Throughout their years of organizing, Artie saw that LGBTQ+ people in small towns, or other geographically-overlooked areas, were not connecting with the existing LGBTQ+ organizing and advocacy infrastructure. Where they were being reached, organizations sometimes came in with resources but didn't have the capacity to stay.

 

In the 2020s, as attacks in state legislatures and local governments increased, people across the South began reaching out for help. Often, they were people who had small social communities and knew they needed to take action in politics or advocacy, but they were missing key information or the confidence to start. Around 2021, Artie began considering what it would look like to bring popular education and organizing tactics, as well as other resources and knowledge, to communities who already had the intrinsic power needed. What if we could unveil our communities' power and reflect it back to them? What if they were the leaders and we helped them create the containers for them to build locally?

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In 2022, in Western North Carolina, Artie met Alex. Alex hadn't been organizing as long, but Artie could tell he was a natural. Without training, Alex used his political and policy skill, as well as deep ability to connect with people, to bring folks together and build power. We repeat, a natural. Alex and Artie realized they both cared deeply about the communities from which they come and in which they lived and that they wanted local resources to stay local. They wanted young LGBTQ+ people to be able to stay and see a future for themselves in their communities. They wanted to help break cycles of health disparities, and they wanted local LGBTQ+ folks to engage in coalition building and multi-racial, multi-issue organizing and to live out what deep, relational solidarity could look like when put into practice, rather than isolating out of fear of the current moment.

Our communities are known for a lot of things, and not all of them are good. But they are known for their hospitality and for doing mutual aid before it was in the mainstream activist lexicon. Our communities - the towns we are from, the LGBTQ+ community, and our other intersecting areas of life - have rich cultures and histories. We can build from our strengths, work to stop the onslaught of attacks on our communities, support one another through difficult times, and build the world we envision together.

In early 2024, Artie told Alex about this idea they had been forming, and Alex was on board to help make it a reality. After lots of visioning and writing and meeting, on April 3, 2024, the work - until this time referred to as "the organizing project" - had a name: Homegrown Connections Movement.

The name worked:

• We are homegrown and we want to work with folks who are also homegrown. We are planting seeds and harvesting them.

• We are connecting folks in coalition within their own geographical communities and also to other communities like theirs across our work region, and

• We are movement builders, continuing on a legacy of our small towns - rural, Southern, Appalachian, etc - of being the vanguard of justice and of queer, multi-issue movements.

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The next part of our history is you. Join us.