Mary Gray doesn’t believe in hiding your true self.

“Never take off your rainbow sticker,” Gray said.

For Women History and Awareness Month’s initial event on Thursday, Gray spoke about her experiences from growing up queer in a rural community and the struggles she and many others in that situation face.

Gray is a Communication and Culture professor at Indiana University; her speech, entitled “Queer Kids . . . Here? The Politics of Gay Visibility in the Rural United States” focused on the things many people do not realize about what it is like to be different in rural communities.

“As I was driving into Charleston, I could not imagine a better place for this,” Gray said.

She stated that there are three key necessities for queer communities. First, there must be access to a critical mass of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, or LGBT. Second, they need capital, usually donor-based. Last, and most importantly, they need an accessible “safe place” to hold anonymous meetings where people are free to come and go.

She showed a clip from the show, “Queer As Folk,” to present the ideal gay society.

“The good gay life is on display. Femme men, mostly white. They have money, proven by their ability to bar-hop all night. They have a safe place to hang out without judgment,” Gray said.

Gray said the problem with this is that none of it exists in rural communities. LGBT are always outnumbered and must travel long distances to find safe places to meet.

“In rural communities there is an absence of capital, not just for LGBT, but for everyone. People suggest a door-to-door campaign, but that would not work in rural communities. Finding a safe place is hard to come by for LGBT,” Gray said.

When LGBT groups come together in their rural communities, they are terrified of offending or scaring off the members of their community, but also want to stay true to who they are.

“At a Pride picnic in 2003, the members were concerned about where to hang the rainbow flag. It was like it was screaming, “Watch out, queer event!” to any community members,” Gray said.

In her book, “Out in the Country: Youth, Media, and Queer Visibility in Rural America,” Gray retells stories of the many queer youth she encountered from various rural communities.

“For 13 months, [a transgender] recorded his transformation into a man through many surgeries and testosterone supplements on a deeply buried Web site; the only way you could find it was if you knew exactly what you were looking for. The web was a safe place for him, and his guestbook comprised of congratulatory messages from family members and friends,” Gray said.

There was a large group of LGBT youth in rural Kentucky who runway-walked in drag through the aisles of Wal-Mart several times a month.

“When I asked them why they chose Wal-Mart, they asked, ‘Why not?’ All the drag is there: the furry jackets, the wigs, the make-up. While it was not necessarily an anonymous safe place, it was the best of their few options in the area,” Gray said.

Aiden Ethington, a political science graduate student and president of EIU Pride, really enjoyed Gray’s focus on rural communities as opposed to urban areas.

“The closest (urban) place here is Champaign, which is not even close. I grew up in rural areas. I have lived this, I have experienced this,” Ethington said.

Andrew Moran, a philosophy major, said the presentation was really insightful.

“Her point about national organizations missing the fundamental problem of receiving health care over marriage equality shed light on needs that we do not usually focus on.”

Kristin Ploskonka, a senior sociology major, also found Gray’s point about the necessity for health care over marriage equality to be of great importance.

Gray said people need to understand that when others disagree with their views, it is not because they are stupid, but because they just have a different understanding of it.

“We are trapped in a heterosexist society where we are straight until proven otherwise,” Mary Gray said.

Ashley Holstrom can be reached at 581-7942 or at alholstrom@eiu.edu.