PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao
Hey y’all, it’s Anita. A few weeks ago, we dropped an episode about building a queer life in the country, featuring self-proclaimed country queer and oral historian Rae Garringer. Rae’s story really resonated with our Embodied intern, Nina … especially Rae’s desire to find and build community with other LGBTQ folks who know what it’s like to grow up like they did — without a lot of other queer folks nearby.
In this bonus episode, Nina shares her personal quest to find LGBTQ representation and belonging as a Black lesbian in the American South. She speaks to two Black Southern lesbians who share their outlooks on the history, resilience, and vibrant culture of their community. Enjoy this conversation, and we’ll be back in your feeds Thursday with a fresh episode.
Nina Scott
This is Embodied our show Tackling Sex, relationships, and Health. I'm Nina Scott, the audience engagement intern. I came to terms with being lesbian about four years ago during my sophomore year of college. My journey to this identity was plagued with difficulty for a variety of reasons. Religious trauma, compulsory heterosexuality. And a lack of representation around the multitudes of expressions that queerness has to offer.
When I searched for black lesbian media, I found myself isolated in the minuscule amount of representation we have. So much of it is tied to northern metropolitan environments like Chicago, New York, and Philly. It made it so much more difficult to relate to the depictions of black queerness. And it left me questioning my own validity.
As a small town southern black lesbian, I was desperate to know, does black queerness even exist below the Mason Dixon line? And if it does, why isn't anyone talking about it? These questions set me on a mission, a journey of both self-determination and historical exploration to find out where were all the black Southern lesbians.
I couldn't begin this mission without mentioning the first black lesbian I ever knew. Right here in my hometown of Carbo, North Carolina.
Do you remember how we met?
Shirlette Ammons
I do. I don't know the exact day, but we met when you were probably five years old mm-hmm. At the art center when your parents brought you to, to enroll for the afterschool program there.
Nina Scott
To the public. Shirette Ammons is known as a remarkable musician, award-winning poet and black queer southern truth teller. But I met her as Miss Sherette, my afterschool administrator and favorite counselor at the Carbo Art Center. Even then, before the debut of her unapologetically black and queer discography Sherette rocked a gender non-conforming look with short, spiky hair, a taper, fade, face, piercings, and clothes that were undoubtedly from the men's section.
Shirlette's unique appearance, bewildered me as an elementary schooler and maybe awoke something.
You definitely did stand out to me. I don't think I processed, I. That you were gay? Yeah. I don't think I knew that. Yeah. I was just like, oh, she's kind of cool. Yeah. She had boy clothes. Exactly. I enjoy that. I do remember, I think I was in middle school and you came up in the conversation like, oh, do you remember that? I was like, oh, I wonder if she has a husband. Mm. And my mom was like,
Shirlette Ammons
She like Suge, she's gay. And I was like, oh, like she look at her. Then you did the mental Rolodex look back and like, oh, mama might be on to something.
Nina Scott
Right. I was like, oh. I was like, women can be gay. I think. I thought that only men were gay.
Shirlette Ammons
Oh, wow.
Nina Scott
So I was just like. Maybe you're just really big tomboy. Like I just, I didn't process it. I didn't really know what that looked like. Yeah. And then I think it was around middle school when then I was like exploring ideas mm-hmm. Of things. But still, I think my queerness has only been really actualized like relatively recently. Mm-hmm. So I think that it, it was still important for me to be around queer adults who were expressing their queerness outwardly and not necessarily like assimilating to gender. Conforming got you standards because it then it, I think it introduced me to like, this is a normal thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it was really crucial for me to be a child and see that.
In my teen years, I had to actively search for media that showcased that queer people of color have always existed, thrived and contributed to society. But even after so much exploration narratives about black queer folk in the South are noticeably absent from the mainstream. As a young adult, I'm now realizing it may be my responsibility to document the lives of black queer Southerners. My connection with Shirlette created the perfect jumping off point to investigate from generation to generation. What does queerness look like for black southern lesbians?
