Appalshop Preserves LGBTQ+ Stories in Appalachia Through Film and Media

In 1999, Appalshop, an Appalachian multimedia, cultural, and educational center currently located in Jenkins, released its first LGBTQ+ film, a short, student-made film called Through Their Eyes, made as part of the Appalachian Media Institute, a summer film workshop for high school students.

Appalshop was founded in 1969 with the goal of creating, collecting, and preserving Appalachian culture. Founded in partnership with the federal Office of Economic Opportunity and the American Film Institute, Appalshop is a grant-funded organization known for documenting the struggles of coal miners, environmental movements, traditional Appalachian culture, and the economy. Their mission is “to tell stories the commercial cultural industries don’t tell, challenging stereotypes with Appalachian voices and visions.”

Appalshop established the Appalachian Media Institute (AMI) in 1989. The institute’s  workshops are an opportunity to bring out regional youth, put a camera in their hands and teach them how to make a documentary. Students are taught what makes a good documentary, what are journalistic ethics, and how to tell a story without stereotypes or tropes. The students are asked to make something that is important to them. 

Through Their Eyes features interviews with six  people living out and open lives in Harlan. The subjects discuss familial and religious abuse, navigating social interactions, acknowledging their own identities, and finding community with a matter-of-factness and humor that is prevalent among people growing up in generally hostile places. 

For example, Brent, a gay man, recounts how his mother held a gun to his head and stated she would rather he be in hell than be queer, but he also discusses creating a home with his boyfriend. A lesbian named Kristi recalls the fear of coming out to her friends, only to find that her friends are queer as well. The subjects interviewed talk about the times that their church communities attempted to pray the “demons” out of them but also times the subjects pushed back in conflicts with “rednecks” and other less open-minded neighbors.

“The language is dated,” says Aaron Asbury, Appalshop’s Films Program Manager and the Vice Chair of the Board, “but overall it’s a good, representative piece.”

Hannah Adams Asbury, Appalshop’s communications manager, collaborates closely with Aaron in various ways. Beyond their professional connection, they are also in a queer and bisexual marriage. They met while working at the Appalachian Media Institute, where it was Hannah who first began sharing Appalshop’s content on social media and YouTube. 

“The social media part is more Aaron and me,” says Hannah, “and our bosses encourage us. Ever since late January, early February 2024, we’ve been putting out one film a week, trying to remove the paywall so people can see the films that are about them. We want to make sure the people of Appalachia can see the stories about them.”

Aaron says, “There are about 180 student-made films and many, many of them have an LGBTQ+ component. The AMI catalog is a snapshot of what is important to these kids. Since Through Their Eyes, there’ve been so many films about queer struggles in Appalachia but also queer joys and triumphs, trying not to be only sad about life. And then drag, trans issues, and a lot of intersectionalities.”

Appalshop’s queer content was not hidden nor newly found, like much of Kentucky’s queer history. AMI provided a safe space for Appalachian youth starting from its inception in 1988. In the early 2000s, the program experienced a cultural shift when Appalshop bought a new building across from their original headquarters in Whitesburg. 

“It wasn’t intended to become this,” says Aaron, “but through a series of shenanigans and life events, it became a youth space. It became somewhere where the kids felt comfortable, so comfortable, in fact, that they were able, probably for the first time in their lives, to use the name and pronouns they preferred, to talk about sex and gender, and all the things they couldn’t talk about in school or in their families or churches. It became a safe haven.”

After the floods of 2022, Appalshop’s campus was moved from Whitesburg to Jenkins, and the safe space provided by AMI moved into new offices.

AMI’s Pride Month Showcase consists of seven short films featuring LGBTQ+ Kentuckians negotiating life, love, and family in Appalachia. 2015’s Beyond Me, produced by AMI students Dominick Spangler, Kevin Swiney, and Andrea Williams, focuses on LBGTQ+ people in Eastern Kentucky who choose to stay in the mountains, and, in light of the then new Supreme Court decision to recognize same-sex marriage, the effect of that ruling on how same-sex couples thought about their future. 2021’s As Long As You Can was produced by Nik Lee and Ellie Mullins and features interviews with queer Appalachians who are faced everyday with the choice of whether to stay or leave their Appalachian home. It was the Official Selection of the 2022 Boone Docs Film Festival. Nik Lee is currently a Media Specialist at Appalshop and is working on a short form series called Queer Jobs.

The complete playlist of AMI films also includes other LGBTQ+ titles and subjects.

The AMI catalog contains the largest collection of Appalachian queer content in the United States. “What the students think is important is important,” says Aaron. “They’re the people who are going to be making the decisions when they grow up, so we hope they learn how to tell these stories and focus on these issues.”

Through Their Eyes provides the first, open-eyed look at queer Appalachians. A gay man named Scott interviewed for the film offers a quintessential gay story: “It happens here in the mountains a lot, and that’s with religion. They use religion to try to change you from being gay to heterosexual. So, I got into this religion business. I was baptized in every church. You name it – I was there. I was baptized. I had 15 people hold me down on the floor and get the demons out of me. And they said, ‘Stand back, there comes the demon of homosexuality.’ I got up and I seen the prettiest man I ever seen in my life.”