In 2015 Cole Moravec alongside other queer activists hung up an American flag with “Trans Lives Matter” and names of trans individuals who have died that year in honor of Trans Day of Remembrance. Their activism faced backlash from the community and had their first flag taken down, as well as violent threats coming from community members.
Impact Created:
In the blog by Rae Peter they wrote about the activism that Moravec and others participated in left an impact on Winona State University and its community by working towards a more inclusive and accepting environment. It shows that everyone’s voices matter, and that activism, even on a smaller level is important. Their actions helped paved the way to more activism and building more safe space on and off campus (2016).
About Cole:
Cole Moravec was a Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies student who used his knowledge to create change and queer centered spaces on Winona State Universities campus. Moravec was copresident of WGSS full-Spectrum and a part of KEAP Councils early student coalition in 2012 where they demanded for safe spaces for students experiencing
, me and a ould be
o buy an American flag , flip it upside 2 wn, and paint Trans Lives Matter on it, and then write all the names of the people who were 25 murdered...And we hung that up in the smack-dab middle of campus on our gazebo..And that was ripped down, so then we went and bought another one and did it again.” (C.Moravac, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection, March, 30, 2017)
By: Arianna Krogseng and Chloe Struss
Panel by Arthur Tronnes
Paul Christenson’s Quilt Panel, National AIDS Memorial
In 2016, a group of WGSS students interviewed Winona residents as a part of an Oral history project for people in SouthWest Minnesota on the HIV/AIDS crisis in 1980's and 90's
In the interview, Kathy and Dave talked overall about their experiences with HIV in Winona at that time, but also shared stories about Paul Christenson, Dave’s younger brother. Paul was a gay man born and raised in Winona and lived his adult years in Florida. Paul was HIV positive and unfortunately, passed away in early 1995 Paul was more than a gay person, more than someone who passed from HIV. Paul was a beloved part of many people’s lives He was artistic, he was creative, he was involved in the lives of school kids, and he helped form a supportive community of Winonans Without Oral history, or projects documenting the stories and lives of LGBTQ+ people, many of these stories would tragically be lost
When starting this project with my class and was introduced to the potential of taking this topic, I knew that it was something I really wanted to do I have older LGBTQ+ family members, and one who passed during the AIDS epidemic and has a panel in the quilt
Researching LGBTQ+ history of those who have passed before us I believe is incredibly important and paramount not only to the work we do now as queer activists, but to making sure that stories are heard, shared, and kept alive.
The HIV/AIDS Quilt is a large collection of patchwork quilts that were made to assemble a memorial of those who died of HIV. The idea was initially conceived in 1985. Panels began to be made in June of 1987, and the first large scale display was in Washington D.C. in October of that same year.
Local Connections and Impacts
In the 1990's, St. Mary’s in Winona displayed about 8 sections of the AIDS quilt, about 80 individual panels.
The Display was talked about in Kathy and Dave’s interview and they described it as a “real show of support from the Winona community.” adding also that “there wasn’t a person there who wasn’t supportive” or who had anything negative to express about the situation
Having a memorial like the AIDS Quilt, or really any LGBTQ+ memorial in a rural community is so important LGBTQ+ people are found everywhere, and it’s paramount to bring that recognition and support to rural communities.
Uplifting and documenting the history, stories, and lives of LGBTQ+ folk is not only important for preservation purposes, but also as a way to return agency and self voice to the people.
FREE WINONA EXCERPTPUBLISHED 9/1/2008
FREE WINONA, AN INDEPENDENT PUBLICATION OPERATING FROM 2008-2009, IS AN EXAMPLE OF QUEER MUTUAL AID TACTICS IN WINONA’S HISTORY, PROMOTING COMMUNITY-DRIVEN ACTIVISM AND RESISTANCE. OPERATING COLLECTIVELY, FREE WINONA REJECTED INSTITUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS, PROMOTED MUTUAL AID, AND PROVIDED A PLATFORM FOR MARGINALIZED VOICES TO CHALLENGE SYSTEMIC INEQUALITIES AND BUILD SOLIDARITY.
As Cathy Cohen proposes in “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?”:
“As we stand on the verge of watching those in power dismantle the welfare system through a process of demonizing the poor and young, primarily poor and young women of color—many of whom have existed for their entire life outside of the white, middle-class heterosexual norm—we have to ask if these women do not fit into society’s categories of marginal, deviant, and ‘queer’.” Free Winona is concerned with providing mutual aid and community for those that exist outside the state and is therefore an example of queer mutual aid tactics.
“MUTUAL AID HELPS US CARE FOR EACH OTHER AND HAVE OUR NEEDS MET. WITH MARGINALIZED GROUPS OFTEN EXPERIENCING THE GREATEST DISPARITIES-FOOD, HOUSING, MEDICAL ACCESS-WE HAVE TO FIND CREATIVE WAYS TO FILL THOSE GAPS.” - KATIE MUELLER-FREITAG
FREE WINONA EXCERPT - PUBLISHED 1/1/2009
Katie Mueller-Freitag (she/they) is a local community member involved with current and past mutual aid projects within Winona, including the Free Winona publication. We interviewed them to learn more about the history of mutual aid in Winona.
Why is it important to know the history of mutual aid in rural LGBTQ+ community?
