With the Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena manslaughters the recent media portrait of rural gay.

With the Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena manslaughters the recent media portrait of rural gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people's experiences has been anything further rosy. But as some of the stories in this issue illustrate, many gay persons choose to center their lives in rural America. In a 1992 Advocate article, reporters Ellen Spiro and Michael Lane profiled a handful of folk and set up that "rural homosexuals are speaking on the outside and making their identifies known in their small-town (and frequently small-minded) communities."

Isis, an African-American lesbian living in a bus upon women-owned land in the Ozarks, wished more women of color did the same, however said, "You're not going to have a community unles you prevail upon in and make one.... In my little place, nation mind their own business." John Blansett Jr a white 30-year-old living with AIDS in Okolona, Miss., said, "AIDS information does not result running to your door in Mississippi." He added that if his health were better, he "would be in love with to jump right in the middle of" ACT UP declare s in New Orleans. Still, as a small-town gay man, his opennes f his have a title to sense of justice: "I number family and friends that I in sober earnest thank God I am gay.... My transports my passions, and ultimately my spirit are empowered from this gift, this distinction, this cros that I like to call being a faggot."

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