereotypical life-narrative, which includes a necessary relocation from the "oppression of country life" to a larger urban centre (ibid.). The latter group, they note, is drawn to the rural as an idyllic space or "fantasy home" where communes can be created and alternative lifestyles can flourish (ibid, p. 118-9).

Though useful, such a division, Halberstam and Weston note, fails to interrogate or question the urban/rural binary; it reinforces the problematic, as well as "idealized portrait of the two as separate, self-contained spaces" (Weston,

1998, p.41; Halberstam, 2003, p.30). Indeed, for Wilson, such a division reinforces the misconception of rural life as simply being "necessarily hostile or idyllic"

(2000, p.201), a direct contrast to the "promised acceptance" of the city (ibid, p.

208). However, Weston points out that for the gay subject, the urban/rural distinction is actually a symbolic one (1998, p.55). That is, "being gay" is not only thought to be embedded within an urban location, but is situated within a symbolic opposition between urban and rural life (ibid.). This opposition reveals

"the rural" to be the devalued term, and renders those born-and-raised rural queers as somehow "stuck" in a place they would rather not be (Halberstam,

2003, p.162; Phillips, p.183).

Such portrayals are characteristic of what Halberstam calls

"metronormativity" (2003, p.163) - a term which illustrates the "normalizing

28 power" of the rural-to-urban-migration queer narrative (ibid.)- Indeed, only recently has LGBT or queer writing begun to point out the common trend of reverse-migration from urban to rural space (ibid, pp.163-5; Weston, 1998;

Wilson, 2000). In reality, many born-and-raised rural queers who have, for varying reasons, moved to the city, yearn to leave and return to their rural hometowns (ibid.). Granted, familial rejection has certainly prompted many rural-to-urban relocations, and has resulted in a trend of what Weston calls

"chosen families" (Weston, 1991, 1998; Wilson, 2000). However, many queers, rural and urban alike, are accepted and embraced by their biological kin, and may therefore choose to nurture and maintain those ties (ibid.).

Indeed, among my participants, the most common reason for moving to, or staying in, rural Nova Scotia was family - eight (five of whom were born-and- raised in rural Nova Scotia) cited their family or spouse as being a contributing factor to their remaining within, or relocation to, rural Nova Scotia. For instance,

Donna, a 50-year-old lesbian who was born-and-raised near Yarmouth, states:

I lived in the city [Halifax] just for a couple years, 3 or 4 years ago. ..[now] I live 3 or 4 miles from the place I grew up. ..Hove this place, I love everything about it. I mean, I've been to other places, but this is my home. ..my family is here, my parents are still here, my sister and her partner and kids, yeah, these are the people I grew up with.

Chris, a 27-year-old gay man, echoed a similar sentiment: "My father passed away, which brought me back... plus, my family was there". Charlotte, a 58-

29 year-old lesbian who was also born-and-raised near Yarmouth, also cites family ties as contributing to her move back home:

My dad was not well. ..sol basically moved back home because of that, plus I was homesick, plus, you know, my whole family was here.. .going up there [Halifax] and you don't even know the person in the next apartment, I found that very different. ..So I came back home.

For Charlotte, her desire to return to her biological kin was entwined with a valuing of rural life. In Halifax, she found that she "[did]n't even know the person in the next apartment," which was "very different" from her rural upbringing "back home".

Indeed, 8 participants spoke of a desire for a more peaceful, rural life as being a factor, while only 3 cited work as a reason for their relocation. For instance, as Dot stated: "My spouse's father came from Canada. And we came over for a visit, liked it, and came back...We wanted a better life for our children". Similarly, Manny, a 42-year-old gay man, noted: "oh, the city life just got to be too ridiculous. Like, the violence, people getting stabbed...I just had to get away, it was just too much. Here it's much nicer".

Wilson points out that for many queers, the benefits of small-town living may be as important as, and even override, the benefits of urban sexual collectivity (2000, p.214). Certainly, the benefits of rural life contain many contradictions: wide-open spaces and sparse populations on the one hand, and small-town claustrophobia, on the other (Halberstam, 2005, p.27). Halberstam

30 notes, however, that "the rural queer may be attracted to the small town for

precisely those reasons that make it seem uninhabitable to the urban queer"

(ibid/ p.43). Moreover, as recent studies have shown,6 rural queers are

increasingly establishing tight-knit communities of their own. Indeed, for 3 of

my participants, the desire to live in rural Nova Scotia was directly linked to

rural queer community7. For instance, Bonnie states:

I knew I wanted to settle down, and I knew I wanted to settle down in Nova Scotia... I was very fortunate to have friends who were gay. And so I made it a point to kind of go and live there (laughs). So my safe space was created, and that was in Pugwash.

Similarly, Regina, a 31-year-old lesbian, states:

I was married at the time when I came out. ..I moved to Pictou county right kind of smack dab in the middle of it. ..I initially met some people near Pictou county... it was nice to talk to people about the culture.

This was also echoed by Janis, a 57-year-old queer feminist, for whom

"feminism, lesbianism, and rural, they're all wrapped together in the

country...I've developed my identities in the rural".8

Acceptance & Homophobia in Rural Space

Examinations of sexuality and space have often failed to consider the

experiences and spatial practices of community and identity among queer people

in rural spaces. For Halberstam, such work has failed to acknowledge or engage

6 For example, Bell & Valentine (1995), Riordon (1996), Howard (1999), Phillips (2000) 7 Rural GLBT identity and community will be discussed further in Chapter 3 8 The relationship between lesbian feminism and rural space will be discussed further in chapter 3

31 nonmetropolitan sexualities, genders, and identities (2005, p.34), perpetuating what Creed & Ching term a "chronic devalu[ing]"of rural space (1997, p.7).

Rural areas are often posited as "closets" and are deemed antithetical to the constitution of gay subjectivity (Weston, 1993; Halberstam, 2004). Rural areas are often represented as inherently oppressive, characterized by highly traditional gender roles and compulsory heterosexuality (Smith & Mancoske, 1997; Bell &

Valentine, p.115; Little & Leyshon, p.269). Tales of isolation, prejudice, and physical violence are seen to characterize the experiences of the queers who live there (Smith & Mancoske, pp.4-6; Bell & Valentine, pp.116-7).

Indeed, rural life is often "mythologized" by urban queers as sad and lonely (Halberstam, 2003, p.162). Representations of rural life in books, television, and film involve sexual deviance such as incestuous inbreeding, bestiality, and repressed homosexuality (Bell & Valentine, p.115). At the same time, rurality is often conflated with "simple life" where traditional and moral standards, such as church weddings, monogamy, and heterosexuality, are rigidly enforced (ibid; Riordon, 1996; Smith & Mancoske, 1997; Weston, 1998;

Halberstam, 2005). However, new strains of queer writing have begun to

"radically contradict the rather dismal picture" of rural queer life that much literature has painted (Phillips, p.188). The depiction of rural communities as being ultimately homophobic and unwelcoming to queer persons, though deeply

32 embedded within the gay imaginary, is being put into question, and in some

cases, challenged (Bell & Valentine, 1995; Riordon, 1996; Weston, 1998; Phillips,

2000; Wilson, 2000; Halberstam, 2005).

Certainly, participants' experiences contradict such negative depictions.

None of my participants spoke of having experienced any physical violence, and

less than half (five) spoke of having directly experienced verbal homophobia

while living in rural Nova Scotia. Of those five who did experience verbal

homophobia in their rural towns, two also reported having experienced

homophobia - and to higher degrees - while living in the city. Of the remaining

three who had experienced verbal homophobia, one had never lived in a city,

while two had not been "out" until living in rural Nova Scotia. For participants,

homophobia was not directly linked to rural space; rarely experienced, verbal

homophobia manifested in both urban and rural areas.

Of the fourteen participants, all had experienced varying degrees - in some

cases, surprisingly high degrees - of acceptance in their rural towns. For instance, Bonnie, who grew up in P.E.I but came out in rural Nova Scotia, states:

I live in...a very rural area. And everybody knows that I'm a lesbian.. .And... never once have I felt a homophobic neighbour... its been amazing actually. You'd think it would be different but, it's never been.. .I've never felt any rejection. And so, that's kinda cool. Yeah.

33 Gordon, who grew up in the Netherlands, and also came out in rural Nova

Scotia, echoed Bonnie's experience:

The town...has been very supportive in that we never experienced any back­ lash from the public. On the contrary, it was been a comfortable and indeed reward­ ing existence. When we married, people went out of their way to congratulate us!

Lastly, Dot, a transgendered woman who grew up in Britain but transitioned in

Nova Scotia, noted both homophobia and acceptance:

I've actually been [verbally] threatened in the village 4 times in 10years...other than that, other than being Sir-ed a couple of times. ..it's been a pretty good thing for me... the level of acceptance with people who know us is very good. ..and I cherish the family acceptance that [my spouse's] family has given me.

Experiences were surprisingly similar for those who moved to rural Nova

Scotia after growing up and coming out elsewhere. While Wilson notes that

"unknown outsiders are never welcomed in small towns" (Wilson, p.208),

participants appeared to have little trouble breaking through their "outsider"

status. For instance, Manny, who grew up and came out in Dartmouth notes:

"compared to a lot of other places I've seen, yeah, here's good...sometimes you just get surprised by people". This was echoed by Betty, who grew up and came

out near Halifax:

I feel like I'm a part of the community. ..I'm sure 50% of the community knows who I am and they seem to like me and to have accepted me for what I am, it's not a problem...I fit right in here, no problem at all.