“AS THE NPIC [NONPROFIT INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX] SEEMS TO CREEP INTO EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIFE THESE DAYS, UPHOLDING THE HARMFUL CAPITALIST STRUCTURES WE LIVE UNDER, IT’S IMPORTANT TO SHARE THE EXAMPLES AND POSSIBILITIES OF A WORLD OUTSIDE OF THOSE CONFINES. DON’T JOIN A NON-PROFIT-START A COLLECTIVE!” -KATIE MUELLER-FREITAG
Dr.JamieAnnMeyers
PanelbyKendallRolandandAlexPeachey
JamieAnngrewupinValleyView,PAandlatermoved toColumbia,PAwhereshemetherwifePeggy.She completedherundergradinPAandlatermoved aroundtodifferentstates,includingOHandCAbefore settlingdowninWinona,MN.InherworkatWinona State,JamieAnnemphasizedfieldworkforstudents In aninterviewin2019,JamieAnntellsstoriesabout bringingstudentsouttotheBlackHillsandHawai’i In someoftheseearlytrips,shebroughtoutstudents wholaterbecameGeologyprofessors.Inlateryears, shewouldcomeouttoherstudentsinclasses.For someofthesestudents,shewasprobablythefirst transpersontheywouldevermeet.Oneofher studentssaid,“seeingyougothroughthisgender transition,letsmeknowthatIcandoanything,” (Meyers).Shestartedtotransitionpubliclyafterliving inWinonaforabout30years,andatthattimeshe begantalkingtosomeotherqueerpeopleinthearea. ShemetupwithtranswomeninMNandWI,andwould frequentlyvisitthetwincitiestoseeherkids, grandkids,andtointeractinthelocalqueerculture As partofhercomingoutprocess,shewroteaplaywhich shewouldlaterperformthroughQ-stageandthe20% theatre.
As stated in his obituary, “John was born gay on April 29th, 1935, in Chicago, Illinois, into a religious family, causing him to struggle with self-rejection as young as six years old On the 10th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, John came out of the closet, moved into a boathouse on Latch Island, and found a community where he could be himself Later in the same year, John met his partner, Norm, at a Halloween party For the next thirteen years, they lived together in the boathouse until Norm passed from AIDS ”
Rabble Rouser
Before finding community and himself, John felt he was the only gay person in the world (Episode 2) He wrote many anti-oppression themed letters to the local Winona newspapers to advocate and spread his teachings John worked to secure the right's for the Boathouses to live on Latch Island and even hand dug ditches to get a phone line spread into the island Often queer and gay history is over looked or erased, as the "unofficial history keeper" of Wolf Spider Island John Rupkey felt it was important to hold onto records and documents
Boathouses
Mentioned in the Back Channel Podcast by Gina Favano, the history of these boathouses goes back to the 1980s, when a businessman named John Latch, during his exploration, was denied permission to stay on the land of the Island to rest after traveling upstream The boathouses, located on the shores of the Mississippi in Winona, have been the place that has changed lives, where people have found a sort of community. After John Rupkey came out in 1979, he was shunned and was blacklisted from his career as a teacher. Because of this, he decided to move out into a boathouse on the Mississippi, finding his community.
His Philosophy
Stonewall had changed his perspective on closeting his sexuality, and he found himself living openly and proudly in the Boathouse community He felt all individuals were created with the equal right to pursue happiness, and rejected traditional Christian homophobic theology John centered his religious philosophy around Jesus’ teachings which valued all love experienced by Gods creations He believed that gay love was just as sacred and worthy of civil rights as all those who experience love
Sources: Favano, Gina Back Channel Radio Episodes 1 &2 (2013) https://www backchannelradio org/ Winona Post Rupkey, Dr John Thomas (July, 2022) https://www winonapost com/community/obituaries/rupkey-dr-john-thomas/article 6ca7b53e-0211-11ed-bd4afbe1437b8330 html Winona Post Rupkey, Jesus teaches us to love one another-including gay people (2021) https://www winonapost com/jesus-teaches-us-to-love-oneanother-including-gay-people/article 712dd8cd-ad0f-5f12-9a8b-3c9f354f141e html
Panel By Casey Klein & Madyson Fischer
Delta Eddy
Delta Eddy is a former professor at Winona State University, where she taught several English subjects for over 30 years. According to the “About the Author” section in her 2020 poetry book Sparks, she currently lives with her wife, Marykay Lind Eddy, on a butterfly ranch in Dodge County, Minnesota. Her writing career spans over 40 years, with most of her works having been published under her dead name before she transitioned in 2017. Her aforementioned poetry book Sparks features poems about nature, elegies for former associates, and references to mythology.
An important thing to note about the poems in Sparks is that they do not focus on her transition. In fact, the only direct mention of her transition is in the “About the Poet” section at the end of the book. In a 2021 article from The Winonan where she was interviewed about the release of the book, Eddy said that “the transition is not really the focus of the book, because the transition is not really the focus of my life. It is something that has been a part of me all my life and only was recently expressed. It’s this thing that I have lived through, something that I survived” (Brandt). Most of the featured poems were written before Eddy transitioned, and in the article she says that she found delight in looking over poems she wrote so long ago and being able to “find the woman ” in them. As Eddy says, “I was finding her everywhere because there she was. She’s me ” (Brandt). According to the article, Eddy has plans to discuss her transition more in future works, “because it deserves more direct treatment than she was able to give it in her book of poetry.”
Written works by LGBTQ+ authors, whether they’re about LGBTQ+ topics or not, are incredibly important since it is proof that we existed, that we ’ ve survived everything we ’ ve experienced, and that we will continue to survive.