Shirlette Ammons
The town I grew up in, Beautancus, is like right below Mount Olive. Most people know Mount Olive because of Mount Olive Pickles. Mm. Beautancus is is like a blink of a town. Mm-hmm. It is. It is that, mm-hmm. Small. Mm-hmm. So I didn't really, you know, I grew up in the church, so there was always that. That dude in the choir who was a bit flamboyant mm-hmm. That nobody talked about. Mm-hmm. It's so stereotypical, but it's true that, yeah. I, I, I remember his name and I, I remember that he died ear young. Mm. Uh, what I probably in hindsight was HIV aids probably. Yeah. But nobody talked about it. Mm-hmm. Nobody. And when I started playing bass, I started playing bass in the church, like electric bass. Mm. And my grandma hated it. It's like, why don't you play? Piano.
Nina Scott
Oh, like a feminine I'm sitting Yeah. A feminine instrument.
Shirlette Ammons
Exactly. I'm sitting up there in a skirt with my legs wide open. Like playing, playing base. It is, it's in hindsight, it's pretty funny. Mm-hmm. But I mean, I've always felt comfortable, you know, being a, like tomboy is accurate. Um, I think both, it's like kind of both. And I was always a tomboy and I probably was always queer. Mm. Mm-hmm. But tomboy was the language that was like not sexualized. Mm-hmm. That could talk about like, the fact that I would rather, you know. Wear pants instead of a skirt, you know? Right. But I think growing up in the country where you're outside and you know, I have a ton of cousins and a twin sister, we all grew up playing outside together, getting dirty together. Like gender was like, really, there were no lines really in terms of what we had access to. Mm-hmm. Or how we played the, the lines came on Sunday when I had to put up. Dress on. Mm. Yeah. And that was, you know, like, it was like pulling teeth, right? Like, I hated it.
Nina Scott
Yeah. Yeah.
Shirlette Ammons
But yeah, I, I always feel, I feel like I, I've always been who I am and in some ways being that rural experience gave me ironically freedom. You know, people. Talk about like the stereotype of blackness and southernness and Christianity. Mm-hmm. And you know, how we're not, um, not necessarily inherently comfortable with queerness. And, and, and part of that is true, but the other part of it is that there's. There is an unconditionality in the way I was loved and nurtured. And when I came out, if I ever, I don't know if I actually came out, I just showed up. I would just bring girlfriends home, just my, this is my girlfriend, but not girlfriend. You know what I'm saying? Just a home girl. Mm-hmm. But, you know, yeah. Probably a little more than that, but, right. Yeah. And everybody knew, but nobody said nothing. Mm-hmm. And, and all the. Folks I bought home were just accepted that if Charlotte brings 'em, I trust 'em. And that was, that, was that right? Yeah. Yeah. That's very beautiful. It is. That's really beautiful. I, I don't take it for granted in hindsight, you know? Mm. Mm-hmm. I, I know my experience is not the experience of a lot of queer, black, southern kids.
Nina Scott
Shirlette's experience prompted me to explore even more discussions of black queer southernness in my pursuit. I ended up at the Black Queer Studies Conference at UNC Chapel Hill, where academics from all over the nation convened to discuss their research and the future of academia In the current political climate, one scholar discussed the lack of research regarding experiences of black lesbians in the American South. She referenced her own work as an ethnographer documenting DC's, black lesbian nightlife. After the conference, I knew I had to talk to her.
Dr. Nikki Lane
My name is Nikki Lane. I'm an assistant professor at Duke University. I work in the gender sexuality of feminist studies department here. My work tends to focus on black, queer life and American popular culture. I'm a linguistic and cultural anthropologist by training, but consider myself an interdisciplinary scholar because I do work across a variety of different genre.
Nina Scott
While the research is sparse, Dr. Lane noted that Shirlette's experience in the rural south has been echoed in other work.
