27 Jamie Andrews – Queer in Richmond

Jamie Andrews is a senior in the Social Work program with a Literature minor.  This paper is part of a research project she completed for her Honors Thesis .  Professor Kelly Blewett notes, “Jamie’s photography exhibit and accompanying reflection are so necessary and appreciated during the current political and cultural moment. She approached this work with boldness, sensitivity, and care, and all of her efforts created a wonderful and memorable product.”

Local Queer Representation

The LGBTQ community is a minority group that has been discriminated against for years. Though times have changed and more acceptance has overall taken place, such as with marriage equality, there is still a lot of discrimination occurring. In 2023 alone, more than 725 anti-LGBTQ bills were proposed in legislation, which is a record-breaking number of anti-LGBTQ bills proposed during a single session (Movement Advancement Project [MAP], 2023, para. 2). This number is why I chose to focus this project on queer identities, specifically in Richmond, IN. Having supportive communities and positive queer representation can bring some light into the dark that is currently overshadowing gay rights. It is important to bring representation to queer identities during this time to show that we do not need to hide who we are, but instead should continue to stand up for our rights as they are trying to be taken away yet again. With this photographic series and the added personal stories from queer individuals in Richmond, a small part of the LGBTQ community can be seen to help capture how lives can be impacted by discrimination over something as simple as loving another person of the same sex or transitioning into the body that one feels is correct.

I wanted to give representation to queer identities by photographing individuals and capturing parts of their personal journey within the LGBTQ community. I chose to take photographic portraits, as well as conduct a survey, to put faces to queer identities and showing representation of the community and journey that each individual has experienced. By taking photographic portraits of the individuals, stereotypes can be proven incorrect and it can be seen that queer individuals are normal people just like heterosexual/cisgender individuals. Personal stories help show how the discrimination that we get treated with can impact our lives in an abundance of ways, while also allowing insight into the personal journey each individual has experienced. Seeing the individual photographed and reading their personal story creates a sense of humanity that can often be overlooked. Capturing the personal identity of each participant in a way that they willingly choose to identify adds such a compelling depth to each individual identity.

Purpose of Project

The purpose of this project is to bring awareness to all that queer individuals have to go through as part of being a minority group. Bringing queer representation forward in this way is something that is currently needed as we are still in a state of emergency. I knew that I wanted to pursue a project on the LGBTQ community as I have openly been a part of it for six years, yet never really see much representation when it is needed most, especially in Richmond. This project has come a long way since the first ideas of how to pursue it were formed, but it keeps becoming more of an emotional, personal experience, not just for me as I am conducting it, but for the participants as well. Getting together and seeing part of the queer community that is in Richmond, IN or part of the IU East community has shown me how needed something like this is. I have received positive feedback from the participants about how they think this project has great potential and is something they feel is needed as well, which is why most of them felt strongly about participating. One participant stated that they are “lucky enough to be out of the closet unlike many others, so I want to be a positive voice for them.” In a smaller community like Richmond, finding ways to spread the voice of those who are fortunate enough to be out is highly needed and could be the thing that closeted individuals or those experiencing internalized homophobia need to help start having personal acceptance. Another participant stated:

I think it’s important to look into queer experiences in smaller, conservative towns like Richmond. Our struggles are both the same as and very different from the struggles of queer people in more populated areas. Places like Richmond often have their queer community get overlooked, and I think this project will be a great way to give voice to that community here.

The overall consensus from the participants was that they felt a need to share their voice and represent the queer community. Richmond is considered conservative which can be seen by the fact that the November 2023 election only had Republicans elected to local positions (Weaver, 2023). With Richmond being a conservative town, projects like this one are not heard of, so taking the opportunity to be part of one is a way to showcase that there is a prominent queer community despite what it appears like.

When trying to decide on how I wanted to pursue this project, I knew I wanted to include photographic portraits to have a personal element of the individuals participating. Over the course of drafting ideas, I decided to include handwriting of each participant to add even more of a personal connection and emotion. Seeing the individual and their handwriting pictured next to the photograph tells part of who everyone is. It shows that each person is their own and though we share a community, we each have had our own personal journeys to go through which have brought us to where we are now, whether that is accepting who we are and being out and proud, or still figuring out who we are with the support of our trusted people. Adding the personal touch of handwriting along with the photographic portrait tells a story in and of its own, forcing the viewer to look deeper at who the individual is, rather than looking at the surface and focusing solely on their sexual or gender identities. I also wanted to gain a deeper insight into each individual so I conducted a survey, which I will describe in a future section. With the survey, deeper connections could be formed that I could analyze in relation to other topics I discuss.

When first starting this, I took the time to find example projects that, in many individual ways, helped determine the scope of this project. First, I found photographers who have a focus on queer individuals and looked into a lot of their work and projects. The photographer that I found that gave the initial inspiration for this was Sarah Deragon and her project titled “The Identity Project.” My project has a similar idea to this but adds a bit more story to each individual identity. “The Identity Project” “seeks to explore the labels we choose to identify with when defining our gender and sexuality” (Deragon, 2014, para. 1). With this project, photographer Sarah Deragon would tell the individuals to pose how they wanted to show their identity and then allowed them to title their own portrait with however they wanted to identify. There was no limitations to how the individuals identified themselves in the portraits as they were simply telling part of who they were and had all the freedom to choose how they wanted to be perceived. This was not a single project that took place one time but is something that Sarah Deragon has done in several states and is still doing so almost 10 years later. This example of a project about bringing positive queer representation forward is what gave me the original inspiration that I based some of my project decisions around.

