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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.

Emma Rohan: "To me fashion doesn't equal gender."

Emma Rohan lies on their bed while their cat, Franklin, walks in front of them on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at their home in Columbia. “I wouldn't be half as far as I am today without the pitfalls. I don't know what my story would look like if my dad and my family did accept me, but I do know where it got me today, and I love where I am. And I think experiencing that adversity and experiencing any hard part of the queer experience is part of the queer experience for sure,” Rohan said. “Joy is such a hard word to define because it's not just like sunshine and rainbows and gay people everywhere. Joy is something you have to work for. And happiness is something that you have to practice. I get joy from sitting on the couch with my best friend and talking about our families that don't accept us and just relating on that and being there for each other and knowing that we are accepted now. And getting to look back on that in a safe way is absolutely queer joy to me.”
Bailey Stover/KBIA
Emma Rohan lies on their bed while their cat, Franklin, walks in front of them on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at their home in Columbia. “I wouldn't be half as far as I am today without the pitfalls. I don't know what my story would look like if my dad and my family did accept me, but I do know where it got me today, and I love where I am. And I think experiencing that adversity and experiencing any hard part of the queer experience is part of the queer experience for sure,” Rohan said. “Joy is such a hard word to define because it's not just like sunshine and rainbows and gay people everywhere. Joy is something you have to work for. And happiness is something that you have to practice. I get joy from sitting on the couch with my best friend and talking about our families that don't accept us and just relating on that and being there for each other and knowing that we are accepted now. And getting to look back on that in a safe way is absolutely queer joy to me.”

Emma Rohan is 23-year-old gender non-conforming lesbian. They spoke about affirming their queer identity – and rejecting the gender binary – through fashion.

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

Emma Rohan: This expectation of nonbinary people, gender non-conforming people, anybody like existing outside of the gender binary – the expectation for them to be androgynous and that's the only way you can be nonbinary is like, if people walk up to you, and they're like, “Are you a boy or a girl?”

I struggle with that, because I don't want people to come up to me and say, “Are you a boy or a girl?” Because that's not what I'm looking for. I don't want to look like a boy or a girl. I don't feel the need to look like I'm somewhere in between because that's not how I feel. I feel like, like a secret third thing, like, I'm just, I'm unrelated.

But I love feminine clothing, and I love masculine clothing, and I love exploring fashion. To me fashion doesn't equal gender even though I know that that's how we display it like in larger society.

So, I have to find a lot of ways to affirm my own gender because I do present very feminine – like very feminine. I love little skirts. I love little tops. Like I just I feel like a Barbie. It's cute. And I'm obsessed.

Wearing a binder really, really, really affirms my gender. I will literally rock a flat chest look in like an itty bitty top and a miniskirt, and just suddenly I'm like, “Yep, this is the pinnacle of no gender,” and I just, I love it.

Emma Rohan holds their faded yellow teddy bear, Mr. Snuggles, who has a red heart on his stomach, on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at their home in Columbia. “He was gifted to me by my older cousin—she's like a sister to me—when I was like 6 years old, and I have loved him since then. And he's not very cute anymore, but I think he's perfect,” Rohan said. “He was there with me every night through my childhood, when my family disowned me, and when I came to college and finally was able to be my true self. He reminds me of the good times I had with my family, makes me feel closer to my inner child and reminds me of how far I’ve come.”
Bailey Stover/KBIA
Emma Rohan holds their teddy bear, Mr. Snuggles, on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at their home in Columbia. “He was gifted to me by my older cousin—she's like a sister to me—when I was like 6 years old, and I have loved him since then. And he's not very cute anymore, but I think he's perfect,” Rohan said. “He was there with me every night through my childhood, when my family disowned me, and when I came to college and finally was able to be my true self. He reminds me of the good times I had with my family, makes me feel closer to my inner child and reminds me of how far I’ve come.”

And I do find that a lot of my gender affirming comes from my clothes and just wearing like the wackiest most fun things, like if I look at it, and I'd say, “This brings me joy,” then I'm gonna put it on.

I don't I don't care what it looks like. I don't care if it's flattering. It's just it's not something that I think about anymore, and that's affirming.

And something that – oh my gosh, I was wearing the teeniest tiniest little, like, brown, blue and pink dress with some like little boots on campus with like pink barrettes in my hair.

And I was walking to class and one of those like surveyors, you know, who'd been out on campus came up to me and goes, “Hey, Sir’am...”

I was like, “What?”

And they're like, “Oh, my, I'm so sorry. I was like, I was saying ‘Sir,’ and then I said, ‘Ma'am,’ and then I said ‘Sir’am’ and I'm not really sure, I don't, you're so androgynous, like, I don't know what to say.”

I was like, “Me? Androgynous? Like in this skirt and barrettes, like, thank you.”

It was just, it was the biggest compliment, it was the most affirming thing.

And I have not shut up about that moment for months, like I walked into my class, and I was like, “Guys, I just got Sir’am-ed.” New prefix dropped. Like suddenly I'm Sir’am Emma. Only refer to me as such.

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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