What's it like to grow up LGBTQ+ in rural Ohio?
The opening notes of the synthesizer coursing through Ginuwine's "Pony" blared in the Cleveland-based queer alteration shop, Sweet Lime. Years later, the 23-year-old laughs. Anyone can perform for the Cleveland Kings Action Pack, a nonprofit organization of drag kings whose proceeds go to charity, Kauffman explained. "That first show I did with them, there was so much love in the room," he said. "It was cool to be there and see all these different types of masculinity  I saw people doing male versions of Ms. Frizzle." It was a far cry from his childhood in Wooster, in rural northeast Ohio, where the bisexual transgender man suffered from gender dysphoria mostly in silence. Kauffman was bullied  his classmates called him a hermaphrodite and mockingly asked him which bathroom he would use to change in gym class, years before he realized he was trans. There are between 3 million and 4 million people who identify as LGBTQ+ living in rural America, and while there is not precise enough data to determine how many rural Ohioans are members of the community, over 500,000, or over 4% adults 18 years and older in the state are LGBTQ+, according to the nonprofit Movement Advancement Project. Some, like Kauffman, experience discrimination that alienates them from their upbringing in rural and Appalachian states, Rachel Terman said, but others in the community not only survive, but thrive, in rural spaces. Terman, an assistant sociology professor at Ohio University, said comparing discrimination and support is complicated. But, she argues that inequity experienced by the rural LGBTQ+ population can be tied to the decline of the agricultural, natural resource extraction and manufacturing industries. "Those economic identities and the history of the communities get conflated with a kind of made-up, romanticized image of the 1950s, stereotypical idea of family and community," she said, "Mom, Dad, kids and church, even though thats never been true of everybody anywhere. "That stereotypical image is very sticky." Putting distance between discrimination  The problem with a lot of small towns, Kauffman said, is that high school rules the roost. "Adults around the high school, who worked in the high school, they had a lot of influence within the town," he said, "and I think it's partly these people suppressing information from these young kids." Growing up, Kauffman didn't understand his dysphoria. He believes that if his school had a much more robust sexual education at least he would have known that queer people exist. In high school, Ian James was always trying to put on airs. He started dating girls, ran cross country, lettered in wrestling. "I remember walking through the hall in class as a sophomore and a senior slapped a 'Hello, I'm ...' sticker on me and he wrote the word 'gay' on it," said James, a gay man. "I didn't realize this until people were laughing and laughing ... I was friggin' mortified." The 55-year-old Athens native internalized this homophobia and became an alcoholic who used booze to temper his sexuality. It wasn't until he moved to Columbus and saw other queer people living freely that something shifted. "Growing up in Appalachia there werent advocates saying, 'Its okay to be gay,'" James said. "Those ships never got to port, let alone sailed." While it took a near marriage to a woman to force James to stop drinking and begin accepting his identity, he doesn't chalk up all of his suppression to his hometown. A lot had to do with the time: he grew up in the '70s and '80s when AIDS epidemic had just begun. But he worries for kids without affirming parents, family or friends, like he had, who are stuck without internet access. "Its that sort of access to the world that tells that queer kid in Appalachia that, 'Its okay to be gay, youre really going to be fine,' because look at these other folks that have made it past here," James said. Fighting back against rural, Appalachian stereotypes  Not every rural Ohioan's experience in the LGBTQ+ community finds them leaving the region with a bitter taste. Alison Chesnut has lived in West Union, a village in southern Ohio's Adams County nearly her entire life. As a bisexual woman married to a man, Chesnut recognizes she has inherent privileges as a member of the community who can pass as straight. But, she bucks at the idea Appalachia is just a giant swath of conservative Donald Trump voters. "I hate that stereotype because on the surface there are lot of people out here who are like that, but if you really get to know the community theres a lot of us out there like me who love it out here, non-straight, non-Christian," she said. The 27-year-old, who briefly lived in the Eastgate neighborhood of Columbus before moving back home, said as a teenager she wanted to leave Adams County and never look back. But she found her time in Columbus isolating and comments made by others about her sexuality degrading. That alienation is common, OU's Terman said, based on her interviews with rural LGBTQ+ community members. "Oftentimes people do feel like they want to move somewhere else, go to bigger city, find more support and opportunities for romantic partners," she said. "But a lot of people find they lack of sense of belonging in urban spaces because of their rural identity." Chesnut said she hopes as time passes and as resources in rural communities expand, it will improve how the public perceives country, "backwoods" areas. "There are still gonna be people who are going to be rude, hateful and homophobic, but when you get to the meat of everything we build such these tight-knit communities and we look out for each other," she said. 'We have more work to do'  In her research, Terman said young LGBTQ+ people in rural and Appalachian Ohio about to leave home are torn by their desire to experience city life but also maintain a connection to their rural roots. "They talked about wanting to find a way to make these different parts of their identity more harmonious," she said. "And there are valuable parts of their rural identity they were able to recognize once they were away from it." India Moody, a 32-year-old lesbian woman from Chillicothe, has struggled with acceptance in rural Ohio. "If youre getting hate in your home then you think nobody else is gonna care because youre taught this is wrong," she said. "People are telling you the way it is and thats how it should be." While she has supportive friends and her relationship with her mom has been repaired since she came out as an 18-year-old, the Army veteran plans to move to Columbus soon. The cultural stigma of being one of a few out lesbians in a town like Chillicothe is more taxing than Moody is willing to put up with. "I think we have a lot of work to do (in rural Ohio)," she said. It's that kind of work that drove McCray Powell, a Hocking County native and queer man, to move back to southeast Ohio from California. "Most of my friends in California came from a little more money," he said. "If I ever mentioned I ate squirrel growing up, they acted like I was a space alien." Powell is proud of his Appalachian identity and while he recognizes that discrimination ripples throughout the region, he finds it is more important to show folks that being queer is nothing to be afraid or ashamed of. Living in northern Athens County in Nelsonville, Powell said the town, as a whole, trusts people who want to make the community a better place. Out West, his LGBTQ+ friends were more obsessed with status and money. The 26-year-old thought moving to a wealthier area would make his life richer, but really it just made him a poor person in a rich area, he said. "Growing up here, it felt so limiting in its options to me, I thought the grass felt gray instead of green," he said. "And I thought California was going to be an Eden, but then Eden had a bit of drought." Cil Doyle is a Report for America corps member and covers rural issues in Ohio for The Dispatch. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation at https://bit.ly/3fNsGaZ. cdoyle@dispatch.com  @cadoyle_18