Jessica Fields "raises the critical question of whether 'looking like everyone else' is an accomplishment or a derailment for progressive LGBT social movement and identities and, ultimately, decides it is a setback" (Gray 1068-1084).  As I suggested last night, Gray argues, however, that "the conversation in rural communities hinges not on whether LGBT youth look like everyone else as much as do they live here at all" (1068-1084). 

The second half of this chapter is a continuation of one rural communities struggles to educate their community on LBGT youth.  One woman's (Mary's) efforts to hold an educational meeting, sponsored by the Homemakers Club, was fraught with problems.  The room they had reserved for the event in the court house suddenly got canceled by the clerk , who claimed that Mary had booked the room under false pretenses.  The newspapers scheduled to cover the event were getting threatening emails and phone calls, and Mary also received threats. 

Mary feared that the event would be poorly attended due to the change in venue and the problems they were encountering, but the night of the event found "an overflow crowd piled into the . . . Library's Children's Reading Room for more than two hours of discussion" (1162-1177).  There were 43 people there that night, and most were eager to hear what the panelist had to say.  There were a hand full of those that tried to change the tone of the meeting, but they were unsuccessful.

After the meeting, Mary resigned her position in the Homemaker's Club, telling Gray that she would "not spend the rest of [her] life with a bunch of people with such closed minds" and that she would "write all of the UK [University of Kentucky] Advisors and let them know about the word 'discrimination' and how [they were] treated from the top of the Kentucky Extension Homemakers Association . . . from the logos to nonsupport from agents" (1225-1240).  Even a successful meeting took its toil on the people who were trying to give the LGBT youth in the community visibility. 

So while 'looking like everyone else' may seem like a cop out to some in the LGBT community, for these youth it means at least being acknowledged, of being seen as an individual, which is something that Napier was unwilling to even admit.  Again, walk before we run.

"Son, I'm sorry, because I know you don't agree with me on this.  But I don't believe in supporting gay people's rights, because it's bad for families" (qtd. in Gray 819-835).  Yes, you read that right!  That was Kentucky Representative Napier's response to a 17 year old college student who had presented him with 400 signatures on index cards of LGBT individuals to prove that they did exist in his district.  And this was in 2002.

It's always amazed me that there are those that believe being gay or lesbian is somehow detrimental to family live.  I have a family . . . I have a partner, a brother, a niece, two great-nieces, a mother, a father, and probably some assorted cousins.  Is that not a family?  My partner and I could have had kids, could have adopted, could have done foster children . . ., God knows there are plenty of unwanted kids in this country. 

The first part of this chapter in Mary L. Gray's Out in the Country discusses one attempt of making LGBT youth more visible in one rural area of KY.  Gray argues that "family is the primary category through which rural community members assert their right to be respected and prioritized by power brokers like Lonnie Napier" (835-851).  By invoking the "we are the same as everyone else" they hope to become visible within their own communities.  They can do this by claiming familial ties to the community in which they live.

This, of course, is a throw back to the argument that we, as LGBT, are the same as everyone else and capable of upholding the social norms of society.  I've read a lot about the different arguments that exist for LGBT communities in the last year, and I would argue that perhaps people in rural areas have to be accepted as "normal" before they can become anything else.  One has to be visible before they can begin to push the boundaries further.  Perhaps there is more meaning than I thought in the old saying that you have to walk before you can run!!