Harkins, Stacey

In this interview, Stacey Harkins discusses coming-of-age in Natchez, Mississippi, and her strict, Southern Baptist upbringing that hindered her self-acceptance. Harkins details surviving sexual abuse and religious trauma that forced her to stay closeted well into her adult years. Coming out at the age of 30, she shares the difficult process of opening up to her family, including her two young sons. By her late 30s, Harkins was fully out, and eventually became a part of a thriving Lesbian community in Oxford, Mississippi where she currently lives with her wife, Anna