34 Experiences were also similar for those who continue to live in their rural hometowns. For instance, Donna, who grew up, came out, and continues to live in Yarmouth, notes:

This [coming out] was a long time ago, 20 years ago, and people were very upset at first, and very, very quickly people were just fine with it. I was very surprised... [my parents] were and are very fundamentalist Christian, and I was kind of shocked by how easily they kind of adapted. ..but everybody was very accepting, and it's been wonderful.

Chris, a junior high school teacher, who returned to his hometown after going to university, spoke of a similar experience:

[When I came out] my sister took it hard. ..my mother cried. My conservative sister was actually good about it...A few older relatives were a bit weird... [now] 99% of my students are supportive. ..I don't think there is a lot of homophobia here, I've never had anybody say anything to me.

Charlotte, who was born and raised, and came out in a rural area, had a similar experience:

[When I came out] it was less difficult than I imagined it would be. You build up a certain thing in your mind of what you think things are going to be like. ..and you're young. ..Back when you're so impressionable, back when you're trying to fit in, it's very difficult... Going up into my 20's and 30's and 40's I'm like "the hell with 'em, I don't care" kinda thing.. .At this point in my life, I'm just going to live my life. I'm too old to do otherwise... life is too short.

For Charlotte, the fear and anxiety she experienced while coming out was tied not to rural or urban space, but to her age. Because she came out in her early twenties, a time when she felt "impressionable" and was "trying to fit in", her own fears and anxieties made coming out more difficult. However, as she got

35 older, and was "out" to all of her friends and family, she stopped "car[ing] what

Joe Blow here down the street thinks" and was able to "just...live [her] life". She believes that when one is young, "you think you have something to lose, but you really don't. Because your parents love you unconditionally".

Indeed, the highest degrees of verbal homophobia were cited by my two youngest participants - Randy and Kat, both 23. Both came out in high school, and were close friends throughout the junior and senior high school years.

Though both had positive experiences coming out to family, both had very negative experiences of coming out and being gay in school. With regard to his family, Randy states:

They've always really known, they knew I was going to be gay. I mean, I probably would have known too...I'm too girly. (laughs) Like, what can you do?...So it was easy for me. They already knew, so it was just a matter of me admitting it.

At school, however, Randy speaks of a more negative experience:

It's like you have to hide it at all times. If you don't, then, it's not going to be good. So you try to hide it as much as possible. And you know what's coming, you know immediately what's coming, and it's like constant shit.

Kat spoke of a similar high school experience:

I didn't understand like, when everyone [classmates] realized I was gay why was it all "oh she's gay, lets make fun of her"... it was horrible... it's like the next day all of a sudden you wake up, fresh start, new school, and everybody you know, and everybody you don't even know is calling you gay.

36 For both participants, their high school peers and classmates were the primary

source of homophobia and hostility. Upon leaving high school, people's

attitudes appeared to have changed dramatically. Randy explains:

Since like, high school.... it's been a lot better. Like, a LOT more people have accepted it, like, when working... and whatnot, nobody ever says anything, like I've never had anyone since I left high school call me a fag or anything... it just finally goes away and you're like "fuuuck I can just breathe now". But things are comfortable now I find...

Summary

Mapped onto a narrative of rural-to-urban migration, gay and lesbian or

trans identity is often linked to the city. As such, GLBT history has often

discounted the symbolic role of the urban/rural binary in the constitution of

queer identity and community. In the context of Nova Scotia, however,

participants' experiences contradicted prominent notions surrounding queer

identity and the city: many rural-born queers decided to remain living in, or,

move back to, their rural hometowns. For some, such decisions were linked to

familial and spousal ties; for others, the appeal of rural or "small-town" way of

life was the decisive factor. At the same time, many urban-born queers have, for

various reasons, relocated to rural places. Often perceived as backward,

traditional, and homophobic, rural areas provided my participants with varying

levels of tolerance and acceptance. For those who did recount experiences of homophobia, it was associated with peers and classmates at school: older

37 participants, who came out after high school, cited little to no homophobia, while younger participants - those in their early 20's - noted its absence after high school. The relationship between GLBT identity and community, and between

GLBT identity, community, and urban and rural space, will be examined in the following chapter.

38 Chapter 3: Constructing GLBT Identity & Community in Rural Space

What makes a homo come out in a homogeneous community? Sometimes, before this can happen, it is necessary to leave the rural community to take a trip to a bigger setting where there is anonymity and accepted differences. There, as a new solo homo, it can be a challenge to uncover the world of homosexuality. - "A Rural Point of View" Wayves Magazine, Halifax, December, 2008.

Drawing upon post-structural critiques of identity, Queer Theory has criticized the assertion that sexuality should and could be utilized as grounds for identity and community formation. For queer theorists, the notion of a cohesive

"gay" or "queer" subject or community is inherently problematic and unstable.

However, while it is important to keep in mind the fluidity of identity and the constructed nature of community, the everyday experience of gay, lesbian, or trans identifications should not be overlooked. Claiming identities not only help gay, lesbian, and trans people confront and challenge negative ideas surrounding the community; it also provides a sense of commonality and acceptance for those who may feel isolated or marginalized as a result of their sexuality. Although

Queer Theory and anthropology rightfully questions the homogeneity and naturalness of "community", in fact, GLBT individuals do feel part of an

"imagined" community (Anderson, 2006). And while this sense of community is often assumed to be inherently urban, many rural participants didn't feel part of the imagined urban community; rather, they imagined and established their own communities within rural space.

39 Queer Theory Critiques of Identity and Community

The gay liberation movement embraced the "ethnic model" which, based on

the logic and experience of the civil rights movement, emphasized community

identity and cultural difference, and established gay individuals as a legitimate

minority group (Jagose, pp.60-1; Taylor et. al, p.107). This approach was seen as

a way to secure legal protection and citizenship rights for gay and lesbian

subjects, legitimize gay identity within the dominant culture, and establish

visible, urban communities where gay homes, businesses, and social spaces

could flourish (Jagose, pp.60-2; Taylor et. al, p.107). However, it also uncritically

accepted dominant understandings of hetero- and homo- sexuality and

presumed sexual orientation to be the primary grounds for commonality and

community amongst lesbians and gay men (Jagose, pp.60-2; Taylor et. al, p.107).

Additionally, because community was organized around sexual

orientation, questions of race, class, and ethnicity were theorized as secondary

categories of identification (ibid.). Identities such as "bisexual" and

"transgender" were also marginalized for their transgression of "lesbian" and

"gay" (Taylor et. al, p.109). In other words, the ideal of community was not always upheld, and questions of diversity easily threatened it. Debates within the GLBT community about the nature of inclusion and exclusion within the

"community" paralleled the post-structural critiques of identity that were

40 beginning to proliferate within the academy (Jagose, 1996; Sullivan, 2003).

Indeed, post-structuralism rejected the notion of identity as "a coherent and

abiding sense of self" (Sullivan, p.82), arguing it to be a process that is always

ongoing and incomplete (Jagose, p.7). Binary categories of identity, which were

perceived as the "central organizing principle" of modern society and culture,

were viewed as inherently exclusionary and unstable, and therefore highly

ineffective as means of political organization (ibid, p.81, Roseneil, p.29). As such,

all assertions of identity were rendered problematic, and could no longer be

utilized as natural bases for solidarity and commonality (Jagose, p.84; Roseneil,

p.29; Sullivan, p.149).

Such arguments provided a foundation for the development of Queer

Theory, which is concerned with examining the ways in which heternormativity

"operates as a mode of regulation of identities and cultural and social

possibilities" (Roseneil, p.30). Queer Theory arose out of questions surrounding

gay liberationist and lesbian feminist understandings of identity which

continued to rely on binary categories of gender and sexuality as natural bases for identification and solidarity (Jagose, pp.76, 85). With their reliance on binary identity categories, identities such as "lesbian" and "gay" were perceived by queer theorists as instruments of the oppressive and regulatory regimes that identity politics, such as gay liberation, seek to resist (Butler, pp.13-14; Jagose,

41 p.84; Sullivan, pp.81-2). Any commitment to, or reliance upon, gender identity was seen as ultimately working against the legitimation and liberation of homosexual subjects, in that it upholds the very structures that oppress them

(Butler, pp.13-14; Jagose, p.84; Sullivan, pp.81-2). Likewise, the notion of

"community", with its claims of solidarity and sameness and its reliance upon a fixed sexual identity, became severely contested, and in some instances, completely rejected and discarded (Sullivan, pp.81-2).

Indeed, the notion of a gay and lesbian community is based upon commonality; it depends upon both a common identity and a common political goal (Sullivan, p. 142). Community, Sullivan argues, is often understood as being incompatible with the notion of difference (ibid.). Queer Theory, however, seeks to uncover and embrace the differences and multiple identifications that exist within and between queer subjects; it emphasizes the theoretical importance of multiple and intersecting identifications of race, class, gender, style, and sexuality that manifest within and among individuals (Roseneil, p.29). Queer

Theory therefore rejects the notion that sexuality, or even gender or race, can be utilized as a basis for community; such identities are deemed inherently unstable and exclusive (ibid; Sullivan, p.142; Seidman, 1994, p.130).

Like other post-structural critiques of identity, Queer Theory has been criticized for not engaging material, everyday life and social practices (Roseneil,

42 p.29). Some authors suggest that such theory has failed to pay adequate

attention to the resistance and creative agency of human actors, and has, as a

result, failed to acknowledge social change and the resistance that many

communities have fostered (ibid, p.30; Seidman, p.134). As Seidman states,

Queer Theory often operates as a politics against identity, and therefore "fails to

theoretically engage the practices of individuals organized around affirmative

lesbian and gay identities" (1994, pp.133-4). This theoretical commitment has

also been accused of promoting a "narrative of progression" that imagines a

future of unrestrained fluidity and heterogeneity which is blind to historical and

social context (Sullivan, pp. 143-4).

