​August 2020
Dear Out in the Open community,
We know you don’t need an email from us to tell you how hard things have been lately. We’re coping with life during a pandemic that hasn’t resolved. Many of us are struggling with isolation, the oppressions of white supremacy, systemic racism and State brutality, housing and food insecurity, trans-and homophobic social media messages, seemingly impossible parenting decisions, seasonal and hormonal challenges, and more.


While honoring the realness of the struggle, we want to take a moment to express deep gratitude for each of you, and for the strength, wisdom and generosity of our communities. As rural LGBTQ folks, we inherit a tradition of radical people making radical change. We continue honoring their legacies while building toward our collective liberation through this movement moment and beyond. As HB told us back in April, “The only way through this, is through this together.” We’ve been doing it, folks! And we’re not stopping now. 

This month, we’re celebrating our community successes, expressing our love and appreciation, and inviting you to keep collaborating for all that's still on the horizon.


Mutual Aid Fund Success!Wow. Over the past two months, you donated, requested funds, boosted the signal and made it happen! Through our QTBIPOC/LGBTQ+ Mutual Aid Fund we have been able to redistribute $19,614 to our community members in so-called Southern Vermont, Southwestern NH, and rural New England. All of the money received from your donations to the Mutual Aid Fund were distributed to QTBIPOC/LGBTQ folks who were financially impacted by COVID-19. We have paused requests for funding for the time being while we replenish the fund and review our capacity to continue administering the Fund.

Our beloved monthly sustainers and Movement Building Fund supporters also contributed to this success -- your contributions allowed us to make up the difference- ensuring that everyone who requested funds received funds.
 
Here are some numbers (mostly because Ain was excited to make an infographic for you!):

​We also know that what we do together can't be measured in numbers. It’s messy and powerful. It’s emotional, individual, and collective. It looks like a slow burn—maybe even invisible to those outside our communities—until it erupts into protests and policy changes, art and song, love affairs and revolution.
 
We see, appreciate, and rely on folks sharing financial resources to fund our work and survival needs. At the same time, our work together is about so much more than money. We are deeply grateful for all of the ways our wonderful LGBTQ community engages with this work. 
 
More great ways to engage this month:
Sign up for the Rural QTBIPOC Binder Give-A-Way! We are partnering with our friends at Shapeshifters to give away custom binders for our rural QTBIPOC community members nationwide. Entries will be chosen at random through the rest of the year. 
​
Request a “back-to-school” care-package! This next round of care-packages is for rural LGBTQ parents and parents of LGBTQ youth (items to be sent are for 2-16~ year olds). There are a limited number available. Please request one, and we’ll do our best to send you one!

Get involved with the Rural Queer Community Care Network!
--> Join the care-network phone-tree
--> Ask for and offer material supports for folks in Southern VT.
--> Donate to the Rural QTBIPOC/LGBTQ+ Mutual Aid Fund 

Send your submissions to our We Feed Each Other: Rural LGBTQ Food Traditions Zine! Food supports and nourishes our movements for social change. Share your rural LGBTQ food stories, memories and recipes!

Attend a virtual group or drop-in space! We may be physically away from each other right now, but there are many ways to stay connected to rural LGBTQ community at this time. Full calendar of ongoing offerings here. 

Even while physically apart, know that we are here appreciating and holding space for one another. 
Let’s keep going in the spirit of mutual aid.
 
Ask for what you need. 
Share what you have. 
And keep organizing together for our collective liberation. 
 
With solidarity and gratitude,
 
HB & Out in the Open

Dear Out in the Open community and rural LGBTQ folks everywhere, 

Since 2015, mid-Summer has traditionally been the time when we’re opening registration for our annual Out in the Open Summit for Rural & Small Town LGBTQ Folks, getting workshops lined up, planning menus, and having retreats as a Summit planning team. For each of these past years, The Summit has been a gathering place to collectively discuss and explore our rural and small town experiences as LGBTQ people.


At the end of 2019, we started expanding the Summit in some exciting ways that we’ve been thinking about for years. We have been working with folks in Maine on bringing the Summit there this year in addition to in our home here in Southern Vermont. And we are in conversation with friends and collaborators in Kentucky about some cross-regional collaborations as well.  

Due to the Pandemic, our Summit planning has taken a turn inwards, temporarily. We are entering a Summit Year of Cover Cropping and will be building and deepening our relationships with folks in Maine and Kentucky over the next 12-18 months (and beyond) working towards even more expansive and abundant gatherings in 2021 or 2022.

In a time when, as rural LGBTQ folks, we may be experiencing even more acute isolation than before the Pandemic- we are deeply saddened that we won’t be hosting the Summit in-person this year. It has been meaningful in a transformative way to come together in community, to rest, to build, to dream, and to create with each other. As one long-time Summit attendee has said (paraphrasing here), The Summit has become like their queer family holiday: something to plan a year around, a place to re-connect with folks we may only see once a year, a place to share meals and laughs and much more.  

We want to assure you that the Summit isn't going away, we're just working differently in this time in order to give our community a deeper and more powerful experience a bit down the road. In other words: we are letting our already strong roots grow deep; we are letting our proverbial fields rest while also adding needed nutrients by growing relationships, collaborations across geography, and Summit ideas; we are building our soil over this next year so that when we come back to plant and harvest in 2021 (or whenever the pandemic next allows), our Summits will be even more powerful and full that before. We believe that as a result of this deep time a bumper crop of Summits are coming our way in the near future!

In addition to all the things you see below, we’re working on some Summit-like virtual & analog opportunities for later in the Fall. We’re thinking about way to explore the same kind of political education and what we’ve come to call ‘rural living skills’ that we have at a typical Summit but in pandemic-proof ways (it won’t be all zoooooms, we promise!). As always, if you have thoughts/topics/projects/etc. that you think we should be building around, let us know.
 
Rest assured, Out in the Open is staying put, and so is our work with our rural LGBTQ community. 

Some of the ways you can engage right now are:

• Send in submissions to our We Feed Each Other: Rural LGBTQ Food Traditions Zine
• Get involved with the Rural Queer Community Care Network:
  • Become part of the care-network phone-tree!
  • Support the Rural QTBIPOC/LGBTQ+ Mutual Aid Fund
  • If you’re in Southern VT- ask for and offer material supports
• Want to have peer-facilitated space for Movement conversations? Get in touch with us, and we’ll work to create space. 
  • Issues such as (but not limited to): rural tactics for abolition, rural racial justice organizing, queer farming + land reparations/rematrition, health justice, etc.
• Request a care-package! We’re sending a limited amount of care-packages to community members! Request one, and we’ll do our best to send you one!
  • We’re also partnering with Shapeshifters for a Rural QTBIPOC Binder Give-A-Way! 
•  Make a donation to our Movement Building Fund or Mutual Aid Fund

​We are building and creating for the long-haul— holding our values of queer joy, anti-racism, resistance, and connection. Although we won’t be physically in person this year, we are building strong, lasting connections in our rural LGBTQ communities this year and every year. 

Much love for all that has been and all that is yet to come, 

HB