“Good Neighbor” Policy

If you are planning on visiting a lesbian land community, please understand that rural life is very different from city life, and respect our wishes that you be low-key while visiting us.

When I lived in the city, I was essentially anonymous. I could walk down the street wearing a “radical dyke” t-shirt and not be concerned. Oh, I might get harassed a bit by passing teenage boys, but they didn’t know my name or phone number or where I lived, so any harassment was short-lived, in the moment.

But living in rural areas is very different. On the day my partner and I moved to the land, we made a wrong turn. Immediately the woman in the car behind us blew her horn and flagged us down. She said, “I think you may be looking for that women’s community, and if you are, you made a wrong turn.” When I asked her how she knew she said, “Oh, when I saw two women driving a moving van with Florida plates I knew where you were headed.” I hadn’t even made it to the gate yet, and she knew all about me.

Sometimes when MA picks up her mail at her POBox, there is mail for other community members in her box. Why? Well- those womyn don’t have POBoxes, yet the postmistress knows they live next door to her, so she hands MA their mail… and it’s not even in the same state.

When a visitor passing through couldn’t find her friend, Martha, she stopped at the local PO. The post office gave her directions. Why that surprised Martha was because she receives no mail at all here. Her name isn’t associated with any address in this state.

We live in the Deep South and are surrounded by primarily southern Baptists. They believe that being homosexual is a sin. And some of them think all homosexuals should be killed. They know who we are, what we are, and where we live. We try to be good neighbors. We help out in the community, we check on our neighbors, we hire local laborers, we drive nearby neighbors through the land so they can see there is nothing odd happening here, but we never use the word “lesbian” with them, and we never wear our blatant t-shirts off the land.  They refer to us as “those crafts women” because they are comfortable with that. And they like us. However, if they were confronted with the word “lesbian” and had to call us that, then they would have to dislike us. And that is where the concern for our safety comes from.