Taylor et. al argue that communities of individuals with same-sex desire have been an essential means of resistance against heterosexist norms of gender

and sexuality (Taylor et. al., p.99). They have also varied according to time and place, and in response to internal disputes, as well as the political and cultural

environment within which they exist (ibid, p.101). Indeed, throughout history,

gay communities have facilitated the construction of collective identities that have made individual survival possible, and have challenged oppressive norms in various times and contexts (ibid, pp.101, 111; Seidman, p.134). They created spaces within which a nation-wide political movement could emerge, and

43 eventually "changed the face of social and political life" (Taylor et. alv p.lll) for many gay-identified people around the world.

As previously mentioned, anthropologists have argued that regardless of the heterogeneity within a community, members experience a "deep, horizontal

comradeship" (Chavez, p.220). The notion of community, albeit "imagined", reflects a real attachment to a necessarily fictional group (Anderson, 1983, cited in Weston, 1998, p.34). Individuals' subjectivity becomes interpreted through that attachment; it "becomes inseparable from constructions of 'we-ness'"

(Weston, 1998, p.34). As such, an imagined queer community is more than a fantasy or illusion; that is, it "threads its way through social structures and everyday experience" (ibid, p.35).

Accessing GLBT Identity and Community Within Rural Space

Isolation, Weston points out, is often conceived as the "customary starting point" in claiming or constructing a queer identity (1998, p.34; Wilson, 2000).

The sense of being "different" or "the only one" is often prevalent in one's discovery of their homo- or queer sexuality (ibid.). Isolation can be especially salient for those queers living in rural areas. One's discovery of gayness, or what

Weston calls "the gay imaginary," is often dependent upon access to print, television, and other media (ibid, p.36; Riordon, 1996; Smith & Mancoske, 1997;

Bell & Velentine, 2000). This often requires, especially for those who came out

44 prior to the internet age, access to certain resources such as libraries, bookstores, and movie theaters - many of which are located in urban centers (Weston, 1998, pp.36-7).

Participants in my study, whose ages range from 22 to 68, cited isolation as being characteristic of their coming out experience. For instance, Kat, 22, knew she was gay by grade three. Because she came out to herself at such a young age, and had little access to gay-related media or information in her small town, she was not always clear about what "being gay" actually meant:

I knew that it was different to like women...I was just trying to figure out what being gay was, like, that type of appearance, because I knew that I liked women and that's all I knew. And then you realize that that's being gay, and you attach "that's being gay" to "those people are gay", because it was so uncommon then... I just learned it, but even back in that time, nobody really talked about it, so it's like "oh they're gay", and what's that?

Betty, 50, began to come out at the age of 16. Though she came out two decades prior to Kat, she cited a similar experience:

[I came out] at 16, earlier on, too, I knew, I just didn't know what to do. I didn't use it, I thought, heck, I was the only person like that, I'm strange. ..[it was] hard. Nowhere to go, no-one to talk to, no peers, you're all alone. You know, you're run­ ning from the whole world, you're against everybody. And you're trying to connect with somebody... I had no clue, I was just going by my feelings, by what I felt.

Charlotte, 58, knew she was "different" from childhood. However, she "kept it all to [her] self" and throughout high school, "tr[ied] to fit in the best way [she] knew how". She also cited feelings of isolation:

45 There was nowhere to go, no-one you could talk to...the option was making friends with somebody and then finding out "oh, they're gay as well"... you know, at that time growing up, there was nothing, there was nobody to turn to.

For Charlotte, isolation was also linked to a lack of accessible information:

There was not a lot of places you could go to get the information. It wasn't like I could really go to the library and say "listen, I want some information: (laughs) because you didn't have the internet, you didn't have. ..I mean, growing up, my family was just an ordinary (pause) they didn't have a lot of money. My father was a farmer, my mother was a homemaker, and we didn't have a lot of money to go anywhere or do anything. We were raised up on the farm, you know, you did your chores, you worked in the garden, you fed the chickens, you know, you did things like that all your life, so I never had the opportunity to really research any of it., it wasn't until later that I realized... "oh my god, we're everywhere!" (laughs). It was like everybody was coming out of the woodwork!

This was echoed by Randy, 22, for whom a lack of information was also directly linked to rural isolation: "Nobody really talks about it around here. If you would have grew up, say, in the city, we would have known what gay was right off the bat.. .it would have been easier".

Donna, 50, also notes that because she "chose not to move away from [her hometown]...[she] was reasonably isolated". However, as an active member of the women's community, she had access to information about lesbian-related topics. As such, books, as well as movies, became the primary means by which she discovered and constructed her identity:

Well, I got every book I could get my hands on. Everything I could lay my hands on. Because, yeah, a whole new learning curve... learning that you 're not the only one And all that good stuff. ..sol read a LOT. And, god, if we could ever get our hands on a movie, that was something that was just awesome.

46 Books were also key for Regina, 31, who, being new to "the scene" felt like "an outsider": "I read a lot of books, a lot of books, because I didn't have any experience, and again, I was looking for that magic membership card that I could present and meet people".

Manny, 42, who grew up on a military base, "where being gay was very, very taboo", was "grilled" about homosexuality in school. "Going to school on a military base", he notes, "is vastly different than public school. You learn everything. Like, I knew about homosexuality before I was even 11". With such information readily available, books were a primary tool in helping Manny discover and construct his identity:

7 actually had a book. ..I actually got a book out of the library and I read that, and a lot of the things I read in the book, about feelings about another male or another female was exactly what I was feeling. I knew 100% I was [gay].

For those who came out during the internet-age, the internet was a primary means by which queer identity was constructed. The internet has become a significant vehicle through which individuals - especially those who are relatively isolated — can come out, be politically active, find "community", and establish queer identity (Wakeford, 2002, p.123). Participation in online queer communities can have significant impacts on one's pre-existing queer identities

(ibid.). Additionally, online interaction has been described as "freeing" users from the "constraints" of the gendered body (ibid.); for instance, transgenderism

47 is used as a metaphor through which such impacts on one's identity can be described (ibid.). The internet has provided an avenue through which those who are lacking a face-to-face community can construct and experience their own sexual identity and forms of belonging (ibid, p.128). For instance, James, 22, notes:

I wanted to know about safe sex, about the [gay] lifestyle, I wanted to fit into something. I wanted something that was me, and I found it online. I connected with people, and it made me feel normal.

This was echoed by Dot, 62, for whom "the internet was probably my savior".

For Kat, the internet was also a means by which early friendships, and in some cases, sexual relationships were initiated:

I took the internet route to figure out like... I just started looking up women I thought were gorgeous and I accepted that and I tried to find out if they were gay, like, always searching, and reading on little forums, and... MIRC... lesbian channels strictly. I was more interested in friends than a relationship but I just took it because it was lesbian attention from elsewhere. See, I met [her current girlfriend] online when I was 15 and I'm still with her now and I'm 22.

GLBT Identity, Community, and Urban Space

The search for "like" others, that is, the movement from isolation into belonging and collectivity, is often embedded with a symbolic, and sometimes physical journey through space (Weston, 1998; Halberstam, 2005, Tonkiss, 2005).

"Like" others, Weston notes, immediately become spatially located - not only is there "someone like me", but that someone is "out there somewhere" (1998, p.39).

48 For those born and raised in rural areas, that initial "somewhere" is usually thought to be a city (ibid; Halberstam, 2003, 2005; Valentine, 2002).

The anonymity, size, and heterogeneity of cities were discussed by informants as providing a general acceptance of "difference" not found in rural areas. Indeed, the combination of physical proximity and social distance, or, indifference, has been theorized as a politics of tolerance, whereby differences are by default generally accepted, or at the very least, tolerated (ibid, p.23).

Charlotte, 58, associates the city with a general acceptance of "difference" or eccentricity:

You gotta understand. ..in a small community, when you find out you are different, you think you are the only one... I mean, Halifax is a city, so actually you can go up and see somebody dressed very eccentrically or differently, or whatever, it's the norm. You come down here, and if you see something that different it's like, every­ body looks. But in the city, it's so common that nobody thinks anything of it because of the big population... Here, everybody over the years, after being a small town all your life, you get to know everybody... Yeah, if you were in the city you'd go and do your own thing, and nobody stops to take the time to give a darn one way or the other. But here, you have to be careful.

Here, Charlotte links the anonymity and "big population" of the city with the increased acceptance of "somebody dressed very eccentrically or differently".

This anonymity and general acceptance of difference is directly contrasted with her "small community" where "over the years...you get to know everyone".

Because of the close social proximity, those who are different "have to be careful"

49 not to overtly assert their difference, whereas those in the city can "go and do

[their] own thing". This is echoed by Randy, who notes:

If I lived in the city I think I'd be a little more flamboyant than I am, just because I feel that I have to -play it down because I live here. ..I flaunt it when I'm there. Yeah, I'm like "I'm queer, we're going to Reflections, and I LOVE it".

For many born-and-raised rural participants, the city, that is, Halifax, therefore offered a symbolic, and in some instances, real, space for forming community. As Charlotte again notes:

It wasn't until I was older that we went into the city, we used to go to some of The dances up there. That's how I really got into it, finding out... when the conferences were and going to the dances and stuff like that. Meeting so many, and just feeling like I was home. I just felt, the very first time I went, I just felt "I'm home, this is where I'm supposed to be".

