Country Queers

About Country Queers

Country Queers is a podcast featuring oral history interviews with rural and small-town LGBTQIA2S+ folks. We uplift often unheard stories of rural queer experiences across intersecting layers of identity including race, class, gender identity, age, religion, and occupation. Produced by and for country queers all over, we hope these stories help add more complexity to conversations and ideas about rural spaces and queer communities.

Publisher

Country Queers

Category

history · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

22 Jun 2020

Latest episode

7 May 2025

Latest episodes

29 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 May 2025

   The Battle Over Water Rights in Cuyama, CA

   About halfway between Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, California - on the ancestral lands of the Chumash people - lies a remote and strikingly beautiful high desert valley named Cuyama. The Cuyama Valley finds itself in the middle of a tense and complicated battle over water rights. A battle where all of the residents, farmers, ranchers, and even the rural underfunded school district, have been pitted against the world's largest corporate carrot growers: Bolthouse and Grimmway. The Cuyama Water Basin is one of 21 critically overdrafted basins in the state of California. Since 2020 Cuyama Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency has been developing and implementing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan in accordance with state requirements aimed at bringing all critically overdrafted basins back into sustainable use by 2040. But in 2022, Bolthouse and Grimmway, aka Big Carrots, filed a lawsuit to ask the courts to determine water rights in the valley. The Big Carrot lawsuit required all the small family run farms and ranches in the valley, the town water board, and the local schools to hire attorneys to defend their water rights in court. The lawsuit also inspired some community members to create a Boycott Carrots campaign. In this episode you'll hear excerpts from oral history interviews with six residents of the Cuyama Valley, digging into what they love about Cuyama, how the water crisis has impacted their personal lives, what solutions might be, and what they hope for the future of the valley CREDITS: This episode was created and produced by Rae Garringer in 2025 during their time as a Cuyama Water Justice Fellow. The Cuyama Water Justice Fellowship is hosted by two local organizations Blue Sky Center and Quail Springs (https://www.quailsprings.org/) thanks to funding from the California EPA. Endless gratitude to everyone who shared some of your story through interviews: Sara Nuñez, Noemi Vera, Raul Monzón, Tristan Zannon, Brenton Kelly, Alisha Taff, and Emery Johnston. And to Rosalba and Anthony Fonseca for your interpretation and translation work, and to Sandra Uribe for helping coordinate and schedule Spanish language interviews. Special thanks to Liz Fish, Jack Forinash, Mayela Rodriguez, Noé Monte, Melanie Shaw, Nick Shaw, Brooke Swertfager, Pam Baczuk, Brenton Kelly, Blaine Morris, and Teddy Nava.

2. 

   9 Apr 2025

   Rural Queer Maine Audio MAGIC!

   Q: What happens when you bring a gaggle of country queers together for a weeklong audio workshop and retreat in rural coastal Maine? A: Rural Queer Maine Audio MAGIC! In November 2024 a group of rural and smalltown LGBTQ+ folks from across the state of Maine, spent 5 days together in Passamaquoddy territory / Washington County on the coast of Maine at a rural queer audio retreat. The retreat was organized and hosted by Out in the Open -  a multiracial, majority working class, grassroots, movement and capacity building organization based in Wabanaki territory working throughout the states of Vermont and Maine to connect rural LGBTQ+ people to build community, visibility, knowledge and power. Participants produced short audio pieces, start to finish, over the five days that we spent living, learning, eating, walking, and laughing together. These pieces were produced with support from Out in the Open staff HB Lozito and Grace Johnston-Fennell, Michele Christle of Torchlight Media, and Rae Garringer of Country Queers. These pieces contain audio that may be challenging to hear or bring up emotions for listeners. Please take care of yourself!

3. 

   4 Sept 2024

   Preorder the Book! Support the Book Tour!

   Country Queers: A Love Letter arrives October 8, 2024 from Haymarket Books! Listen to Rae multitask morning goat chores while telling you about the book and the fundraiser we've launched to support the costs of book tour travels. Featuring: ducks, goat bells, goats chewing, Rae walking through tall grass, and rambling without a script in the milking shed! You can preorder the book here and please help us bring the book tour to rural areas and small towns all over by supporting our Fundraiser!

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.9 / 5

92 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

44 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 47 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

68

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

67

Contact Country Queers

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.