Dr. Nikki Lane
One of the things that comes up for me is E Patrick Johnson's collections of oral histories from black lesbians in the South honeypot. Mm-hmm. And one of the things that stood out, if you read those oral histories, is that a lot of people are, are echoing some of the sentiments that Charette is making, which is that. Like being black and a lesbian in the south looks very different in part because, especially if you're in a rural area, because of the differences in the gendered expectations, the kind of work you're presumed to be able to do, for example, there's all kinds of things that are present that make life in the south very different and distinct. Mm-hmm. And I think those are really important to kind of, to to imagine and to think about for black folk in the south.
Nina Scott
Dr. Lane's work has predominantly focused on black lesbian nightlife in DC but she grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She pointed out that the southern experience is not monolithic. Southern metropolitan areas can offer drastically different experiences in comparison to rural areas.
Dr. Nikki Lane
I remember being at a Black pride in Atlanta. I was at this party and I was just kind of, you know, I, I do what I always do. I kind of. I stand on the side and I, I ear hustle and I, I'm an ethnographer, so I'm just kind of like being nosy and I'm, you know, I'm standing on the wall, wall flowering, kind of just looking and someone comes up to me. And he was like, oh my God, girl, I just made it. I'm like, baby, where you made it from? You know? And he was like, I, he, he came from a rural area in Mississippi. He got his paycheck, cashed his check, and got on the road to come to this party in Atlanta.
Nina Scott
Wow.
Nikki Lane
And like I, he was like, yeah, I gotta work tomorrow, but ain't gonna find me. But, but like, I was like, this is also what it means to be black and queer in the south is like, sometimes you can be so isolated that you'll take your paycheck. You will cash it, you'll get in a car just to get yourself to a gathering of black queer folk, because otherwise you will not have that. You will not be able to. So I think also absolutely rural, black, queer life, yes, there's some things that it might be freeing for some people, but there can be, for some people that can be deeply isolating
Nina Scott
In that isolation. College often functions as an escape for queer people. It was like that for me, and it was that way for Shirlette as well. Shirlette attended NC State University in Raleigh and started experimenting with poetry, music performance, and her understandings of gender.
Shirlette Ammons
I'm a hip hop kid, like nineties boom, bap, hip hop. And I used to like, you know, when I first started rhyming and stuff and being on stages, I would grab my crotch a lot. Mm-hmm. Because it's a, it's a, uh, kind of a flex of prowess, like lyrical prowess and it's, I inherited that. Posturing from watching dudes perform, right?
Nina Scott
Yeah.
Shirlette Ammons
Yeah. And, and I, I had this eureka moment, like, why am I doing that? Mm. Like I just was doing it, but one day I questioned like, why am I posturing this way? Right?
Nina Scott
Yeah.
Shirlette Ammons
Yeah. And I had to answer that question for myself and, um. The answer was because this was like the way masculinity was presented and I was, and the way like, you flex how dope you are as an mc mm-hmm. And you know, the bigger your balls, the, the harder you are as an mc. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. And I was like, well, are there any other examples where I don't have to do that or not emulate some of the more toxic traits of masculinity in my work? So yeah, I started like finding. Using my art and my identity as an outlet for kind of changing that narrative and making it more specific to my experience. I mean, we, we had examples. Of women in hip hop in the nineties, like Lil Kim, Foxy Brown, but they were hella femme. Mm-hmm. And not, did not look, I was like, that's still not it. Mm-hmm. And then on the other spectrum, you have like a, you know, LL Cool J or like mm-hmm. Tribe, or it's like that ain't it. Like you take a little bit from all of it to create your own thing. Right. Because I really didn't see a lot of examples of folks that looked like me. Mm-hmm. And had, you know, were talking about what I was talking about.
Nina Scott
Definitely. Do you think that. Race plays a large part in that. I'm thinking of like how white lesbians, white butch lesbians. Hmm. Kind of emulate masculinity in certain ways. Mm-hmm. Like, do you think that it's different for black lesbians who are masculine?
