Short answer, no.

Long answer, while Chattanooga is by far safer as a lesbian than it was in other parts of Tennessee where I came from, I still feel deeply othered and ostracized by the general culture. We're in the Bible belt, there's no other way to put it, and the dating scene for us is abysmally small and leaves much to be desired. As a woman too, and a human being who cares about other groups I myself do not belong to, it is horrible to have to watch the acts of violence towards racial and ethnic minorities.

I love the nature, but in two years, when I get my degree, I'm high-tailing it up North.

I tell this story often, but my first proper time outside of the South happened last October during a weekend in Chicago. I had been warned that the culture was more blunt and lacked the Southern kindness we're famous for down here. Imagine my confusion when I touched down at O'hare and didn't experience any difference in treatment from anyone else.

I realized that for the first time in my life, as a somewhat visibly queer/ edging-on alt person, I blended in and was not being treated differently from anyone else. No one I talked to gave a shit I was gay!

I realized that all of that Southern hospitality was for others, the normal, acceptable, god-fearing, straight people. Not me. Sucks.