(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
This story was originally published by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



In Appalachia, Hell Hath No Fury Like a Trans Goth With a Banjo [1]

['G. Samantha Rosenthal']

Date: 2024-10-03 15:00:00+00:00

You Can’t Stop the Queer South is Them’s series spotlighting LGBTQ+ voices of resistance and resilience in the American South, created with guest editor adrienne maree brown. In the time since producing these stories, Hurricane Helene has devastated areas across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia, with nearly 200 dead, a million without power, and countless homes destroyed or displaced. We ask readers to support on-the-ground relief efforts however possible. See our Hurricane Helene relief resource guide to learn how you can help.

Clover-Lynn had been living out West doing the typical “trans woman in the tech industry” thing, when, on a visit home to rural Virginia for Thanksgiving in 2019, she stopped by her local music store and purchased a banjo.

With jet-black hair and heavy, black eyeliner and large, black platform combat boots, Clover-Lynn doesn’t look like the kind of girl who would casually pick up the instrument. And Franklin County, where she’s from, isn’t the kind of place you would expect to meet a goth trans woman. It’s a Bible-Belt region known for a history of illegal moonshining and more recently for “Trump Town,” a 24-hour shrine to the former president that sits on a prominent highway intersection where you can buy “Trump ice cream” and pose side-by-side with life-size cutouts of the politician.

Nonetheless, after four years away, Clover-Lynn moved back to Appalachia in 2020. More than anything, it was the music — particularly bluegrass and old time — that drew her back. After all, the 27-year-old artist had grown up listening to the likes of the Stanley Brothers and Flatt and Scruggs on her granny and papa’s records. Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, this part of Virginia where Clover’s family has lived for over 200 years is considered by some “the birthplace of country music.”

For Clover, this was not just a homecoming. It was a reckoning.

Within a year of her return, she began to post short videos of herself online playing the banjo. For a small-town girl, her “Hillbilly Gothic” TikTok account quickly amassed an impressive following, with millions of people engaging with her and her music. In her videos, the musician can be seen wearing all-black clothes, playing the banjo, throwing back cans of Dr. Pepper, and sometimes speaking directly to the camera about issues such as the boundaries of Appalachia or the war in Gaza. But Hillbilly Gothic, Clover tells me, is more than just an online presence. It is a way of reconciling disparate elements of her identity. “It started just as a way for me to combine two big parts of my life,” she tells me. “Growing up in Southwest Virginia, and the gothic.”

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.them.us/story/clover-lynn-appalachia-country-music-tiktok-queer-south-profile

Published and (C) by Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailyyonder/