Cities like San Francisco and New York are known for their thriving LQBTQ scenes, but GLAAD award-winning journalist Samantha Allen wants people to learn about the queer communities below the radar: the conservative states she’s visited and called home.
“I came out as transgender in Atlanta, Georgia; fell in love in Bloomington, Indiana; and found my ride-or-die friends in East Tennessee,” she wrote in her memoir, “Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States” (Little, Brown and Company, 2019). “This is what I’ve learned on my travels: America is a deeply queer country—not just the liberal bastions and enclaves, but the so-called real America sandwiched between the coasts.”
This summer, W Hotels made Allen’s book available for all of its guests to read during their stays as part a book club with the LGBTQ media platform them.