The number of books and articles about Appalachia’s LGBT communities has exploded since 2018, including new classics like Neema Avashia’s Another Appalachia and Willie Carver Jr’s Gay Poems for Red States. Now, a new collection of essays explores the intersection of queer Appalachian life with the region’s ecology. The book is titled Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future. It’s edited by Zane McNeill and Rebecca Scott.
Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams previously spoke with Zane about another collection they edited, Y’all Means All, and wanted to check back in. He started by reading a quote that Zane had referenced from Rae Garringer’s interview with Kenny Bilbrey.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Adams: They said they “feel like a part of being Appalachian is inevitably queer, whether or not you identify as queer. I think the whole experience is.” Can you elaborate on that idea and how it plays into your work?
McNeill: Yeah. So with Y’all Means All, I feel like we really wanted to say that we’re here, you know, we’re queer, we’re really happy to be here. People can survive, they can thrive in Appalachia. Deviant Hollers really brought from that quote by Kenny the thinking that there’s something inherently queer, not just about being LGBT in Appalachia, but the whole region itself. Something I was really interested in coming into this project was this idea of queer ecologies — saying that regions and spaces can themselves be queer in different ways. I feel like we see this a lot in Appalachian writing, is Appalachia being othered or stereotyped by outside regions to be scapegoated in elections, to have our mountains torn apart for capitalist interests outside of it. In Y’all Means All, we’re really interested in being LGBT in Appalachia. In Deviant Hollers, I think we have a larger project of thinking through the region itself, as other, as deviant, as just different — and what we can gain from that kind of frame.
Adams: A lot of the ideas about ecology, and queerness and Appalachia as a deviant “other” — they very much align with my experience covering the resistance against the Mountain Valley Pipeline. In fact, you have a writer who discusses that topic. How has that campaign against the Mountain Valley Pipeline informed your work in this topic area?
McNeill: I feel like they were one of the first groups I knew about — just the advocacy they do. I feel like from their discourse on their social media and what I know from them, they really feel aligned in place. As Chet mentions, who did the book chapter on the pipeline protesters, it’s a very queer and trans space, and a lot of their work is really anti-capitalist, really focused on environmental justice and thinking through how queer advocacy and environmental advocacy have to be connected to create a more sustainable future. With Deviant Hollers, I come to Appalachia as a region and as a place through that framework. What can we gain if we think not just about LGBT people here, but really queer advocacy and what that means for cishet people as well, and why it’s necessary for our region to continue to exist, to pass this sort of sacrifice zone we’re in right now, where outside companies come in and just tear us apart for capital.
Adams: You talked about growing up in Morgantown? What’s your experience been like? And how’s that overlaid your work editing these books?
McNeill: I feel like I don’t have the same experience as some other folks do being queer, growing up queer in Appalachia. I faced my own kind of dysphoria. My biggest issue growing up was not having a vocabulary to understand my queerness and my transness. Pre–2010s, I feel like there just really wasn’t the sort of societal discourse around being queer or trans. Now it’s everywhere, but it’s weaponized against queer and trans youth, so I think it’s a double-edged sword. It really wasn’t until I left the region for my undergraduate and master’s degree that I realized how special being queer in Appalachia is, and every time returning. Right now I’m in Denver, and living in cities is supposedly really safe for queer and trans people; I don’t really feel seen here and I feel like I have to perform a lot, and I don’t always feel safe. Going back to Morgantown, I feel like I see queer and trans people all over the place, and I feel much more seen and I feel much more understood.
Adams: There’s some discussion in the book about how queer life in Appalachia is represented or not represented. It seems like 2018 was a watershed year in that regard, where previous to that, you had fairly limited expression, or if it was there, it was covered up or muted. Whereas since 2018, there’s just been an explosion of writing about queer life in Appalachia. What happened in 2018.
McNeill: For me, it’s when Electric Dirt came. It was a zine that was immensely popular, and it was one of the first times I’ve ever seen a collection describing queer and trans life in Appalachia. It was organized by the collective Queer Appalachia, which ended up having its own issues. But for a lot of us, that was the first time we found a vocabulary. Living in Appalachia, like I mentioned, my friends were queer and trans, but there wasn’t a very visible movement or community in a lot of ways. I don’t think it’s because of oppression — I think that’s part of it, like anywhere — but I just feel like once all Electric Dirt came out, there was really a galvanization I think of queer and trans people in Appalachia. I think part of that also is just because after 2016, we saw a lot of really weird media rhetoric around Appalachia because of JD Vance’s memoir Hillbilly Elegy and the election of Donald Trump. There was all this discourse around Trump in Appalachia, and a lot of that was erasing our experiences. So in 2018 with Electric Dirt, I feel like a lot of us were disenchanted with the way we were being represented, and we really wanted to fight to have our stories told and have an archive that we can look back on. Because it’s not like queer and trans people weren’t here before, but we weren’t able to have our stories published and preserved. A lot of us were also doing PhDs or master’s degrees, because we wanted to do this research to inform political praxis, and vice versa. We were starting out and we were really, really aggressive and really excited about this work, and so I feel like that turned into what now is a really thriving field in queer Appalachian studies.
Adams: We’re living at a time now, where we’re hearing from a lot of vibrant voices in Appalachia’s LGBT community. There are more avenues than there have been for queer expression. But at the same time, elected officials around the region are targeting that same community by passing laws, restricting books and libraries, restricting expression. How are you processing this moment in Appalachia?
McNeill: I was doing a book talk at Fairmont University, and a student asked me — it was about Y’all Means All, and like I said, we were all really idealistic in 2018. The book came out in 2022, but it’s very much a moment in the late 2010s. They mentioned how difficult it is. They want to be here, they love the region, they don’t have a lot of resources to leave it. But at the same time, politicians are attacking our right to exist. It was it was a difficult moment for me for self-reflection, because a lot of the work that I do and the authors that work with me do are really utopic-thinking. Where you’re thinking about queer Appalachian futures and liberatory futures, I think you have to be a dreamer in a lot of ways, and at the same time, it gets increasingly difficult to dream these futures when my community is under attack in ways that really are meant to eradicate our existence. These anti-trans laws not only have a material effect on trans youth and trans people, but also are really meant to silence and censor and make us disappear from public life. If you look at Project 2025, which is what the Heritage Foundation wants the next Trump administration, should he be elected, to be like, they aligned trans identities with pornography and say that we should be erased pretty much in every way possible. It’s very difficult emotionally and mentally to exist every day in a space that wants to regulate and kill you, or say that there’s something wrong with you. West Virginia has maybe the highest rate of trans youth. Appalachia has thousands and thousands if not millions of trans and queer people. Politicians voting against our interests, against our community, is really harmful. At the same time, I’ve seen activists who have stayed in West Virginia fight against these laws every day at the capitol despite all the horrible things that people and politicians say about them. I’ve seen collectives and mutual aid work to help get people the medical care and everything else that they need because the only people that keep us safer are us. The solidarity work happening in Appalachia really speaks to the utopic thinking that I’ve tried to hold onto. These laws are affecting people. Getting them overturned or having them not pass is a kind of harm reduction. But at the same time, it’s these community groups and our communities in general that are doing the work to make sure we’re all safe.
Adams: Zane McNeil, thank you so much for talking to us on Inside Appalachia.
McNeill: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
“Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future” is available from University Press of Kentucky.