Amplifying queer voices with Darci McFarland, the author and artist behind ‘Post-Traumatically Stressed Feminist’ and ‘Bible Belt Queers’

It’s no secret that the pandemic has altered the lives of people across the nation in some shape or form. Some lost their jobs, some found their passions and everyone else likely fell somewhere in between. But at the very least, the pandemic allowed for the SCAD community to adopt a new curriculum filled with Extended Learning Opportunities — better known as ELOs to students and faculty — which were originally designed to spark engaging conversations between students and creative professionals via Zoom. Some professors encourage students to seek their required ELOs on their own time throughout the quarter, while others take advantage of their two-and-a-half-hour lectures to bring in guest speakers of their choosing.

Elias Capello, an anthropology professor here at SCAD, is one that prefers the latter. After submitting writing to be considered for a collection titled Bible Belt Queers in 2019, Capello befriended the book’s editor, Darci McFarland, a queer freelance artist based in Arkansas.

“Before I’d even met Dr. Capello in person, I accepted their submissions for my book because their poems were really wonderful,” says McFarland. “We got to know each other after a community was built between all the contributors, and then we became really close friends after the book was published.”

Capello felt that McFarland was a perfect fit for a guest speaker due to her expertise in the freelance art world, something that really picked up for her after losing her job in non-profit during the pandemic.

“It’s been a journey,” she continues. “Some months are very slim, and some months are very great, which is the case for most freelance jobs. But I really love it and it was a very much-needed transition for me and my mental health.”

She also says that focusing on her art has allowed for more freedom in her other creative endeavors as well. “Freelancing gives me the opportunity to work on the collections and the books that I’m passionate about, which aren’t typically big financial supporters on their own,” says McFarland. “Books don’t make a lot of money, but they’re created for the love of the project itself.”

Darci McFarland’s guest appearance in Capello’s anthropology course was quite a captivating one. Luckily, she agreed to a one-on-one interview to talk more about her books titled “Post-Traumatically Stressed Feminist” and “Bible Belt Queers,” as well as her upcoming project titled “Been Here, Been Queer.”

McFarland’s first book, “Post-Traumatically Stressed Feminist,” includes the work of thirty-two feminist artists and activists about their lives with PTSD. Although its pages include some heavy topics dealing with various types of trauma, “Post-Traumatically Stressed Feminist” was a project that McFarland created to heal from trauma herself. “I wanted folks who have dealt with some type of trauma to share their experiences with people who had similar experiences,” she says. 

Healing from trauma can be incredibly isolating, especially if you’re a survivor of the relationship trauma and sexual assault that’s so rampant in our society today. “I wanted people to pick up this collection and see themselves in it somehow, and know that they aren’t alone in what they’re experiencing,” says McFarland. “There can be healing in creating art that releases these heavy emotions and stressors that survivors experience — and there can also be community found in that.”

McFarland says that the process of seeking submissions and putting “Post-Traumatically Stressed Feminist” together took about two years. “I learned a lot during that process, and I got a little faster the second time around for ‘Bible Belt Queers,’ which took about a year and a half.”

“Bible Belt Queers,” on the other hand, is similar to “Post-Traumatically Stressed Feminist” because it contains poetry, essays and visual art from all different types of contributors. The only difference is that this project focused on articulating the experience of growing up as a queer person in the South, this time with seventy-two contributors.

“I couldn’t narrow it down,” McFarland says. “I kept getting amazing submissions, and I wanted to touch on so many various aspects of growing up queer in the Bible Belt … so it ended up being two or three times longer than I’d originally intended it to be.”

Though she grew up in small-town Arkansas, McFarland has lived in various Bible Belt states since then, including Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. And out of the many queer people that she’s met in the South over the years, she realized that nearly everyone’s upbringing was identical. “I noticed that amongst all the queer people that I’d met, we had this similar experience of not really coming to terms with who we were — and these various other aspects of our identities — until much later in life,” she says. “I personally didn’t come to terms with my own sexuality until I was in college because I didn’t realize that I could date women. I didn’t realize that that was a viable option for me.”

The Bible Belt tends to receive criticism for its dated views on what men and women are supposed to look like, but especially for its arguments against homosexuality. “Growing up, everything regarding gender and sexuality were placed in very neat little boxes,” says McFarland. “And we, as queer people, were shoved into them even though we didn’t fit.”

“And that instills this idea in us from a very young age that who we are is sinful and wrong, and that there are no other people like us,” she continues. “It took a long time for us to shed that. But even though we all had these similar upbringings, we all felt isolated in our own experiences because we didn’t see the representation that straight people have. We didn’t have role models, teachers, church leaders or any other community leaders who were queer or trans — we didn’t even know that that was an option.”

McFarland says that like most queer kids, she turned to books to escape the reality that she was living in. “I turned to books so that I could live in this fantasy world where people weren’t discriminated against for being who they are,” she says. 

And from an outside perspective, it’s refreshing to see her recreate that experience in “Bible Belt Queers” for the next generation of young queer people. But her success in amplifying queer voices is just getting started. 

McFarland’s upcoming project is a coffee table book titled “Been Here, Been Queer.” “When we think of the LGBTQ heroes in our society, we tend to see the same few people over and over again that are long dead,” she says. “But there are heroes in our communities right now who are doing really important work, and it’s young people — millennial folks and Gen Z folks — that are doing really revolutionary things.”

“For this project, I want to highlight twenty-five to thirty different LGBTQ changemakers from all over the Bible Belt and other marginalized areas in the US, folks that are doing important grassroots work in their communities,” she continues. “I think it’s important to remember these young queer community heroes in hopes that we can give them flowers and celebrate their accomplishments while they’re still here.” 

However, the calls for submissions are structured a little differently than McFarland’s previous projects. “We’re asking for calls for nominations instead, so if you know someone that you think should be nominated to be featured in this collection, we ask that you submit their name and their contact information.”

If there’s someone out there that you think fits the criteria for “Been Here, Been Queer,” fill out this nomination form. And if you’re interested in more information about upcoming projects, in purchasing Post-Traumatically Stressed Feminist or Bible Belt Queers by Darci McFarland, or in purchasing some of her best-selling designs (including her TikTok-viral Medusa Patch), check out ptsfeminist.com.