By Nikita Shepard
The first chance I get, I’m getting on a plane to San Francisco and never looking back.
Well, that’s what I always told myself, at least. When I arrived in North Carolina from the Northeast as an effeminate, bookish eight year old, nothing seemed right. Southern twang and slang mystified me, while I struggled to adjust to new foods, schools, and manners. And the homophobic and gender-oppressive bullying I’d always encountered seemed, if anything, to intensify. I couldn’t wait to grow up and get out.
And as that nagging sense of difference and separateness slowly crystallized during my adolescence, San Francisco emerged as the focal point of my fantasies of escape. If I can just make it out there, I reasoned as a daydreaming teenager, I’ll finally get to be around people more like me…whatever that means.
Little did I know that my journey into sexual and gender dissidence would not lead me away from the South, but would nestle my roots down more deeply than I’d ever imagined.
On a sunny May afternoon shortly before I turned 16, the fellow who would soon become my first boyfriend took me to the botanical garden at the nearby university. Strolling among the crape myrtles and magnolias, he craned his neck until the tree he sought came into view. Beckoning me over, he plucked a fresh mimosa blossom from the drooping branch and pressed it gently to my nose. Its tantalizing softness caressed my cheek; its heady perfume intoxicated me. We laid in the sun-dappled shade of the grass beneath the mimosa tree, sniffing and snuggling, tumbling headlong into queer teenage love.
Through him, I discovered a secret world pulsing beneath the surface of mundane straight reality. He initiated me into many of the codes and cues of southern queer communities, from meeting places and clandestine networks to new lingo, like the question, “Are you family?” to subtly inquire after someone’s sexuality.
My newly emerging queer southern life really did feel like a family affair. My early experiences at the North Carolina Pride Festival in Durham felt like reunions, with country dykes from deep in the hills rubbing shoulders with newly out high school and college students brimming with anxious giddiness. As an intern at Equality North Carolina, I learned about the carefully-crafted network of activists, donors, and humble folks around the state quietly taking a stand in defense of their loved ones.
At age 17, at a monthly drag bingo fundraiser for the Alliance of AIDS Services of the Carolinas, I debuted my first awkward but eager foray into gender transgression. And when Ms. Mary K. Mart, the emcee and reigning empress of the local queens, looked me up and down, arched an eyebrow, and cawed, “Girrrrl, you can work it!” I basked giddily in this royal stamp of approval.
Yet despite these charming early experiences, I still harbored the sense that a real queer life only existed over the rainbow in California. When I received a scholarship to attend college in North Carolina, I grudgingly decided to stay close to home for the next four years. But, I promised myself, the day after graduation I’d be on that plane out west, and the South could kiss my queer rear goodbye for good.
“Little did I know that my journey into sexual and gender dissidence would not lead me away from the South, but would nestle my roots down more deeply than I’d ever imagined.” —Nikita Shepard. Photo by Chris Berntsen.
But in the meantime, as my sexual and gender identities developed and my connections deepened, the queer South kept growing on me. LGBTQ or alternative bookstores and supportive churches provided meeting spaces, while college campuses heated up with organizing across the state. Activists like Mandy Carter challenged us to confront white supremacy within and beyond queer communities in fighting for “justice, not just us,” while innovative multiracial drag troupes like Durham’s Cuntry Kings demonstrated our homegrown cultural creativity. Historians from James Sears to John Howard and brilliant scholar/performers like E. Patrick Johnson gave voice to our historical legacies in the region. Documentaries like Southern Comfort provided touching, relatable portraits of trans life outside of the few metropolises where we were supposedly safe, while organizations like Asheville’s Tranzmission stepped up to support the most vulnerable in our communities. It was becoming clear that the image of the South as uniformly homophobic and repressive simply didn’t jive with the diverse and uproarious communities I was encountering.
Sure, I still traveled. On spring breaks in San Francisco, I connected with queers whose radical politics challenged and inspired me in an environment that felt freer—and more sexually saturated—than anywhere I’d ever been. At protests in Washington, New York, and Miami, I found “pink blocs” and all-queer affinity groups, and the first intimations of a national network of sexual and political radicals.
But, I reasoned, why should I have to travel across the country to see them? Why not coalesce them right in our backyard? And so the Sweaty Southern Radical Queer and Trans Convergence was born, bringing together hundreds of activists from around the region to network, learn, rabble-rouse, and party. It was an unprecedented success, and the connections forged at that gathering catapulted me into a circuit of fascinating southern queer culture and politics that I’d never guessed existed.
My first trip to Atlanta for Mondo Homo revealed an enthralling urban queer cultural nexus just a few hours south. The irrepressible energy and gracious hospitality of Florida queers organizing in SoFUQT (South Florida United Queers and Trannies) and NOFUQT (their northern counterparts) amazed me, as I attended a radical conference and met new friends from across the Sunshine State. Southerners on New Ground (SONG) shared organizing skills and worked to promote an intersectional vision of justice at trainings and campouts from the Carolinas to the Florida Panhandle.
And finally, on a camping trip with two lovers and a pack of friends to rural Tennessee one October, I stumbled upon the fascinating and vibrant Radical Faerie community of Short Mountain, which has become a cherished home for me off and on for more than a decade. Yearly sojourns to nearby Idapalooza became a staple of my travels, more exhilarating and bizarre than any big city Pride festival.
Though I’ve lived in the region for nearly all my life, few will confuse me for a native southerner. My vegan palate has no room for barbecue, and I still can’t stand sweet tea. But I have learned to call the South my home—not despite, but indeed because of my queerness.
Many years after falling in love to the scent of mimosa blossoms in the Carolina springtime, I learned that the tree is actually an invasive species. I’ve pondered that concept, and it strikes me that this tree may be a pretty apt metaphor for my existence here, and perhaps for a lot of queers—dislocated, plopped down onto stolen land, taking root in strange soil, perceived as outsiders, yet able to produce exquisite beauty and bring joy to those around us. So perhaps rather than uprooting ourselves, we can work to transform our “invasiveness” by challenging colonialism and white supremacy; by being good neighbors; and by striving to assert our beauty and uniqueness, but never at the expense of the diversity that our ecosystem needs to flourish.
So to southerners who feel they have to leave the region to survive, y’all have my blessing. San Francisco is still out there. But for those of us who can stay here and thrive, let’s sink our roots into this soil and celebrate our creativity, our defiance, our passion, and all the richness and transformative potential we bring to this region we call home.
