LGBTQ+ youth can often feel isolated in their home communities or schools, and that is especially true for rural LGBTQ+ youth. The ACLU of West Virginia is trying to remedy that isolation with its Appalachian Queer Youth Summit. Gabriella Souza reports for Black By God that the organization has hosted the summit every year since 2020 "after a convening of Appalachian human rights organizations and the realization that queer youth in Appalachia were the most isolated of any group."

Mollie Kennedy, the community outreach director for ACLU-WV and the camp's director, told Souza that many LGBTQ+ youth in West Virginia “are living in places where there’s no other kid like them in school," and being at camp is often the first time in their lives when they can be around other kids like them without fear of bullying, being made fun of, misgendering or being physically hurt. At camp, she said, "they just get to be kids."

About 10% of rural youth identified as LGBTQ+ in a 2021 Movement Advancement Project study. An updated MAP study from 2025 shows that the largest percentage of LGBTQ+ youth (38%) lives in the South. A report in 2017 found that West Virginia had the highest per capita rate of transgender teenagers in the county at the time, and a 2022 West Virginia University study found that more than 7% of rural Appalachian youth identified as gender diverse at the time.

Read the full article about Appalachian Queer Youth Summit by Ivy Brashear at The Rural Blog.