For Charlotte, the journey from isolation into belonging and collectivity paralleled a physical journey from rural to urban space. The city became the space of dances, conferences, and community, while her small rural community was the space of isolation - the sense of "think[ing] you are the only one". This is echoed by Regina, 32, who, after coming out in Pictou county, spent time living in both Halifax and Pictou:

In the city, it was the women's dances. I met some women at the civic worker's building and got into the scene. ..Without that avenue, like, if you don't know anyone, like, you don't walk around the street in rural Pictou county and go "is she [lesbian]? Maybe?" So there was no avenue to meet single people, and young people, and that was difficult for me. So I would go to the city.

50 This was also the case for James, 23, who "thought [the city] was infested with gay people. A gaytopia".

As Valentine & Skelton (2003) point out, finding "the scene" is not only important insofar as it facilitates the construction of self-identities; it also offers a space within which others can validate them (p. 854). For many queer individuals, "the scene" or the "queer community" represents the first space of belonging; it offers them a chance to exist outside of the heteronormative world within which they often feel marginalized (ibid, p.855). For many, such as

Regina, "the scene" is usually centered around various clubs, bars, and coffee shops; they serve as "expressive, performative spaces" (ibid.). The search for urban queer community can therefore require a journey within or between cities, in search of particular spaces (Weston, 1998, pp.47-8).

Certainly, while many of those participants who grew up in rural communities perceived the city as the space of queer community, those few participants who grew up near Halifax had to search within that space in order to find particular spaces or "scenes" of queer community or identity. For instance Betty, 50, notes:

Yeah, I was living in Halifax county [when I came out], but I had to go into Halifax to try to find my own kind. ..I heard about the gays at the Heidleberg [gay bar] and my ears perked right up (laughs). And I thought, "yup, that's where I need to start".

51 For Betty, finding her "own kind" not only necessitated a journey into Halifax, but a search for particular spaces — gay bars and clubs — within Halifax. Manny,

43, cites a similar journey:

It was just the excitement of going to Halifax at that time, you know, it was an amazing step for someone to go across the bridge. Because back then, people from Dartmouth didn't really go hanging around Halifax, and vice versa... I got to know the gay world off the base, it was funny... I kind of accidentally fell into it. You know, like, me and some friends. ..I think I was 12 or 13...we were over in Halifax and we were on Spring Garden road and that was my really first visual of two men holding hands or two men kissing. ..I'll always remember that first day... Once I got into the community, and into a group of people. ..I was over in Halifax probably 7 nights a week. At the coffee shops, or just sitting over in the Commons.

For Manny, accessing "the gay world" meant not only crossing the bridge into

Halifax, but also finding certain spaces within the city. Be it Spring Garden road, the Commons, or certain coffee shops, simply being in Halifax didn't provide immediate access to "the gay world" - it had to be sought after and found. This was also demonstrated by Regina, 32:

7 think regardless of where you are, you feel like an outsider. Like, you know, you're curious and you're sitting at the doorway, and you don't have a member's card... how difficult it was, regardless of where you're at. Just meeting people was scary. And not knowing anyone and not having someone to go in with you.

For Regina, who lived back and forth between the country and the city, access to the queer community had little to do with spatial location. Regardless of whether or not she was in the city, "not knowing anyone" or not having a

"member's card" was difficult, and made her "feel like an outsider".

52 Limitations of Urban Queer Community

"In relationship to an urban homeland", Weston notes, "individuals constructed themselves as 'gay people': sexual subjects in search of others like themselves" (1998, p.49). Many journeys into this homeland, however, do not result in the discovery of the "Promised Land". Rather, some find urban the community to be "insular and exclusionary" (Valentine & Skelton, p.861). At the same time, the community is also divided by gender, ethnicity, age, and class

(Weston, 1998, pp.49). Access to and inclusion within the urban queer community is therefore dependent on factors outside of claiming a gay or queer identity (ibid; Valentine & Skelton, p.861). The search for community thus extends far beyond simply entering the space of the city.

For instance, after moving to Halifax at 18, and finding his way into the community, James, 23, notes:

[The queer community] met my ideals for a while; I did a lot of-partying. Education made me see it differently, though. It's really subdivided -1 had to identify with a type [of gay person] and live with it.

For James, simply claiming a gay identity and being in the space of urban queer clubs did not grant him immediate inclusion into the community. Because the community is "subdivided" he had to negotiate his own identity - as a particular type of gay person - so that he could feel as though he fit in.

53 Donna, 50, spent only two years living in Halifax. While she used to go in to the city for conferences and women's dances, she "didn't know very many women in the city, [and] didn't spend much time there". She also cites the exclusionary and insular nature of urban queer community:

In the city I really see so much more focus on gay men, than lesbians. I mean, that's what I see, anyway. We've gone in with friends or something for the evening, and we're like "oh, lets go out" and we look for a place to go where we can feel comfortable dancing, and its mostly gay men... I don't find the lesbian community in Halifax particularly visible to someone from the outside.

For Donna, not only is the urban queer community insular, it is also unevenly gendered. Regardless of being queer or queer-friendly, a stronger focus on gay men within urban queer spaces prevented her and her lesbian friends from comfortably dancing and socializing and participating in "the scene" or the community.

For some participants, disappointment or dissatisfaction with the urban community was framed within a contrast between urban and rural space. For instance, although Manny, 43, alludes to the current lack of gay community in his small town, he hypothesizes:

I think the gay community here [in his small town] would be a lot friendlier than in the city. In the city you have some that, you know, think they're better than others, and I find here a lot of them are level-headed. ..I think just everyone would be more friendly to each other. And there wouldn't be one that is better than the other, or has more money than the other, I think they would all just stick together. Because in the city, like, you have people who think they're too good, and people who have a lot of money, and there are some that don't.

54 Although Manny initially found the urban gay community to be "even better" than he had imagined, he believes that, hypothetically, if his town were to have

such a community, it would be "a lot friendlier" and more egalitarian. While in

the city "you have people who think they're too good" as well as "people who have a lot of money", in the small town, Manny argues, gay people are "level­ headed" and would "all just stick together" and not be exclusive to anyone.

Charlotte, 58, spent only two years living in Halifax. However, she, like

Donna, traveled between her small town and Halifax, attending many dances

and conferences. As previously noted, Charlotte, upon first visiting the city, felt like she was "home"; however, as a "little 'ol small town girl", Charlotte found that she didn't necessarily fit in with the urban queer community:

Umm the city, I found, like I didn't really meet up to their standards. I wasn't as informed and I didn't know the lingo, the correct way to be, or talk or whatever. I was just me, little 'ol small town girl, farmer's daughter. ..I wasn't able to really... I fit in but I was very quiet, because so many of them talked, and their food and their Lifestyle was so different than what I was used to. You know, meat and potatoes, I didn't know about garlics and you know, the dishes, and you know, it just over­ whelmed me... that kind of lifestyle, and culture, and cuisine, I felt like a little country bumpkin, you know (laughs). So some of it I felt a little intimidated... Others that I met were just like me, like, little communities,, just kinda coming out and feeling our way around. And you know, trying to fit in, trying to concept­ ualize, and so it had its ups and downs.

For Charlotte, entrance into the urban queer community involved an entirely new urban lifestyle. Being "informed", knowing "the lingo", and being acquainted with urban "culture and cuisine" were all things that as a "country

55 bumpkin", a "farmer's daughter", she was unaccustomed to. For Charlotte, acceptance into Halifax's queer or lesbian community was not only dependent upon a being in the right space and having the right identity; it necessitated a certain amount of "cultural capital" (Bourdieu, 1973) - that is, a certain kind of knowledge, a certain vocabulary, and a certain type of taste. Although she identified as a lesbian, because she was born and raised on a farm, Charlotte lacked the necessary prerequisites for being included into the urban queer community and felt as though she "didn't really meet up to their standards".

The urban community was also seen by some, especially gay men, as a space of danger. As Valentine & Skelton point out, urban queer communities present gendered vulnerabilities (2003, p.857); gay male spaces are extremely sexualized and can present risks in relation to drug abuse and unsafe sexual practices (ibid.). They also place high emphasis on "the 'body beautiful", which can create pressure to conform to certain styles and body images. As Manny points out:

Yeah, here [in his small town] I'd say is... a little more safer, yeah. By a long shot... in the city, like, I know the younger you are the more pedophiles cling to you.. .you've got your pedophiles, your gay bashers...it's just ridiculous. But here seems a lot less, a lot less.

This notion of urban danger was also cited by Chris:

Gay communities are more settled in rural places. You have a partner, you're settled, you live a basic life as opposed to parties, sex, and drugs...The [urban] gay community is very promiscuous, with sex parties...[and] it's spreading to

56 rural areas... Young gay men move to Halifax and get caught up in it, have sex with three guys in one day... With subcultures, people lose that "we're part of a larger community"...it's self-destructive.

Summary

Critical of dominant understandings of identity and community, Queer

Theory has rendered the notion of a cohesive "gay" or "queer" subject or community both problematic and unstable. Similarly, anthropology questions the homogeneity and naturalness of "community". However, for anthropologists, the everyday experience of gay, lesbian, or trans identity should not be overlooked. Indeed, for the participants of this study, a sense of community provided a sense of collectivity, reassurance and acceptance.

