Cantrell, Jaime

Dr. Jaime Cantrell joined the English Department faculty at the University of Mississippi in 2014. She also serves as the LGBT Program Coordinator in the Center for Inclusion and Cross Cultural Engagement and is responsible for advising two undergraduate LGBT groups-UM Pride Network and Queer People of Color (QPOC). In this interview she discusses her background and childhood in Biloxi, Mississippi. She describes her experiences with financial insecurity and about her time in high school as being difficult because of bullying. She discusses the jobs she worked in high school and all the time she spent on the beach reading true crime novels. In recounting her time as an undergraduate at the University of Southern Mississippi, Dr. Cantrell describes disaffiliating from her sorority after a sorority sister was the target of bullying and/or hazing by other members. She talks about this being a formative moment for her in developing her consciousness of injustice. She describes her move to Alabama to attend the University of Alabama as also being a formative time in developing her consciousness around issues of social justice. In discussing sexuality, she gives some historical and contemporary context to butch-femme sexualities; Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism; Gender identity and expression. Dr. Cantrell discusses the Louisiana Forum for Equality and her first year at the University of Mississippi; The Laramie Project; The Center for Inclusion and Cross Cultural Engagement. This interview was conducted as part of an assignment for the oral history seminar (SST 560) taught by Dr. Jessica Wilkerson in the spring of 2018