The Queer Womanhood Collective
How One Carsey Student Is Fostering Feminist Community in Rural New England
For underrepresented individuals in rural New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts, finding community can feel like an impossible task — especially for those who are actively targeted in the towns where they live. Bailey Saddlemire, a recent graduate of the Master's of Global Conflict and Human Security program at the Carsey School of Public Policy, decided she wasn't going to wait for that community to suddenly appear. Instead, she built it.
Her capstone project birthed the Queer Womanhood Collective (QWC), a grassroots group designed to build connection and belonging for people who identify with queer womanhood across the tri-state area. From hosting stamp-carving workshops to tabling at Hampshire Pride, QWC is making its presence felt by showing up in the community, and its impact is just beginning.
Bailey gives her perspective on the work of the QWC, the community it serves, and what she hopes to accomplish.
For those unfamiliar, how would you describe the Queer Womanhood Collective and the community it serves?
The QWC is a grassroots community group that aims to build a common community for its membership, which encompasses those who identify with queer womanhood in the tri-state area of Western MA, Southern VT, and Southern NH. This group hosts workshops and meetups, supporting other local queer organizations as well as building its own space in this cultural area. It centers the importance of working with an intersectional framework when building community to most effectively bring people together who identify with a common factor. It is purposefully non-homogeneous because the leadership and membership know that there is no one queer experience, no one female experience, and no one experience for those who identify with queer womanhood.
What inspired you to develop the QWC as your capstone project?
As a person who identifies with queer womanhood and works and lives within these rural areas, I deeply connect with the need to build community. During my periods of exploration throughout my life, I yearned for community to find comfort in the uncertainty that can be found when exploring identity, or once settled into an identity that is regularly politically and socially targeted. Especially in today's world, those who identify with queer womanhood are living in difficult and often dangerous times.
It is easy for a marginalized group to be pushed into the shadows, but the QWS has the direct aim of bringing people out of those shadows and into the light of the collective community.
What's at stake when people don't have access to spaces to support and connection?
The queer community is an especially endangered community around the world, and in this case, in the United States. When people do not find support and connection, they can retreat into themselves. They can decide not to honor their identities. They can go back into the closet and live inauthentic lives. For some queer people, having access to spaces of support and connection can be life or death.
What have you learned so far about the needs or priorities of this community?
This community is one that has many facets of identity and need. There are some people who need to meet others and make friends, while others need to find a space to make an activist statement, and some need to meet others for direct support. This is also a community that is generally very politically active and cares for others around them. I aim to welcome and nurture each form of connection that the members are looking for.
Can you share a moment from this project that captures why this work matters?
A moment I had was when I first started speaking with local queer leaders for the key informant interviews. I had an amazing conversation with the founder of the Monarchs of Mayhem. The excitement and passion that she expressed after only just learning about my goals were tangible. I have been motivated by that, and my other interviews, since the fall semester.
Was there a conversation or experience during the process that changed how you think about community and impact?
When I interviewed the organizer of Keene Pride Trans Support Group, the goals clicked in my brain. They brought attention to the care and responsibility of the role that I was hoping to take on. They also reminded me of the importance of bringing other people in to work on this with me. I have always been a very independent person, and they highlighted that I cannot change a community singlehandedly. I think that conversation made me think much more holistically about the goals and actions needed to reach these goals.
What does success look like once this work is complete?
This work will never be complete. I recently attended a career panel hosted by the Carsey School, where a panelist talked about how community work is generational.
I will not necessarily see that change that I am hoping for in my lifetime, but I want to work toward it so that the torch can be passed to others who want to dedicate themselves to improving and protecting queer lives.