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I intend on focusing my personal sociological imagination towards a Final Project on Queerness in the South! As mentioned in last week's discussion board, I believe the different internal and external perceptions of the South are interesting and rich as is, and especially nuanced when you introduce Southern Queer folks to the conversation.

Mountains have been moved by countless Queer activists in the South, and those often marginalized and intersectional voices have been drowned out by pop media and loud bigotted politics. But highest volume =/= general majority and collective thought. Far from it!

I hope to illuminate the progress done in the Queer communities in South over the last few decades, while underscoring the interwoven communities intrinsic to the Southern experience.

I'd love to incorporate my personal love for poetry and my fellow Queer Southerners through accounts of their lived experience being both of those beautiful things.

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Week 2: Prepare questions or response prompts for a selected number of pals, Research Southern Queer History/Landmark Movements, as well as popular outside perceptions of the South through the lens of LGBT+ Rights and Existence. We'll see where this takes me, i will try not to fall down rabbit holes.

Week 3: Send out aforementioned prompts, Begin to apply my findings to a sociological imagination/basis we've studied in the text so I may elaborate upon whatever my prompts provide me through a sociological lense!

Week 4: Poem writing time! I like to take my time. I'll also curate my previous research in tandem to the experiences I write about. I want everything to feel like it makes sense together, for the poetry to act as part of the research as real world examples often supplement our text and other readings.

Week 5: (Final Due Friday!) Fine tune poems and Format presentation method.

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While Gender Socialization impacts everyone and everything in a shared social environment, sexuality and gender expression are particularly impacted. However one makes sense of gender and sexuality, the role that family, schooling, and media has on how these identifiers emerge is especially powerful. Specifically in the South, especially the Bible Belt, the Church and its texts are huge influences in how young people come into their own gendered selves based on ancient teachings.

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Trans people occupy a certain social identity in the South compared to Western world as a whole. In popular media, they are scapegoats for political races - that's why performing and “passing” is so important for some trans people's survival. Despite interpersonal standing, there are systems in place that make visible queerness dangerous.

When queerness falls outside of established social roles, such as it does in the South, its validity and respect goes unregulated. For as many individual people may be accepting of the person, their queerness may not be, and is certainly not protected in the social structure of legal and educational systems

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Within Chapter 3, our text examines the ways that Charles Horton Cooley set out with the theory that reactions in social situations create a mirror in which we see ourselves through. Though the text mainly focuses on the ways perception relates to self-perception of personality characteristics, I would argue that queerness relates to this concept as well. Whether it be within the LGBT+ community or from outsider perspectives, the crux of dysphoria is when perceived looks or behaviors misalign from self-identity.

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As Chapter Four of our textbook defines it, Southerners have a strong sense of Impression Management, understanding the expectations of a certain social role in order to preserve social norms and to avoid embarrassment. This is largely due to the intrinsic Southern value of respect, especially to elders, and hospitality, supplemented by a strict social order instilled from multiple agents of socialization, as covered in Chapter Three. In regards to queerness specifically, vigilance is built into living safely and comfortably - Knowing what information is safe with who, how to manipulate your language, and understanding people's beliefs before they necessarily make them known.

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When I first read Chapter 5, the concept of In-groups and Out-groups particularly touched me, as at the core of conflict, I view misunderstanding to be at the core. I read once that violence against queer people was more prevalent amongst perpetrators that did not know a queer person personally. When you have someone close to you that you associate with a group, sad as it is, it is often easier to empathize and humanize that group, even if you were socialized to have a predisposition to have contempt for that group. Just as one could say the same for race or ethnicity, it doesn't negate any and all prejudice, but it is a welcomed start to opening hearts to a broader sociological imagination.