Shirlette Ammons
It's interesting 'cause like I toured with the Indigo girls. Like we did a string of dates with the Indigo girls.
Nina Scott
Wow.
Shirlette Ammons
Yeah. It was mad cool. Mm-hmm. Um, the audience was, I jokingly say it was like a bunch of softball playing lesbians. And, and when I say that, people know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Well, pre predo, predominantly white audience, like more butch presenting. Mm-hmm. And, you know. I was playing, you know, I was doing my thing, like hip hop, kind of loud, kind of rocked out. Mm-hmm. And at times at shows there would be white, lesbian, butchy, lesbians, people who presented like me, but obviously the difference was race. Mm-hmm. With their fingers in their ears, like in the first few rows. Like, wow. And like, I'm like, yo. Those seemed so blind to the irony, right? Yeah. Of, of what they were doing, what I looked like the way our identities intersected and where they didn't. Mm-hmm. And where they didn't was the blackness and like this music that was, you know, inherently black.
Nina Scott
Yeah.
Shirlette Ammons
And one time I would, I said, actually the Indigo girls invited me here. Mm-hmm. Like, I'm not just bum rushing the stage. Right. Yeah. So, yeah. So yeah, I say that to say I do think there is a difference. And also I think in some ways, and, you know, they think this is white women's stuff to work out. Mm-hmm. Sometimes white butch identify women protect their own thing at the expense of, of us. Mm-hmm. And so. I've seen that change over time. Right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But you know that that experience still sticks with me for a reason. Yeah. And, and I'm like, because that was actually harmful to me. Yeah. It's disrespectful and disre mad disrespectful. Yeah. So I guess the answer is yes.
Nina Scott
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So with that, do you ever feel like your blackness and your queerness are incompatible?
Shirlette Ammons
Child. That's a great question. That's a really good question. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes my queerness allows me access to spaces that my blackness does not. Mm-hmm. And vice versa. Like, um, most of my audience is like kind of subversive queer. Left radically political. Mm-hmm. White kids. That's my predominant audience, but I'm making black music. Right? Yeah. Or, and I'm making black music. And sometimes that, that can be disheartening. Mm-hmm. You are like, where my people at, right? Yeah. And, and it's not like my people ain't in a room, you know? The queer radical, you know, dissonant, troublemakers are my people too. Right. I didn't invent this issue. Like, this goes way back. I mean, even Jimi Hendrix used to talk about, you know, making blues music and performing in front of a predominantly white audience. Mm-hmm. So I, yes, I, I think quite often, and also like when you disconnect from Christianity mm-hmm. There's something that's lost in terms of your connection to black. The black community too. Yes. Yeah. And so I'm mourn that sometimes. Mm-hmm. And it's the doctrine. I don't miss the doctrine. Right. Yeah. But I do miss the fellowship. Yeah. And the intergenerational communion. Like I don't get to be around black elders on Sunday morning like I used to. Mm-hmm. And that's like because of my distance from. That practice, right?
