KBIA News

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.

Carol Snively: Columbia feels like 'an oasis of safety in a very unsafe state for LGBTQ folks.'

KBIA | By Bailey Stover, Photo Editor: Nick Sheaffer

Published May 2, 2025 at 2:00 PM CDT

Carol Snively, a queer woman and former President of The Center Project who came out in her 30s, stands on the building’s steps on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024, in front of The Center Project in Columbia. “Because she was so likeable, everyone loved Ellen [DeGeneres]. She was so funny, and so I think it did help family members, although it took me a while to tell every one of my family members. I was very nervous about [coming out] for very silly reasons that didn’t end up being a need to be fearful. They’re all very accepting. It just took me a long time. But yes, having people in the public eye that were out—because after she came out lots of other people started saying what their identities were,” Snively said. “And so the fact that there were celebrities who were starting to talk about things and normalize identities, I think that really helped for me. It didn’t change who I was, but it made it easier for me to verbalize who I was.”

Carol Snively is a queer woman in her 60s. She spoke about being politically active and advocating for LGBTQ+ Missourians’ rights during the early 2000s.

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

Carol Snively: I actually was very involved with the gay marriage political scene. Missouri was the first state to actually pass a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage [after Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in May 2004].

We were approached by PROMO from St Louis to help organize people to work against the passing of that constitutional amendment.

So, we organized hundreds of volunteers to go door to door – not just in Colombia and Jeff City and Fayette – to talk with folks about the amendment and why it didn't make sense, and what the passing of the amendment meant.

It was a very energizing and emotional, motivating time. On one level, it's very demoralizing, demeaning and frustrating to have to continually explain why your rights should be valued and upheld, and to constantly have to advocate for yourself and for others in the community.

And watch the pain that the youth are experiencing – seeing people say very cruel things on television and news, reading it in the newspaper, hearing folks comment about those political issues in ways that don't support the gay community.

Carol Snively holds a trophy for the “Lasting Legacy Award” she received at The Center Project’s 20th Anniversary GAY-la, recognizing her role in helping create the community center on Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024, at The Center Project in Columbia. Snively said The Center Project has been in five spaces since it began, its first being a remodeled elevator shaft at Unitarian Universalist Church. “Pride and joy, I think, are very inextricably linked together, that you can't really have pride for yourself and for your community if you don't have the capacity to experience joy,” Snively said. “Joy is a very complex feeling to have. It's not the same as happiness, and it comes from, I think, for me, a sense of belonging and connectedness to other people. And when you create that sense of belonging, or you are brought into a group of people and you feel that connectedness, it's a very deep feeling. It's a spiritual feeling, and it leads you to want to share that with other people and be honest and truthful about who you are. And so, to me, that's all what pride is about.”

But, on the other hand, we saw a really coming together of the community to support our youth and our families. It was a time of a lot of catalysts and energy and change, and it was also very joyful.

We knew that the marriage amendment was going to pass despite all our hard work, but we still scheduled a celebration.

And people asked us why we were doing that, because it was pretty clear that we were going to lose, but we had a public celebration, and we celebrated.

And what we celebrated was that so many people who had never, ever been involved in anything political before or ever advocated for themselves, and some of whom had never been out for fear that they would lose their job or fear that they would lose family members – came out during that process and started advocating – not only for themselves, but for other people, formed new friendships and relationships.

So, it was such a joyful night. I have very fond memories of it despite, also, the pain of seeing how many people voted for the amendment.

But I will say that Columbia, Missouri, was the only municipality, besides St. Louis, to vote down the amendment. It feels like we're an oasis of safety in a very unsafe state for LGBTQ folks.