Editor’s note: This is the first installment of Spectrum South Snapshots, a Spectrum South original series highlighting southern queer folks and the communities in which they thrive.
By Josh Inocéncio
Name: Izzy Broomfield!
Hometown: Berea, KY
Current town: Corbin, KY
How do you identify?
I am a non-binary transfemme panromantic demisexual Appalachian! At least that’s the basic bio version of my identity. I’ve also spent most of my life living in the rural South, so that’s important to me, too, but it doesn’t come before my Appalachianness. My skin’s white, but I definitely don’t identify with mainstream imperialist white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy, so my lefty politics are also a central part of my identity (but shhhh, don’t tell anyone! They might think differently of me!)
What’s a day in Berea, Kentucky like for you?
A day in Berea, Kentucky is probably pretty different for me than it is for a lot of other people, because I have a really complex relationship with Berea as a place, and the role it’s played in my life. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a magical and wonderful place that I love very dearly, but I’m not the type of person who can handle magic and wonder 100 percent of the time. Sometimes you’ve got to sneak outside the castle gates and see what’s on the other side of the wall, if you know what I mean.
As it turns out, the first two times I ended up on the other side of the wall that separates Berea from the rest of the world (note: there is no physical, literal wall, for those of you who’ve not yet been to Berea), it wasn’t by my own choosing—my family moved for work when I was still in school, and I spent a lot of time away from Berea, wishing I was back. But then again, I always felt like I had to get away when I was growing up? Like I said, Berea and I have a complex relationship.
At this point in my life, since I don’t live in Berea, an average day usually involves visiting my family who still live there or working on a project for work. Hopefully it also involves running into one of the many magical and wonderful and cute people who live there and who I’m lucky enough to consider my friends. It’s funny—that’s usually not the main reason I end up in Berea, but I pretty much can’t go there without bumping into someone who I find to be amazing. It’s a great problem to have!
What are the greatest challenges of living in Kentucky?
The first thing I’ll say is that Kentucky isn’t harder than any of the other places I’ve lived, it’s just hard in different ways. As a young queer person, I haven’t had as much of an issue with outright violence and discrimination as I have in other places (like California, believe it or not!), but I have had an issue specifically around queer-inclusive mental health support. As with other rural communities around the country, the mental health system around here just doesn’t seem to be geared towards serving queer folks, which is a shame, ‘cause a lot of us could use the support! But again, I think there are challenges to being queer just about anywhere one goes, so it’s just different!
Another challenge that struck me about moving back to Kentucky is the Internet access. A lot of things that I’d gotten used to from living in other places, like using the GPS on my phone to get around, or even just having cellular data signal at all, was definitely a lot more challenging in the mountains. And I do nerdy computer stuff for work, so I learned that the access issues reach a lot farther than the smartphone scene. But, there’s a lot of energy going into making all of that better for the folks who need it, and I had the opportunity to get involved a little, so these challenges can also be exciting opportunities to learn new things and make a difference in the community! And at the end of the day, like 50 percent of the global population doesn’t have Internet access, so again, these things aren’t unique to Kentucky.
Other than that, the only challenge I’d mention is the stress that stereotypes about the region put on people like me who love it here! Especially after the last presidential election and the weird rediscovery of rural America that the media’s been up to this year, I see a lot of old and negative stereotypes about the region and the people who live here back on people’s minds. And as someone who really wants to change that narrative and help make our communities the kinds of places where those stereotypes can’t take root, that’s frustrating! But I’m sure the media will go back to talking shit about someone else’s community before long; we’re definitely not the only people who get targeted and exploited like that, and we’re definitely very far from getting it the worst or the most often.
What keeps you there?
Damn, that’s a good question. My joking first response is that I got a big ole tattoo of Kentucky on my leg, and I’d just look weird if I lived anywhere else! But the reason I got the tattoo in the first place is because this place means a lot to me, and that’s the real reason I stay (and have come back so many times after getting away!). There are a lot of things I could say about why it means so much to me and what makes this place so powerful, like the saying that the old-timers have—that there’s something about the mountains that gets to you and never goes away—or the fact that I fear that if I don’t live here and love this place, then how can I expect anyone else to? But I think that, at the end of the day, you probably have to be inside my head or my heart to really feel those things and understand them intuitively, so I’m not sure it translates. I guess I could call it love. I stay here because I love it; and if you know anything about love, you know that it can be hard sometimes, and it can hurt, but that’s part of what makes it love. I think that’s why I stay—because love.
What would you want outsiders to know most about the region?
One thing I’ve found myself telling outsiders a lot recently is that yes, Kim Davis is from here, and yes, they built a life-size replica of the Ark here, but they also chose to light the Ark at night with the queerest rainbow you’ve ever seen. The point I’m getting at is that there are some really beautiful things that happen in a place like Kentucky that people talk shit about, and I think they happen because people talk shit, and I think they’re more powerful because of it! Like the queer scene here in Kentucky—it’s a very special thing. A lot of people don’t think it exists, but it sure does, and I think it might be twice as awesome because we can all bond over the fact that everyone else is wrong, and it’s motivation to prove them wrong! “Resistance” has been a big idea this year, and I think that same idea is part of what I want outsiders to know about this region—that there’s plenty of resistance here, just like anywhere else—it’s amazing and complex and inspiring, and it’s been here since well before my time!
The other thing is that being an outsider is a temporary condition, and the best remedy I’ve found is to dive right in and see what a place is all about. So y’all outsiders should take a break from your outsiderness sometime and come give being an insider a try! #KentuckyKicksAss #youKNOWnobodypaidmetosaythat #comeseeforyourself!
