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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.

Grey Riley: "Authentic self-love and queer community feeds into each other."

Grey Riley sits in their living room on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, at their home in Columbia. When her son came out as nonbinary in middle school, Riley began having conversations about gender with other people, which helped them realize their own genderqueerness identity. “My internal sense of self was very fluid and shiftable. And sometimes I could feel girlish ways but then sometimes I could feel boyish ways, and 90% of the time I just felt like an alien or a cryptid, or something,” Riley said. “I think, honestly, so much of the conversations around identity and the queer community kind of go in reverse. Like, the younger kids are the ones out there teaching us about ourselves more than we are teaching them about themselves. And I think that's honestly really been true for, like, a lot of the history of the queer community. A lot of times it's been the younger people kind of paving the way for older people who hid that sort of thing in secret.”
Bailey Stover
/
KBIA
Grey Riley sits in their living room on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, at their home in Columbia. When her son came out as nonbinary in middle school, Riley began having conversations about gender with other people, which helped them realize their own genderqueerness identity. “My internal sense of self was very fluid and shiftable. And sometimes I could feel girlish ways but then sometimes I could feel boyish ways, and 90% of the time I just felt like an alien or a cryptid, or something,” Riley said. “I think, honestly, so much of the conversations around identity and the queer community kind of go in reverse. Like, the younger kids are the ones out there teaching us about ourselves more than we are teaching them about themselves. And I think that's honestly really been true for, like, a lot of the history of the queer community. A lot of times it's been the younger people kind of paving the way for older people who hid that sort of thing in secret.”

Grey Riley has lived in Columbia for most of their life and are a polyamorous, genderqueer, disabled activist with a queer child. They spoke about how radical self-love is an important foundation for stronger communities.

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

Grey Riley: Since turning away from the idea of who I was supposed to be to make other people like me, and embracing like who I am:

as a neurodivergent person, as like, a chronically ill person, as a queer person, as a polyamorous person, as someone who wants to do community activism work – no matter what level.

No matter if it's like, doing big protests, or just, you know, doing a whip around for the mom who doesn't have enough money to buy medical formula for her infant.

"Go ask someone that you trust for a hug. I don't care what your gender is."
Grey Riley

Anything that builds community – whether it's around an identity or it's around a neighborhood – it’s, I think, the most important thing that we can dedicate ourselves to.

Queer joy to me, has always been rooted in two main things, which is self-love and community.

And when I say self-love, I don't mean, like, go to the spa or treat yourself or whatever, but treating yourself the way someone who loves you would treat you.

Like the way you would treat your best friend, but internally. Like treating yourself like a member of your family, where you see all that is good about them instead of just all that you don't like about yourself,

And authentic self-love and queer community feeds into each other, and how, learning how to communicate your inner reality in a way that not only brings you joy – because speaking your truth and speaking your story is a source of joy, but how doing that can help others.

A Tyrannosaurus rex salt shaker sits on the kitchen table on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, at Grey Riley’s home in Columbia. “The T. rex salt shaker was part of [a] set that my partner, son and I picked out when we first moved in together. It represents getting to finally live my life fully and authentically with the people I love most, in a chosen family, who all joyfully support each other’s truths,” Riley said. “We don't even use it for salt or seasoning anymore. It just lives on the kitchen table because it was, like, kind of the symbol of the start of us getting to be a real family together.”
Bailey Stover
/
KBIA
A Tyrannosaurus rex salt shaker sits on the kitchen table on Wednesday, April 10, 2024, at Grey Riley’s home in Columbia. “The T. rex salt shaker was part of [a] set that my partner, son and I picked out when we first moved in together. It represents getting to finally live my life fully and authentically with the people I love most, in a chosen family, who all joyfully support each other’s truths,” Riley said. “We don't even use it for salt or seasoning anymore. It just lives on the kitchen table because it was, like, kind of the symbol of the start of us getting to be a real family together.”

And how that's in this, like, beautiful feedback loop that continuously moves us forward to a time where arbitrary constructs about who we are that are outwardly imposed, are being minimized or gotten rid of.

So, that we can work towards things like, you know, eliminating poverty, eliminating war, eliminating genocide, you know, moving the needle forward.

And I think whether people want to acknowledge it or not, queerness is a big part of moving that needle forwards because when you're dismantling your own trauma, it's easier for you to reach out and help other people.

Go out and hug someone. Go ask someone that you trust for a hug. I don't care what your gender is – go do it, like, you need that stuff more than you think you do.

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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