Nina Scott
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Do you feel that? Absolutely. Yeah. I think I've been talking with my friends about it. I think now that we have Neurodivergence, like as a large part of Gen Z culture, it also complicates things. Mm-hmm. I definitely don't fit in with like neurotypical black people. Mm-hmm. I don't have much tolerance for straight black culture at all. It's never felt welcoming for me or relatable. I think it's just, there's a lot, I think black folks. I'm trying to see how I can word this in a politically correct manner with knowing I have a probably white audience listening to it, right? So I'm also thinking of that level, um, of, of perception. But I think that because of probably slavery, Jim Crow, we have a lot of very rigid gender. Constructions mm-hmm. Of performing masculinity in a way that that was robbed from black men. Mm. There's performing femininity in a way that was robbed from black women. And so I think we might double down really, really hard on those structures. Mm. And it ends up being really exclusive even to straight people. Right. Like straight black people. I don't think that y'all actually want these certain, uh, standards. Exactly. And you would benefit too, from questioning it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that it gets even more. Difficult, especially with the idea that kind of like being gay is a white thing. Mm-hmm. I hear that kind of, I don't know, it might not be said explicitly, but it's like, oh, those white people with those crazy outfits and the way that they dress, but. Queerness like is a pre-colonial concept, right? Like there were gay people in Africa before the white people came, right? There were whole tribes of queer Africans right before slavery. It's not something that was imported by colonial means, right? But people don't do the history right because it doesn't, they don't think it affects them, right? So,
Shirlette Ammons
Or there's, I sometimes I think it's less that they don't think it affects them. It's more what if I have to undo all this stuff I've believed forever? What am I left with and what do I have to reckon with for myself? Like, undoing is hard. Yeah, it is. It's, yeah. So I, I feel like sometimes it's, it's that, it's like if I peel back this layer, then I have to deal with what's underneath it.
Nina Scott
In Southern and rural areas with less access to education and diverse populations, queer folks often leave for a more inclusive environment. But for folks who decide to stay, finding a place where our queerness, southernness, and blackness can coexist is a difficult feat. As I have explored my own queerness and neurodivergence, I've had to mourn the black communities that excluded me and did not accept me. Although we are united by our experience as racialized people, harmful beliefs like homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and even misogyny are still prevalent within the black community in other spaces, though. Anti-blackness becomes another barrier for black queers In search of belonging in Nikki Lane's work as an ethnographer in DC she found similar narratives to she's experience of racism within white queer spaces.
Nikki Lane
The experience of segregation, I think if anything, is probably the thing that I think is most prominent and most important when thinking about queer life in the South,
Nina Scott
Right.
Nikki Lane
It's that you have to pay attention to the way that segregation marked those places. Mm-hmm. And then the question becomes, do the black gaze have to party separately.
Nina Scott
Right.
Nikki Lane
Do they have to,
Nina Scott: Right, or do they just feel more comfortable doing so.
Nikki Lane
Or It's not even about comfort because in Washington DC there was actual, like, so a lot of the gay clubs, the white gay clubs specifically were racist. Mm-hmm. So some of the, my informants who were around DC in the eighties and nineties, they would describe going to like a white. Gay or lesbian club in the city, and they would have to produce multiple forms of identification. Mm. If you just had your ID on you, which is usually what most people have when they're going out, you would have to find another form of ID in order to get in. So they had these kinds of practices that a lot of these white, gay. Lesbian clubs that would prevent, or you know, would be openly hostile to black folk when they went into 'em. So part of what you see is a lot of black queer folk often flock to places where there are a lot of black people. Black queer folk tend to congregate in places where that are majority black.
Nina Scott
Kind of going back to the story about, you talked about the man coming to Atlanta to party. I relate to that. My family moved out to a more rural part of North Carolina. It's becoming more suburban over time and I really relate to having to drive out to see black gay people just to see black people in general. But I mean, it's an hour commute from my home to my job. It's an hour commute to. Durham and it is, it's a hike. It's a hike every time. But I will do it every time because this is how I find my community. This is how I find my people. But I also, I, I don't think people talk about that element of how car dependent the south is, and if you are black too. I feel like there's another element of like public transportation sometimes not feeling safe in the south and also being expensive, but like being car dependent is something that. I think the metropolitan areas might not get that level of influence. I don't know, like
Nikki Lane
No, that's such an interesting point, and I think part of what interests me about it is that, you know, when I think about a city like Atlanta, Atlanta's extremely car dependent. It's a sprawling city. It's wide, it's big. Mm-hmm. Right. And you absolutely, you, you're gonna almost always need a car to navigate its sprawl. And I think that that's very different. And this is why I'm like, yes, DC is a southern city, but it's very different because public transportation works well there. Mm. Like the buses work well, the, the, the trains work well there and that makes it such that you're mo like you can be a little bit more mobile and independent. Even as a teenager, for example, which was very different for me growing up in Atlanta. I. Where like if, if you're a teenager and you didn't have a car, you would be isolated in the neighborhood where you grew up in and somebody had to have a car, like mm-hmm. It was just different. Like you grow up and you have a different kind of relationship to space. You have a different relationship to the city.