Accessed through books, internet, and, eventually, face-to-face contact, the queer community helped participants, both urban and rural alike, to break through isolation. For some, GLBT community was assumed to be inherently urban; indeed, some did travel to the city to find their "own kind". However, for others, community was linked to "the rural". Some of my rural participants didn't actually feel part of the imagined urban community; experienced as exclusionary, insular, and in some cases, dangerous, the urban queer community was not always the "homeland" it was promised to be. For them, the following chapter points out, community was envisioned and established within rural space.

57 Chapter 4: Exploring Rural GLBT Identity & Community

Our rural LGBT community lives close to the earth providing role models of a life where we can get our hands dirty, hearts sometimes worn out from struggles, our bodies strengthened from hard work, and our souls uplifted which can shine brightly in the dash. lam humbled to begin to write stories from the dirt and fields of a Rainbow Road. -"A Rural Point of View" Wayves Magazine, Halifax, September, 2008

Theorized as the ultimate site for subcultural community, the city has simultaneously been described as isolating, anonymous, and hostile to notions of group collectivity or membership. This complex relationship between the city and community has often been conceived as a tension between urban and non- urban life. Indeed, rural/urban tensions rose in the modern era of industrial capitalism, during which the city became representative of modernity; rural areas were perceived as being bound by tradition while cities were associated with linear progress. However, the construction and experience of queer identity takes different shape in rural space; it is often highly informed by notions of rural interdependency, and, in some cases, works to complicate dominant models - ie. the closet model - of sexual identity and community.

The Rural/Urban Binary and GLBT Identity

Although theorized as a primary site for community, the city has simultaneously been characterized as a space of peculiar loneliness (Tonkiss, p.8). For some a beacon of a new civilization, the modern city has been cast by

58 others as a site of oppression, crime, and inhumanity (ibid, p.227, 30). At the

same time, the notion or "problem" of urban community has been theorized as a

tension between urban and non-urban life (ibid, p. 18). "Urban villages", such as gay villages and ethnic enclaves, though paradoxical for some, have been, for others, a reaction against the anonymity and heterogeneity of the city (ibid.). The village, though often read as distinctly anti-urban, has, in late modernity, become

an ideal for organizing urban social space (ibid.). Public policies, such as

Neighborhood Watch, have been designed to "restore" what has been lost

(Chorney, p. 195); they have implemented to "teach" urbanites how to become

"neighbourly again" (ibid.).

At the same time, rural social relations have been cast as "folksy" and

"irrational" (Tonkiss, pp.14-5). Rurality, for some, has been deemed "idiotic", as well as "justifiably marginal and vestigial" (Creed & Ching, p.8). As both

Williams (1973) and Scott (1998) note, these rural/urban tensions rose in the modern era of industrial capitalism, during which the city became a concentration of capitalist relations, and was associated with progress and modernity. Rural areas were perceived and often experienced as being bound by tradition while cities were associated with linear progress and were deemed "the brain of the whole society" (Scott, p.112). Queer subjectivity therefore rests upon a "linear, modernist trajectory", with urban GLBT or queer identities serving as

59 markers of modernity (Halberstam, 2005, p.36-7). "Gayness" is thus embedded within a metronormative narrative that positions "the rural" as a closet from which an authentic, metropolitan sexuality must emerge, and escape (ibid;

Phillips, p.183).

Situating GLBT Identity & Community in Non-metropolitan Contexts

Kennedy & Davis point out that the queer spaces which proliferated in the

United States during the early twentieth century mark the beginning of a distinctly modern as well as western, and metropolitan, queer identity (1993, p.8). They note that the GLBT or queer identities which prevail in contemporary urban Europe and America are unique to both this culture and time period

(ibid.)- Accordingly, Foucault argues that the notion of a gay identity and community emerged during a time when homosexual acts were becoming increasingly medicalized and pathologised (1990, p.44; Sullivan, p.2). During the latter part of the nineteenth century, "the homosexual" became both a personage and a species, which prompted homosexuals, both male and female, to demand acknowledgement and legitimacy as a collectively identified community

(Foucault, pp.43, 101; Sullivan, p.2). They began to organize themselves around their same-sex erotic interest, forging a collective self-definition of what it means to be lesbian or gay (D'Emilio, 1989, p.458; Taylor et. al, p.104). These modes of self-identification, Weston points out, classify gay people as a finite, bounded

60 group; they employ, and universalize, a western conception of selfhood in which sexual acts and desires are purported "thoroughly to infuse a self" (1998, p.33).

Phillips argues, however, that western models of sexuality and sexual liberation should be regarded not as "the ultimate achievement" but as something that has been produced in distinct conditions (2000, p.22). That is, the spatial production and experience of sexuality in the specific economic and social conditions of Europe and North America is produced and experienced very differently, and has very different meaning, in non-western and non- metropolitan locales (ibid.). Therefore, while recent communication technologies, such as the internet, have allowed those in such locales to participate in "global gay life" the identity of queer sexuality as it is constructed and experienced within non-metropolitan and non-western places does not mirror that of the west or the metropolitan, rather, it is a reworking of global influences within local cultural contexts (ibid, p.45).

Weston notes that deconstructing the "gay" or "queer" subject in such a way does not diminish its operative force; rather, it illuminates how the rural/urban and western/non-western binaries figure into the constitution and experience of gay subjectivity (1998, p.33; Halberstam, 2003, p. 162). For instance, Bell (2000) and Valentine (2002) point out that while "the city" has historically served as a symbolic resource for GLBT community and identity,

61 certain aspects of "the rural" have as well, albeit in very contradictory ways. Not only have rural settings been shunned and rendered uncivilized within gay popular culture, they have also been eroticized as a mythic place, free from the oppressive social norms and "prying eyes" of urban civilization (Bell, p.553).

Indeed, conceptions of "the rural" have shifted dramatically. No longer conceived of as "separate" and "self-contained" (Weston, 1998, p.41; Halberstam,

2005, p.30), rural and urban spaces are becoming increasingly blurred and are, in some cases, nearly indistinguishable (Creed & Ching, p. 2, Weston, 1998, pp.41-

2). For instance, Nova Scotia has taken extra steps to bolster the development of sustainable rural communities and connect rural and urban space. The

Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia initiative, for example, will be completed by the end of 2009. This initiative will deliver high speed internet access to all

Nova Scotians, making Nova Scotia one "of the most connected jurisdictions in

North America" (gov.ns.ca, 2009). A bulwark of urbanization (Lohr, 1996), the internet is "critical for businesses to compete internationally and find new markets around the world" and will provide all rural Nova Scotians with access to various services (gov.ns.ca, 2009).

Although Nova Scotia is one of few provinces with more than half its population rural, its urban population has more than tripled over the past hundred years (Statistics Canada, 2001). At the same time, the #103 highway,

62 which links the South Shore region with Halifax, was developed in the 1970s, as a way to provide easy access between rural communities and the urban centre.

Nevertheless, Creed & Ching argue that the rural/urban distinction, albeit symbolic, helps shape people's everyday experiences in "nearly every culture"

(1997, p.2). The opposition between urban and rural space is highly significant in the construction of identity; manifested in everyday "mundane cultural activities" - such as music, food, and recreation — it helps to generate personal and social identification (ibid, p.3).

For some participants, GLBT community and identity was experienced most intensely in rural space. For instance, Donna notes:

Most of the women I knew and had hung out with were rural, because these organizations were rural-based. I didn't know very many women in the city, I didn't spend much time there. I'd go into the dances or something once in a while... we'd have conferences here, and we always had dances, we always had women's dances, and there was always a lot of lesbian content.

For Donna, a sense of lesbian community was embedded within rural space.

Because she was involved in "rural-based" women's organizations that had their own conferences and dances, she did not feel the need to seek community in urban space. She may visit the city "once in a while", but for her, a sense of lesbian community is experienced within her rural hometown. This is echoed by Betty, who notes:

63 We have our women's parties, like, we have friends throughout the Maritimes, and we'll have a summer gathering, like, there's one coming up this month, and we'll all meet at their house and do a bit of kayaking and you know, bbqing, and all that... Yeah, we always have gatherings at our places, and I think that's the only way to do things.

Betty's experiences of community are not tied to a women's group or organization; rather, they are linked to a wide array of "friends throughout the

Maritimes". Though they may occur only a few times each year, "women's parties" or "summer gatherings" bring a dispersed group of women together to construct and experience a sense of (albeit temporary) lesbian community.

Donna also cites experiences of a distinctly rural, yet widely-dispersed lesbian community:

So you know how far apart they are geographically, and yet I feel as much a part of the Pictou community, you know, like, they are my people, as I do with the women on the South Shore, and we've always had gatherings at our houses..fust last week­ end we were at a party on the South Shore that lesbian friends had, and all kinds of lesbians all across the province are invited, and so there's a whole slew of us. So I think there's...I think maybe because we're rural, we made an effort. We always have a summer party here and we've always had lots of gatherings in between, and invited women, and you know, and women would show up. Like, we'd go to these things because it's our community... people who live outside the city aren't afraid to drive. ..its not intimidating. Whereas, like, I have friends in the city who don't seem to go outside [the city] that much... Different mindset.

For Donna, lesbian community, though geographically dispersed, is necessarily spatial - it is tied to rural space. "Because we're rural", she notes, "we made an effort...it's our community". As such, gatherings throughout rural Nova Scotia are an essential means by which community is formed and experienced.

64 However, for Donna, a sense of community also defies the confines of space.

Regardless of "how far apart they are geographically", she feels a sense of community and camaraderie with rural lesbians all over the province. As she notes: "they are my people". And although spatial distance requires more of "an effort" with regard to travel, for Donna, this is related to "mindset". While urban folk may be intimidated by such long drives, rural folk, she notes, "aren't afraid to drive". For less concentrated populations, it is a necessity.

