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What radical courage does it take to love in the face of hate? Through portraiture and personal narratives highlighting joy, belonging, found family and meaningful romantic and platonic relationships, KBIA’s Alphabet Soup challenges the notion that Missouri’s LGBTQ+ community is a monolith.Tucked away within the amalgamation of letters that makes up the LGBTQ+ community and the complex identities each represents is joy: rebellious, resistant, radiant. If you have a story you would like to share, visit https://tinyurl.com/LGBTQJoy or contact news@kbia.org.Created by Bailey Stover.

Oliver Ackerman & Danielle Workman: "I like that we have a little domestic life."

Danielle Workman, left, and Oliver Ackerman sit together on their couch while one of their cats sits on a table on Sunday, April 7, 2024, at their home in Columbia.
Bailey Stover
Danielle Workman, left, and Oliver Ackerman sit together on their couch on Sunday, April 7, 2024, at their home in Columbia. Workman and Ackerman are in a trans for trans relationship. Both Workman and Ackerman faced homophobia and transphobia growing up but eventually entered into a relationship after leaving their hometown. They have been friends for nearly two decades and have lived together for the past seven years.

“You can't have a story about queer joy, usually, without kind of, like, a constant soil of queer pain to grow it in,” Workman said. “Pretty consistently, most queer people are going to have a bad family life or not the best like community life with the straight people or cis people around them. They're going to face extreme rejections from people. They'll face hate in ways that cis-het people just don't.

She went on to describe what her life with Ackerman is like now.

“I get the privilege of being myself,” Workman said. “Coming home to somewhere I actually feel completely safe, to somebody that loves me and that I love. I have friends that adore me. I have the money to do what I would like to.”

Oliver Ackerman and Danielle Workman are both transgender and are in a T4T, or trans for trans relationship.

They’ve known each other since they were young and shared a little about their relationship, and how they support each other.

Alphabet Soup shares LGBTQ+ Missourians’ stories through portraiture and personal narratives.

Oliver Ackerman: Well, I mean, now we get to have like this really boring domestic life, you know what I mean? Where it's like, we both have jobs – it's really not actually boring, but it's like average, you know?
 
Danielle Workman: It's kind of wonderful at the same time. Like that often –

Oliver Ackerman: Well, that often isn't like afforded to queer and trans people. 

"Because we've known each other for so long, it's kind of like old married couple vibes."
Oliver Ackerman

Danielle Workman: It’s not a standard part of the queer experience.

Oliver Ackerman: You went from being beaten by other kids in Russellville to now you have a full-time state job and like, a house, and –

Danielle Workman: I get to live as myself every day. I get to have a place to call my own. I've got somebody that loves me that I come home to. I've got two, two and a half, I guess, cats that I get to come home to every day. The American dream.

Oliver Ackerman: I like that we have like a little domestic life that's just like – I like low stimuli environment, like I get overwhelmed by a lot of noise, and like, you know, it's just, it's easy.

I don't know, we both like sitting down and like getting in Discord – her computer’s in a different room from mine, and we'll just play Stardew Valley in Discord, and like, maybe some of our friends will hop in there too.

And it's just like – I'm much more outgoing than I used to be. But like, ultimately, I think like we both have, like homebody vibes.

Oliver Ackerman paints Danielle Workman’s nails on Sunday, April 7, 2024, at their home in Columbia.
Bailey Stover
Oliver Ackerman paints Danielle Workman’s nails on Sunday, April 7, 2024, at their home in Columbia. Workman said she enjoys “more accentuating colors that match my typical aesthetics” while Ackerman’s favored polishes tend to be brighter.

“I definitely struggled with my relationship with femininity for a little while. Throughout my life I've had periods where I would exaggerate a feminine presentation or avoid and discredit femininity entirely. Somehow nail polish feels right. But, more than anything, it just looks good on me,” Ackerman said. “I realized that I like femininity, and I think it's fun and I get a lot of joy out of it, but just not as a woman. It's like, I love having the painted nails. I actually still really like the thigh highs to be honest. But it's just not as a girl though. It's just not for me. Not my vibe. Not my aesthetic.”

Danielle Workman: I like energy in this relationship a lot, especially in that – I feel like we're really good balance for each other. Oliver is the gas and I'm the brakes a lot of the time. He keeps us flying and I bring us back down to earth.

I am definitely somebody who – I don't have a very good social battery. I run out of energy very quickly, and I think one of my favorite things about Oliver is that in the time I've known him, he's never been somebody that's like, taking social energy for me to be around.

I can just be around him, and it's just like, I don't know – my cats take more social energy to be around than he does, which that's big for me, that's really big for me. Nobody's like that.

Oliver Ackerman: Sometimes because we've known each other for so long, it's kind of like old married couple vibes.

Danielle Workman: I have been told we have a strange relationship because we have a lot of dynamics that apparently aren't very common – like we have favorite insults for one another.

Oliver Ackerman: No, wait – but it's really cool being trans because I'm really tiny and DJ is much, much taller than me, and so, sometimes I'll be like, “No, I'm just the little guy, you have to carry me carry me to bed, I'm sleepy,” you know?

Laughter

Oliver Ackerman: It's fun.

Bailey Stover is a multimedia journalist who graduated in May 2024. She is the creator and voice of "Alphabet Soup," which runs weekly on KBIA.
Rebecca Smith is an award-winning reporter and producer for the KBIA Health & Wealth Desk. Born and raised outside of Rolla, Missouri, she has a passion for diving into often overlooked issues that affect the rural populations of her state – especially stories that broaden people’s perception of “rural” life.
Nick Sheaffer is the photo editor for KBIA's Alphabet Soup. He graduated with a Bachelor's in Journalism from the University of Missouri in May 2024.
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