Nina Scott
Ultimately, whether we're from a small world town, a quiet suburb, or a bustling city, black, southern, queer folks exist, and our stories are important despite the difficulties of being black and queer in the south. Sheila Amon still takes pride in her southern heritage.
Shirlette Ammons
It's rich, it's terrible, it's beautiful, it's complicated, and you know nothing. Emulates what goes on to me in the human body, like southern culture. Mm. The South has like loved me and kicked me out. And also I bore it. My people bore this. Mm. And so I feel like a allegiance to it because it's mine. I do feel ownership of the south. I feel like I know the south, like, uh, and more so. And I think there's a difference. I've been troubling this lately. Uh. Resonate more with the rural south. Mm-hmm. Which is different than south, the urban south. Right. And that's a real thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, 'cause now I've been in the triangle for, you know, over half of my life and that's, there's a clear difference between being in Durham and being in Beautancus. Mm. That, that rural experience and what it taught me about observation and quietude and listening and are things that I feel like are inherent to my experience growing up. In rural culture. And I also think, you know, some of the most brilliant people I look up to come from the South. I always say, I think there's something in the water here. Mm-hmm. You know, unfortunately a lot of people left. Mm. For, you know. Viable reasons. You know, you think about your Nina Simone's and
Nina Scott
Yeah.
Shirlette Ammons
Cold Trains and George Clinton's and,
Nina Scott
Yeah, I know Nina Simone was born in Appalachia.
Shirlette Ammons
Right? Exactly. Yeah. So, and, and left because she was like over it. Yeah. And over how she was being treated in, in the South. So I, I do feel like there's something about the experience that lends itself to, uh, and not to romanticize it at all, but there is something about how deeply the black experience is seeped in the soil here. Mm. That I find inspiration in,
Nina Scott
In academia. Dr. Lane is hoping for more research on the black queer south.
Nikki Lane
The problem is, is that there aren't a whole lot of folks who are doing this work. That's just the truth of it. The person who always comes to my mind is Kimmy Ademi. Who writes about Chicago? So she writes about black lesbian leisure spaces in Chicago. Mm-hmm. There's work about New York City. Mignon Moore writes a book about black middle class lesbians raising children in New York. Mm. But for the most part. It is something that is missing. I think from kind of our understanding, part of what's so interesting about thinking about the south, right? Mm-hmm. Thinking about blackness and queerness from the south, I'm excited to see what new projects emerge because there are so many interesting questions that come up when you start thinking about the material reality of what it means to live in the south. Part of my hope is that we continue to have more of these conversations, continue to collect more information about black queer life in the South, so that we can get to the nuance of the variety of experiences.
Nina Scott
Seeking stories like these is likely the beginning of a lifelong journey of mine. I've only come to terms with my queerness in the past few years, and it was an uphill climb that I wish to make easier for the baby gaze behind me. My difficulties with self-actualizing were a product of a system that intentionally erases the contributions of black people, women, queer folks, and the American South As a whole, black southern lesbians exist, and our stories deserve to be told.
Embodied is a production of North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC, a listener supported station. If you want to lend your support to this podcast, consider a contribution at wunc.org now. This episode was produced by me, Nina Scott, and edited by Amanda Magnus. Anita Rao is our host, Kaia Findlay is our producer, and Jenni Lawson is our technical director. Quilla wrote our theme music. Be sure to check out our Instagram page @embodiedWUNC and stay up to date on our upcoming episodes and behind the scenes sneak peeks. Until next time, I'm Nina Scott.