Bonnie cites a similar experience. For Bonnie, rural and urban lesbian communities are very separate and distinct. However, Bonnie also points to moments of overlap, where the rural and urban lesbian communities, in some ways, become codependent:

See, there were rural women and there were city women. And you were going off to the city... to see the city lesbian women. And sometimes some of them would make it up to the country... there was a lot of friendships and a lot of things were happening between the rural and urban lesbian community at that point. Umm it was almost like the urban Halifax centered lesbians were kind of really wanting to get out into the country, and most of the country queers were kind of intentionally making friendships with city folk to kind of get out of the boredom of the country which can be kind of long. There was kind of a balancing thing going on there... So one was different from the other, but one wasn't in any way superior or any­ thing like that.

For Bonnie, the urban and rural lesbian communities were very separate and distinct; they existed side-by-side, but neither one was considered "superior".

However, there were certain moments in time when the two communities would come together and nurture the common ties between the two communities and

65 spaces. While the rural lesbians were looking to "get out of the boredom of the country", the "Halifax-centered lesbians" were "really wanting to get out into the country".

Rural living appeals to those people who wish to create and nurture alternative lifestyles. Alternative communities utilize rural space to embrace the spirituality of nature and the "liberatory healing effects" of non-urban, non- industrial, and non-consumerist lifestyles (Bell & Valentine, pp.118-9). Such communities have drawn links between nature, sexuality, spirituality, and alternative politics; contact with "raw nature" has offered many the opportunity for spiritual and sexual renewal (Bell, 2000, pp.554-5).

Such claims to space are, as Tonkiss points out, distinctly gendered (2005, p.108). Idealized wilderness has been perceived as the natural site for

"unreconstructed" and natural masculinity (Bell, p.555), while nature has been perceived as restorative for emasculated urban men (ibid, 556). Rural areas have also had particular links with the lesbian feminist movement (ibid; Bell &

Valentine, 1995; Valentine, 2002). Radical lesbian feminism has embraced many essentialist ideas about women's affinity with nature; menstruation, child rearing, and a natural relationship to "mother earth" have been framed as linking women and their "natural femininity" with rural space (Bell & Valentine, p. 118). A return to nature has therefore offered lesbian feminists a break from

66 the oppression of the nuclear family, a separation from the man-made city, and, above all, freedom from men (ibid.).

For Janis, who grew up in suburban Montreal, relocation to the country was directly linked to a lesbian-feminist politic:

I was a part of the back to the land movement... I'll always live in the country, I never will go back to the city. ..changing the world with lesbian feminism. It gave me the confidence to do what I really wanted to do, which is farm. ..I realized one of my largest dreams in farming. Getting this close to the earth, it's become my lifeblood.

For Janis, lesbian-feminism, farming, and the country are intertwined. Rural

Nova Scotia offered her a space within which her political ideologies and personal dreams could be realized.

Janis was the only participant to draw direct links between feminism, the country, and lesbian community. However, like Janis, many others forged and experienced a sense of lesbian community through involvement with the feminist community. For instance, Donna notes:

I was already involved in the women's community, the feminist community, and there were a lot of.. feminists on these boards, and a lot of them were lesbian.... And therefore, you know, I ended up spending more time with them...There's a lesbian community, which is great. And there's a feminist community, which is great. But when the two overlap, that's fantastic. That's the best place to be.

This was echoed by Bonnie:

I was fortunate that I did not have all that much isolation. So I was very fortunate to have this almost immediate community. ..I'm a feminist and I started getting involved... in the women's centre there and so, again I had sort of an immediate community of women who were open and umm believed in social justice and

67 equality and all of that.

For these participants, a sense of GLBT or queer community is both lesbian and feminist; it is distinctly gendered. As such, three out of four participants who live in this area cited a distinct separation between gay male and lesbian communities. For instance, Betty notes:

I have no idea about what the gay men do. ..I don't even know any. Well, I shouldn't say that, well, not around here. And I don't socialize [with them]. ..I wouldn't know them to say hi to them, I don't really know them.

This was echoed by Bonnie:

I don't know what the gay boys did... under women organizing, we were able to have our fun and have those dances. ..I think, and it's just my perception, I could be completely wrong, they may have a whole network and a whole social thing happening that I have completely not seen, I think it must be very isolating and umm small.. for gay men. But I certainly haven't seen that kind of network happening here. ..I've always felt kinda sorry for gay men because its harder for them, its only my perception, right, but I've always felt that it's harder for them to come out, harder for them to be accepted. They end up going to Halifax to have those friendships or have those social times and probably in a more structured way like, going to the club as opposed to people's homes to have dinners and things like that.

For these women, the gay male community is completely separate and distinct from the lesbian and lesbian-feminist communities. As Bonnie points out,

"lesbian women helped to define the feminist movement.. .whereas gay men haven't had that". This, coupled with the local history of women's organizing in the area, has resulted in the formation of multiple gendered, as well as spatially- disparate, rural queer communities. However, this gender disparity can be

68 conceived as generational; rooted in the feminist movement of the 1970's and

80's, these women cited above are in their 40's and 50's. Though lacking a substantive comparable sample, my data contains no reference to gender disparity among my three younger participants. To the contrary, all spoke of having gay, lesbian, and bisexual friends of both genders.

Space, Place, and Rural Identity

The increasing conflation of "space" with "place" in studies of sexuality and space also contributes to the lack of enquiry into the lives of rural queers

(Creed & Ching, p.6-7). Indeed, as Creed & Ching point out, the conflation of

"place" with the more "fashionable" or fluid components of identity erases the role of "real" places in identity formation (ibid.). It also "unquestionably posits an urbanized subject" (ibid, p.7) without considering the vital role of its opposition- the rural/rustic (ibid.). As such, rural places are deemed significant insofar as they are left behind; they are presented as playing an unimportant role in the actual constitution of authentic queer identity (Bell & Valentine, 1995;

Weston, 1998; Phillips, 2000; Halberstam, 2005).

The particularities of Nova Scotia as a "place" factor into experiences and constructions of GLBT identity and community. Two participants in particular cited local history as having a direct influence on their communities. Bonnie, for instance, explains:

69 There isn't a history of that kind of larger, umm queer community in the rural area here, as the history is in Pictou. Um what is here, is a really nice women's community, so it is very comfortable for lesbian and straight women to get to­ gether and socialize. So that's kind of nice.

As Bonnie points out, local history of queer community and organizing is lacking in her particular area; instead, there is a "really nice women's community" which provides comfort for lesbian and straight women alike. Bonnie also explains:

For some reason, Pictou county has kinda been. ..kinda has a long history of being a bit of a gathering point for lesbian women. So there's quite a large community of lesbian women in the Pictou area, which is kind of cool.

While her current town is lacking in that history of rural queer community,

Pictou, she notes, has a long history of queer community organizing, particularly for lesbian women. Pictou has, over the years, served as a "drawing card" for lesbian women, and has a history which continues to impact local GLBT communities today. As Regina notes: "I could have sworn there was something in the water.. .there is a strong community here that has been here a long time".

At the same time, Nova Scotia's urban and rural queer communities are becoming increasingly blurred. Available at many locations throughout rural

Nova Scotia, Wayves magazine, a Halifax-based GLBT newspaper, has, over the past year, also become available online (Wayves.ca, 2009). Atlantic Canada's source of both rural and urban GLBT-related news and activities, Wayves has taken great strides to bridge urban-rural gaps; aside from being available online,

70 they have also hosted a series of GLBT Town Hall Meetings, geared at

"discussfing] Atlantic Canada's emerging rural rainbow communities, the joys and problems of country living, and how LGBT media can best report and further celebrate [rural queers'] lives" (ibid.).

"They Already Knew Me": Rural Identity, Acceptance, & Community

Interdependence

Wilson points out that rural places are often "riddled with insider/outsider social structures" (2000, p.208), with the key to survival being social conformity and community interdependence (ibid; Smith & Mancoske, p. 17). In his book exploring the lives of queers in rural Canada, Michael Riordon observes that many rural queers find that they are judged primarily by their farming abilities, their community involvement, and their roles as good neighbours (1996, p.47).

Indeed, social involvement and community participation are strongly embraced within rural communities, and are the primary means by which respect and reciprocity are achieved (Smith & Mancoske, p.17); Wilson, p.208, McCarthy,

2000). Certainly, while rural areas do contain varying levels of homophobia, the power of small-town loyalty and familial ties should not be overlooked (Wilson, p.214). As such, the "we help them, they help us" ethic that governs small-town life often plays a huge role within the lives of many small-town queers (Riordon, p.113); it helps to maintain the respect one has already earned, as well as help

71 newcomers break away from their "outsider" status and gain acceptance and membership within the community (ibid.)- Therefore, for many lesbians and gays in rural areas, the community interdependency that characterizes rural life is embedded within their experiences of their same-sex sexuality (Wilson, p.213;

Halberstam, 2005, p.43).

This is especially true for those who were born-and-raised, and continue to live, in their rural hometowns. For instance, discussing her experiences of coming out, Donna notes:

People just kept treating me like me...I think that was the ticket... They just said "you know, its somebody who we've known forever, and she is who she is. She's not hurting anybody, so what the hey". So I don't know why, I just know that people were just, in fact, if anything... it seemed like people were going out of their way to be really nice to me...I totally attribute it to small communities where people know each other. And I have been a part of this community forever, I mean, I grew up here, I helped people out, like.. .you know, as a teenager, I'd always go and help somebody paint their house and I'd go buy groceries for the old lady down the road, you know, that was the community, you'd just help people out. And so it wasn't like "oh yeah, I knew her, she grew up down the road," it zoas, "oh yeah, she's been in my house, you know". And I was totally, totally accepted.

