Why Alaska to Start an LGBTQ Project Celebrating Gender?

Alaska: The “Center of the Universe” and a Queer Frontier?

More than one Alaskan has told me that Alaska is where you go to get away from everything else … the rest of the world’s shit. Who is here “getting away” to this massive, isolated state that intrigues so many? Queer and straight folks from all walks of life including fishing and hunting enthusiasts, workers supporting the state’s massive oil, mining and tourism industries, and particularly essential to this state’s cultural glue are Alaska Native cultures and peoples. When you’re here, it feels like Alaska is the center of the universe, and when you’re not, it’s a place that seems so foreign to everywhere else in the U.S. and Canada.

**So why Alaska to start a project celebrating gender diversity?**

Many people have asked me this, bemused and befuddled as to why I started this project with an overly ambitious road trip from Virginia, across two massive countries, to Alaska. I wrote about my initial inspiration in “Roadtripping my Way to Queerness” (on my first cross-continental road trip to Alaska) and wanted to expand more on my second stay in this state to work on All the Genders.

I’ll be honest … part of the pull back to Alaska after spending a summer working for U.S. Fish and Wildlife was the magnificent landscapes and wildlife that people associate with Alaska. In 2022, I was lucky enough to spend a summer getting paid to drive a truck around a wildlife refuge. Every day brought a different piece of magic – it ranged from puzzling over interactions with eccentric locals and tourists, quietly watching black bears munching on dandelions (sometimes every day!), seeing other creatures like lynx, eagles, grizzly bears, moose, orcas, humpback whales, snowy owls. Alaska is eye candy galore for this nature nerd! Just as special was taking in the changing colors as the mountains, tundra, lakes and bogs cycled from late winter to spring, summer, and fall in only five months.

My second time coming back here, the main pull was spending more time getting to know the people and communities nestled in these magnificent landscapes, particularly communities that I found incredibly welcoming to queer people. Friends and family members in the lower 48 had made remarks about how hard it must be to live visibly as an LGBTQ person in Alaska while I worked as a park ranger here. My experience here was so much the opposite of this, that I was drawn to come back and dispel this myth that remote places like Alaska are not queer-friendly. My first summer here I was incredibly welcomed and accepted as an openly queer person both in my new town and in my workplace.

In this vast and wild state that is larger than Texas and California combined, people generally leave their neighbors alone regarding political affiliations, sexuality and gender identity, but also check in on each other out of necessity and need for close communities to survive and thrive during long, harsh winters. This was my first impression of Alaska. Coming back again, I still heard the same message … that people just let each other be while simultaneously supporting each other.

However, this is really an overgeneralization about a place filled with diverse experiences; Alaska’s geographical isolation doesn’t have a magic shield protecting itself from bigotry and other social challenges, and in reality the queer communities/individuals I got to visit varied wildly in their ability to safely be visibly queer. As I wrapped up last summer (2023), I was still impressed by the ways that other queer people celebrate themselves here, but also walked away with several fresh perspectives regarding the intricacies and challenges of being queer in this crazy, wild state.

The best window into experiences of gender identity in these regions is through reading the stories of people I’ve met. However, I also wanted to share some glimpses of my own QueerVentures behind the lens as I’m learning about different communities on the road.

The links below are a map to different places I’ve visited around Alaska specifically. Starting in Homer you can follow a south to north journey, or jump off the road system to other places like SouthEast Alaska and Bethel in western Alaska.

Underground Rainbows of SouthEast Alaska

Bethel: a Yu’pik Community on the Edge of the World

South to North Alaska Road Trip

Homer: A Haven at the End of the Road

The Fairies Guarding Pride in Soldotna, Alaska

Rainbows over Resurrection Bay: Pride with a Lumberjack Queen, Sea Lions, and Orcas

Gun Violence Normalized: My Queer Reflections on Gun Violence from Alaska to Virginia to Texas

Anchorage, Alaska: What is it known for?

The Mat-Su Valley: “Be Careful Up There”

Mount Denali: The Importance of a Name

Fairbanks: An Eclectic Confluence of People and Where My Car Met a Bull Moose

Quietly Queer in the Arctic