There were a few other photographic queer identity projects that I found that gave me some inspiration for this, such as Silvia Dimitrova’s “A Message to You” and iO Tillett Wright’s “Self-Evident Truths.” “A Message to You” is a project that photographed 10 individuals holding a message that they wrote on a piece of paper. This message was something they felt was powerful to them as this project was focused on each individual’s personality. This project was conducted to give a “message of unity and integration” into those coming into the queer community (Dimitrova, n.d., para. 1). “Self-Evident Truths” is more similar to Sarah Deragon’s project as this one was a journey across the country photographing 10,000 individuals who identify in part of the LGBTQ community. The purpose of this project was to show that queer people are everywhere and that they do not always fit into the stereotypes that people have created, but instead are each unique in their own way (Wright, n.d.). Each of these photographic projects I used as a way to form my own project. Each example helped provide some insight as a way I could go about this and the different ways I could capture the identities of queer individuals in Richmond, IN.

Along with these specific project examples, I also looked into specific more generalized photographers who have a focus on queer individuals. The photographer who gave me the biggest inspiration is Duane Michals. He helped me narrow down specifics I wanted to incorporate into my project in two ways. For one, I loved the way that his work was photographed, such as with how he framed the subjects, the ordinary yet unique perspectives, the mood depicted, etc. The way that he captured individuals told their story. Second, he incorporated handwritten elements to the photographs which added to the individual stories. Duane Michals would take the photographs and write a small snippet about what was going on in the portrait. Seeing his work helped me decide how I wanted to incorporate handwriting into the project so that an added touch of personality would be included in the story behind each individual’s identity.

Another project that helped inspire this is “September Letters” by Brittany Snow and Jaspre Guest. This project was one that started during the COVID-19 pandemic to help spread love and support during hard times. To spread love and support, the website allows individuals to write letters about any topic that others can relate to, as well as allowing individuals to request letters on certain topics that others can then write about. Some letters get posted on the website for a certain amount of time for viewers to read. It has a specific focus on the connection with writing and connecting to oneself to heal and move forward. Snow and Guest recently released a book called September Letters: Finding Strength and Connection in Sharing Our Stories (Harper Design, 2023) that utilizes expert advice captured during interviews to help show how important writing is in the healing process. For example, Ana Tucker, a Board-Certified Hypnotherapist, Master Neurolinguistic Programming Practitioner, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker states, “Writing is the tool and behind it is an intent to express on something. That combination allows letter-writing to become therapeutic and to become a way of directly communicating with the subconscious mind, the powerful mind, and the emotional self” (2023, pp. 39-40). However, there are also interviews from authors who have created similar projects, such as the author of “The Happiness Project,” Gretchen Rubin, who states, “By writing down your thoughts, you gain perspective and start to understand yourself better, and you gain insights that may have eluded you when you were stuck in your own head” (2023, p. 30).

This project has been a great inspiration as it has helped me realize the power associated with writing and connecting with others. By having the participants take the time to handwrite a powerful response to a prompt, they are sharing their stories through writing, allowing a connection to be formed, even without initiating a physical connection. I was inspired by this in a way as I gave my participants a broad prompt and allowed them to explore it in any way they wanted. They were not necessarily writing to one person, but to any that could benefit from hearing their story. As Brittany Snow shares in the book, she created the September Letters project as a way to share her story with writing and connecting with others as a way to heal past and personal trauma. This project has a great audience support with the website and the book allowing people all around to connect with oneself and with one another as a way of starting the healing process. With the expert advice, I am utilizing how the writing allows vulnerability and truth to be seen, which is the first step in finding a connection within a community, such as with the participants and future viewers finding a connection with the queer community through this project.

There are specific sections within this book that have queer-focused letters, as well as letters showing the importance of using writing to understand, and experience to connect with others, which is a large part of what my project is set out to do. As one letter in the book states, “I found writing so much easier than speaking…even writing to no one in particular helped” (Snow & Guest, 2023, p. 34). I remember reading this book and reading this specific letter and being moved by how much writing helped this individual, specifically with their self-acceptance of being queer. The lines that stood out to me the most states:

I promise you, the place you’re at, all the loneliness you feel, the will to disappear; that’s not the finish line. You will be brave. You will open up. You will feel better, one day at a time, and you will feel like yourself…. It’s not too late, it’s never too late. (Snow & Guest, 2023, p. 34)

These lines from this specific letter allow a connection to be formed. Mau, the individual who wrote the letter, was not writing to anyone in particular, but what they did write is something I feel most people can connect with in some way. I found a connection to this letter, and I wanted to incorporate the connection and emotion of writing into this project so that a sense of healing and connection from each participant can occur. Without the writing and personal stories, a deeper, emotional connection would not be present and would not allow a sense of unity for the participants to be formed.

Each of these projects has helped me form my own project in one way or another. Some have had major impacts and inspiration for how I wanted to go about the completion of this, while others had smaller ways of impacting my decisions. However, by seeing each project and taking the opportunity to look into them deeper, I recognize that each has played a part. From simple ideas of how to take the portraits, to ideas on how I wanted certain parts to be executed, these example projects are ones that helped guide my decisions and allowed me to create something that I can be proud of, while hopefully making an impact in some way.

Sample Portraits