For Donna, because she had "been a part of this community forever", she was

"totally accepted". Because she was "somebody who [theyj've known forever" people even went out of their way to be nice. As she states: "I really knew these people".

72 Although Janis didn't move to rural Nova Scotia until she was in her

twenties, she attributes her hard work and community involvement as granting

her respect and acceptance within the rural community. As she states:

People in the country are more capable of accepting us. They are more dependant on us, and they're more aware of that. ..my involvement has protected me. ..help­ ing people, repairing things. My neighbor was a well-respected member of the community, a very solid neighbor...In the country you're protected by certain things. ..hard work is respected, and they saw that I was working hard, and was working good with people.

For Janis, the community interdependency that characterizes rural areas renders

them more capable of acceptance. Her involvement within the community, via hard work, helping people, and repairing things, helped her earn respect and

acceptance. The fact that her neighbor was "solid" and "a well-respected member of the community" also helped her achieve acceptance; this helped protect her, as well as integrate her into the rest of the community.

Bonnie, who also moved to rural Nova Scotia in her twenties, cites a similar experience of community acceptance and integration:

It's within a context of neighbourliness and friendships and just kind of sharing, you know, going to community events at the local hall, and you know, being a part of the community. I've always felt part of the community, I've never felt any rejection.. .It just feels very much like, to me, its about who the person is, and if they can trust you, and if you're honest and, so it's not about your orien­ tation, it's about who you are as a person.

This is echoed by Manny, who also moved to a small town at a later age:

Sometimes you just get surprised by people. And I find you get more surprised By people in the smaller areas than in the city. ..Here, I see most people almost

73 on a daily basis that I personally deal with. ..it was once I got working at the store, and I got to meet people that I was very comfortable with, and now... everybody that I personally deal with at the store knows that me and [his partner] are a couple. And they keep inviting us up for a barbeque, or drinks, and we have some people that just stop in.

For Manny, it was once he "got working at the [grocery] store" and got to

"personally deal" with people on a relatively "daily basis" that he started to get

"surprised by people" in a positive way. As a grocery store clerk, he has become a known member of the community. As such, people have accepted him and have continually invited him and his partner for community events such as barbeques and drinks.

Chris teaches high school in the same town in which he grew up. He cites a similar experience: "99% of my students have been supportive...I mean, [their families] knew me since they were born. It [being gay] doesn't make me different". For Chris, the fact that his students and their families have known him all his life has earned him support and acceptance. However, for Chris, being gay "doesn't make [him] different"; as he states: "I don't let that aspect define me".

Rural GLBT Identity: Contesting the Closet Model

The dominant model of sexual identity is often characterized as the "closet model" (Halberstam, 2003, p.163). Within this framework, GLBT subjectivity initially lies dormant, "awaiting only the right set of circumstances to emerge"

74 (ibid; Foucault, 1990). As previously noted, such circumstances have often been situated within an urban location (ibid; Weston, 1998; Phillips, 2000); establishing a core lesbian or gay identity has often coincided with the construction of urban subcultures and has involved an integration "into the dense social networks of an exclusive outsider world" (Seidman, p.11). As such, "the rural" has often been conceptualized as a closet for "authentic" urban sexual identities (Bell &

Valentine, 1995; Wilson, 2000; Halberstam, 2003, p.163; Halberstam, 2005).

Not all queers, however, leave home to become queer; thus, Halberstam points out, we must consider the possibilities that "the condition of 'staying put'" may offer in terms of producing alternative or complex queer subjectivities

(Halberstam, 2005, p.27). Indeed, Wilson notes that like all identities, rural constructions of identity are not necessarily deeply rooted and can be open to fragmentation and multiple social belongings (2000, p.214). With their relative isolation from metropolitan queer identity (Halberstam, 2005, p.40), some rural queers may not position sexuality as the "definitive characteristic of self"

(Wilson, p.210). Doing so, Wilson points out, could easily negate or minimalize other parts of their identity, such as ethnicity, class, rurality, and local familial history (2000, p.213). Rather, rural sexual communities must be understood as a

"complex interactive model of space, embodiment, locality, and desire"

75 (Halberstam, 2005, p.45); and they may exist "in proximity to, rather than in distinction from, heterosexualities" (ibid, p.39). Echoing this, Charlotte states:

I know a lot of gay people that I don't hang around with... there are many [gay people] that I do hang around with, plus, we all hang around with straight people... we have all our friends, I've had my friends for years. Everybody knows [we're gay], we just do everything together. There's a gay couple we hang around with, once a month we get together on Saturday nights, and we have poker games, and you know, some of 'em that goes with us are straight, and some aren't, and you know, it's wonderful. Nobody cares.

For Charlotte, sexuality has a small impact on her circle of friends. While there are many gay people with whom she and her partner do not socialize or "hang around", there are also many with whom they do. At the same time, they all

"hang around" with "straight people" - friends she's had "for years". While

"everybody knows" about her sexual orientation, and all of her friends, gay and straight alike, are aware of her and her partner's relationship, "nobody cares".

This, she points out, is "wonderful".

Among my participants, there were also many who embraced the dominant model of sexual identity and community. For instance, Donna states:

I wouldn't know how to be any more open about it.. .you know, I've got the sticker on my car, I wear rainbow t-shirts. I mean, I couldn't possibly be more open about it. And now, with [her partner] living here, that pretty much opens everything up.

For Donna, being "open" about her sexuality meant asserting it as a primary marker of her identity. Through rainbow stickers and t-shirts, she immediately marks herself as gay.

76 Similarly, many pointed out the perceived problem of rural queer invisibility. Drawing upon dominant notions of sexual identity and community, where sexuality is perceived as constituting selfhood, many cited the importance of visibility in achieving acceptance for GLBT communities - especially those in rural areas. For instance, Dot argues: "How can we improve things in rural districts? Visibility. If we're not seen, we can't be appreciated...how we're seen is how we grow". This is echoed by Gordon, who notes that:

One major problem is that not all members of our community are willing to "come out" of their proverbial closets and give assistance. This is true of [his town] as well as any other community in this province and elsewhere. Numbers do matter".

In a similar vein, many also pointed out the "closeted" nature of many rural

GLBT people. For instance, while Chris does not let his sexuality wholly define him and his relationship to his hometown, he also points to the closed nature of rural gays:

Rural gay people are very closeted. I [was involved] with the gay flag issue, and got negative emails from gay people who were closeted... I don't think there is much homophobia though. ..not to justify them staying in the closet so much... and I don't believe you have to move away.

Similarly, Betty points out: "It's quite amazing how many [gay people] there are

[in her town]...But...it's kind of unfortunate...I think people are still kind of afraid [to come out]. Not me, but they are".

77 This is also echoed by Manny, who states: "I find here that they are very low-key, like, it's like they don't want a lot of people to find out...Why? I don't know". However, Manny goes on to note:

It's like, I, myself today. ..I just don't come right out and say it because you know, you don't know who you're saying it to. ..I wouldn't say I'm really cautious, I just don't openly advertise it. But like I say, if you ask, I will say yeah I am, I'm not going to say I'm not when I am. Cause that's really not being true to yourself, going back to the dark ages of the being in the closet again.

For Manny, a blatant denial of his being gay would result in him being untrue to himself and ultimately signify the "dark ages" of "the closet. At the same time,

Manny also does not "openly advertise" his gayness or "come right out and say it". Similarly, Betty points out:

50% of the community knows who I am and they seem to like me and to have accepted me for what I am, its not a problem. But I'm not out there "I'm lesbian" I'm just me, I'm just, you know... you probably wouldn't even know [that I was a lesbian] if I was in a crowd, you know how you can tell sometimes. But, you know, I fit right in here, no problem at all.

For Betty, her sexuality is not the definitive aspect of her identity. Rather, she notes, "I'm just me". While half of the community is aware of and has accepted her sexuality, she is also not "out there" about it. This is also echoed by Bonnie, who notes:

I was never one to be you know, rash and overt about my orientation. ..So you know, I didn't push the envelope. ..everybody knows that I'm a lesbian. ..I don't shy away from being who I am but I am also not overt about my being queer. It's within a context of neighbourliness and friendships and just kind of sharing, you know, going to community events at the local hall, and you know, being apart of the community.

78 For Bonnie, although "everybody knows that [she's] a lesbian", and she doesn't

"shy away" from being herself, she is also not "overt about [her] orientation"; she doesn't "push the envelope". Rather, the importance lies in

"neighbourliness", "friendships", and "community events", that is, "being apart of the community". Openly asserting her orientation or "difference" at every opportunity, Wilson points out, could hinder or neglect those parts of her identity (2000, p.213). While not denying that aspect of her identity, Bonnie values her sexuality without building her life around it; she approaches it as an identity thread, rather than a core identity (Seidman, p. 89). Such an approach,

Halberstam points out, does not necessarily signify the closet (2003, p. 163).

Rather, for some rural queers, the spatial construction and experience of GLBT or queer identity in non-urban contexts may defy or complicate dominant conceptions of the closet model (ibid; Wilson, 2000). GLBT identity may be negotiated so as not to undermine other elements of one's identity.

