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Alphabet Soup

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.

Rosie Geiser & Dottie Mathews: "Whatever we experience in these aging bodies, we're going to be there for each other."

KBIA | By Reporter & Photographer: Bailey Stover, Producer: Rebecca Smith, Photo Editor: Nick Sheaffer

Published February 14, 2025 at 2:00 PM CST

Spouses Rosie Geiser, left, and Dottie Mathews sit on their living room couch on Monday, May 7, 2024, at their home in Columbia. “I think that Rosie and I are both really lucky in queer joy. Because we're both such inoffensive people that we—I am aware that we have paid very little price for being gay as far as we've experienced very little discrimination. Our families love us. Our friends love us. We've been able to excel in our jobs. This was our journey. I know it's not everyone's journey, but this was our journey,” Mathews said. “Being queer is something I'm happy to participate in. And, in fact, volunteering to do things for people that for whom the journey is not nearly as easy is something that I am grateful to have the opportunity to do. But being gay is just, I'm a joyful person. And I love life. And I love this earth. And I love a woman, and I love my children, and I love flowers, you know? It's just one aspect of all the joy that it is to exist on this earth.”

Wives Rosie Geiser and Dottie Mathews are in both in their 70s and have been together since the 1990s.

They spoke about their connection and commitment to each other — as well as how their love encourages them to grow every day.

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

Dottie Mathews: I think my commitment to Rosie has from the start [been] to show up as fully as I can and to dig deeply for the truth, even when it's hard to say.

And to work on myself to become more open hearted and more loving and more accepting and less judgmental and more kind.

I think that's one of the things that bonds us. We help each other move toward our best selves – always – without being mean about it, but just inviting about it.

Rosie Geiser: Yeah, and I think another aspect of it too is that we both have an understanding or commitment to the fact that when there is a conflict, it probably is more mine – or our own individual stuff than the other person.

"I can't imagine anybody that I'd want to age with, other than Dottie."

Rosie Geiser

And that's been a growing process. It didn't happen right away, and it still can trip us up.

But I think when we come back to recognizing "this is my stuff and I need to work on it," that's when we can come back to that oneness or that essential beingness that we have.

Dottie Mathews: Yeah, I mean, I think we view the Grinch-y parts as a gift because we do really long to be loving humans in this world.

And so, as I've done premarital counseling, I've always told couples that this – “arena” is the word I use – is like the best place, if you take advantage of it.

Because you're seen in ways that no one else sees you at home. Your partner, your spouse, sees so many things about you that are hidden from the rest of the world, and if you will be open to it, this is the place where your greatest learning and growing can occur.

And I think we both share that commitment to celebrating that – even in the hard times. To say, “This hurts. And I think you're telling me something that's important. So, give me a moment. Let me take this and see what I can do with it.”

Spouses Rosie Geiser and Dottie Mathews hold hands with their wedding bands showing on Monday, May 7, 2024, at their home in Columbia. Their bands are engraved with symbols that represent their vows and important components of their lives. “I'm not sure what comes after death, frankly. I believe that we come from pure energy, and that's what we returned to whatever that is, that essence,” Geiser said. “And so, I just live my life to its fullest because I don't know what's to come after this physical body is gone. And I don't think that that in any way diminishes or adds to the relationship. I think we just are who we are in this life, in this moment, in this being here now.”

Rosie Geiser: Yeah, I can't imagine anybody that I'd want to age with, other than Dottie.

I'm really grateful that we met when we did because it was still young enough that, yes, we let go of lots of other stuff in our life, but at that point, we were beginning a transition into a maturity of our lives.

Fortunately for us, I think both of us are accepting people, we are accepting of the limitations that we're starting to experience as we age, and supportive of each other.

And I know that no matter what, what either one of us has, or whatever we experience in these aging bodies, that we're going to be there for each other.