“Out” on the Farm: Queer Farmers Maneuvering Heterosexism and Visibility*

Abstract

AbstractIn agriculture, heterosexual and cisgender farmers benefit from merging the public and private spheres through the “family farm” model. In comparison, heterosexist expectations relegate queerness to the private sphere and burden queer farmers with the work of gaining acceptance among rural and agrarian communities. Based on interviews with 20 queer farmers in the northeastern United States, this article examines the role of queerness in shaping farmers' participation in agriculture. Findings show that queer farmers actively maneuver their identity based on presumptions of heterosexism, illustrating how queerness, as an aspect of identity, is widely overlooked as a critical vector that influences participation in farming. Through daily interactions with customers, other farmers, and community members, queer farmers develop strategies to mitigate heterosexism's negative implications. Queer farmers participated in alternative agriculture, leveraged the rural politics of recognition, and selectively outed themselves. As a structural issue, however, heterosexism remains an embodied hardship for queer farmers. Queer farmers' experiences offer new pathways for understanding rural community development in the agrarian transition. These results illustrate that agricultural organizations, farm policy, and rural community theorizing would benefit from viewing queerness as a critical axis of consideration in farming rather than a private matter not suitable for farming spaces.