Summary

Many participants discovered and maintained their sense of gay and lesbian community in rural space; however, the construction and experience queer identity took a different shape. Highly informed by notions of rural interdependency and reciprocity, many participants negotiate their sexual identities and communities with their rural or local identities and communities.

79 Widely dispersed throughout the province, GLBT communities in Nova Scotia

are, at the same time, informed by the particularities of "place". In certain parts

of rural Nova Scotia, local queer or feminist histories have helped to generate

specifically rural, lesbian-feminist communities. However, urban and rural

GLBT communities, albeit distinct, are not segregated; as urban and rural boundaries have been blurred, they have become increasingly overlapped and in

some cases, codependent.

80 Chapter 5: Conclusions

While the recent debates within rural Nova Scotia surrounding the Gay

Pride flag may have confirmed for many their stereotyped beliefs surrounding small town backwardness and ignorance, they also brought a rural queer community together, and illuminated the fact that not all gay people live in the city; rather, many remain living within or return to their rural hometowns. My research has attempted to fill the gaps that currently exist within the literature regarding rural queer identity and experience. Since preliminary work on this topic has focused on rural contexts in the United States, it is important to address this gap as it exists in Canadian context, and examine how rural Nova Scotian gays and lesbians individuals approach and negotiate their sexual identities, as well as establish and maintain a sense of community.

Mapped onto a narrative of rural-to-urban migration, gay, lesbian, and trans identities are often linked to the city. As such, queer history has often discounted the symbolic role of the urban/rural binary in the constitution of queer identity and community. In the context of Nova Scotia, this binary played a pivotal role in shaping participants' identities and experiences. A rural or

"small town" life appealed to urban and rural-born queers alike. Often mythologized as backward, traditional, and homophobic, rural areas, for the

81 participants of this study, were a source of varying levels of acceptance, as well as community (both rural and queer).

At the same time, the isolation of rural life required, in some cases, additional effort to find or access GLBT community. For some, this involved access to, or, physically going to, the city. Regardless, for my participants, a sense of GLBT community provided a sense of collectivity, reassurance and acceptance. Accessed through books, internet, and, eventually, face-to-face contact, a sense of GLBT community helped both urban and rural participants, especially those from older generations, to break through isolation. For some participants, GLBT community was assumed to be inherently urban; some did travel to the city to find their "own kind". However, for others, GLBT community was actually linked to "the rural". Having spent varying amounts of time in the city, many rural participants didn't actually feel part of the imagined urban community; experienced as exclusionary, insular, and in some cases, dangerous, the urban queer community was not always the "homeland" it was promised to be. Class and cultural differences between urban and rural queers overshadowed the sharing of a GLBT identity. At the same time, many participants spoke of the thriving rural GLBT communities throughout Nova

Scotia. For some, GLBT community, or more specifically, lesbian-feminist community, was imagined and established within rural space.

82 The queer communities which proliferated during the early twentieth century mark the beginning of a distinctly western and metropolitan queer identity. That is, the construction and experience of queer identity takes different shape in rural space; it can work to complicate dominant models - ie. the closet model - of sexual identity and community. Indeed, highly informed by notions of rural interdependency and reciprocity, some participants challenged the closet model or sexual identity in which sexuality is characteristic of one's self. However, there was evidence of pressures to conform. Some participants noted the "closeted" nature of many rural GLBT individuals, while others appeared to negotiate their queerness or their "difference" as a way to foster inclusion within the rural community. While my sample did not include heterosexual rural participants, for my queer participants, hard work and community participation appeared to have granted them respect and acceptance, and for newcomers, integration, within the rural community.

With increasing media attention being paid to GLBT or queer issues, the perceptions of rural heterosexuals ought to be examined. For instance, many participants spoke of the significance of public policy - ie. gay marriage - in

"humanizing" queer people, especially for those in small towns. As Bonnie explains:

Within the conservative general population of the rural area... the fact that legislation has it now that same sex couples can marry...we're normalizing

83 those relationships... the more we kind of normalize it, the more community and society is going to accept it.

With the lines between urban and rural space being increasingly blurred, depictions of small towns as being backward and traditional need to be challenged. Vehicles of globalization, television, print media, and the internet have changed the face of rural life and offer a unique opportunity to re-examine the relationship between queer identity, community, and urban and rural spaces.

The impacts of gender and age on one's experience of rurality and GLBT community and identity also provide possible areas for future research. With many participants' experiences rooted in lesbian-feminist communities, how do the experiences of rural gay men differ from lesbian or queer women? How do the experiences of rural queer youth differ from rural queer adults? Are the experiences of rural queer youth similar to those in urban areas?

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89 Appendix i:

Profile of Participants

Betty, a 50-year-old self-identified lesbian, grew up in Halifax County, outside of Halifax. While she felt she had to go into Halifax to "find [her] own kind", and did become involved in Halifax's gay bar scene throughout the 1970's and 80's, she moved to Yarmouth in 1990 with her partner and has lived there ever since.

Randy, a 23-year-old self-identified gay male, was born and raised in

Liverpool, Nova Scotia. He "came out" during high school, and continues to live in the area with his partner Manny.

Charlotte, a 58-year-old self-identified lesbian, was born and raised in

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. After spending two years during her twenties working in Halifax, she returned home to help take care of her sick father, and to be with her family. Upon her return, she also "came out" to herself; she continues to live there today.

Chris, a 27-year-old self-identified gay man, was born and raised near

Truro, Nova Scotia. Chris "came out" after moving to St. John's, Newfoundland for university, but moved back to his hometown in 2003 following his father's death in order to be near his family. Chris has since been an active member of

Truro's gay pride group.

90 Bonnie, a self-identified lesbian in her early 50's, grew up on Prince

Edward Island. After living throughout various parts of Canada, she decided to settle in Pugwash, and later moved to Yarmouth with her partner, Donna.

Bonnie began to "come out" to her friends and family upon moving to Pugwash, where she became integrated within a very close-knit queer community.

Manny, a self-identified gay man in his early 40's, grew up on a small army base in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He started to "come out" during his early teens while living on the base, and later lived throughout various parts of Canada.

Heavily involved in Halifax's gay bar scene throughout the 1980's and early 90's,

Manny has lived in Liverpool since 2002, where he moved to be with his partner,

Randy.

Pauline, a 43-year-old self-identified lesbian, was born and raised in

Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia. After "coming out" in Halifax, where she worked and attended university, Pauline and her now-wife decided to move back to the

Tatamagouche area in 2002, where they are currently settled.

Kat, a 23-year-old self-identified lesbian, was also born and raised in

Liverpool, Nova Scotia. After "coming out" during high school, she spent two years in Halifax, going to college. She then moved back to her hometown for work, and continues to live in a nearby town.

91 Donna, a 50-year-old self-identified lesbian, was born and raised in

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Except for a two-year-stint living in Halifax, Donna has spent her entire life in Yarmouth. Heavily supported by Yarmouth's feminist community, she "came out" there during the late 1980's, and currently lives 3 miles away from the house in which she grew up.

James, a 23-year-old self-identified gay man, was born and raised in

Liverpool, Nova Scotia. James began to "come out" during high school, after which he moved to Halifax to attend university. James is currently in the process of moving back near his hometown for work, where he hopes to eventually open a community medical clinic.

Gordon, a 68-year-old self-identified gay man, was born and raised in the

Netherlands. Gordon moved to Amherst, Nova Scotia in 1969, and in 1974 began to "come out". He met his now-husband in 1975, and has spent the past 8 years engaging in gay rights activism in the Amherst area.

Dot, a 62-year-old self-identified transwoman, was born and raised in

England. Following a brief visit with her partner's family, she, along with her partner and children, decided to move to Musquodobit, Nova Scotia. A resident of the area for the past 30 years, she began to publicly transition in 2001.

Janis, a 57-year-old self-identified queer feminist, "came out" to herself while growing up in the suburbs of Montreal. Embracing the ideals of the back-

92 to-the-land-movement, Janis decided to move to Pictou, Nova Scotia during the

1970's, where she began to live her dream of farming. It was after this move that

Janis really began to "come out" - for her, queer feminist identity is directly tied

to the rural.

Regina, a 31-year-old self-identified lesbian, grew up in urban United

States and moved to Halifax at the age of 22 - the same year she began to "come

out". While this process begun in Halifax, Regina didn't fully "come out" until a

year or so later, when, after moving to Pictou, she began to meet other members

of the GLBT community.

93 Appendix ii:

Map of Nova Scotia

Amherst -r Tatamaeouche i iruro a I Pictou

Yarmouth

5 ^r*../^ - •tew-* Moa^V SS-aiala *Si

ifV- Halifax

Cap* S'aM*' Liverpool

94 Appendix iii:

Chronology of the Rainbow Flag Issue

August 3, 2007: Truro town council votes 6-1 against raising the gay pride flag outside town hall for pride week. Mayor makes homophobic remarks, citing his Christian convictions

Early August, 2007: Truro Pride holds rally, protesting town council's decision and the mayor's remarks

Mid-August, 2007: Truro Pride files human rights complaint against town

September, 2007: Truro approves a new flag policy banning the raising of non­ governmental flags on the 5 town-owned flagpoles. Also adopts banner policy, allowing community groups to fly banners at such locations

February 4, 2008: Pictou Refuses to fly flag

April 23, 2008: Cumberland changes flag policy; refuses to fly flag

May 17, 2008: Pride of Pictou holds rally commemorating International Day Against Homophobia. Holds town hall meeting to discuss flag issue.

July 7, 2008: Amherst raises flag for first time

July 7-13, 2008: Amherst holds first ever Pride week

95