LB Prevette (she|her)

Laura Beth “LB” Prevette is a rural rejuvenator. She creates safe and inclusive spaces for minority and LGBTQ+ youth in Appalachia.

Prevette grew up in a trailer on a chicken farm “in the middle of nowhere,” she says. “It was a landscape and way of communal living that I deeply loved. But growing up as a queer woman got progressively harder. As much as I wanted to stay in these mountains, I was being told I had to go. Of course, all the kids with potential were supposed to leave, but gay kids had to leave, no matter what.”

That message was delivered with brutal force in a violent attack when Prevette was 17. “A scared young man called me a "dyke" and swung a branch at my face. It broke my body and it broke my heart. I left home and moved to the West coast; but my heart eventually called me home. When I came home to stay it was to create a better home for my younger self. Queer adults can leave, but queer youth are still born here every day. They need a champion, just like I did.

“The myth that folks need to leave to find success left my hometown without exposure to other ideas, and curated a fear of the unknown. We can't keep leaving rural communities behind and then blame them for not keeping up. Towns like mine are so harshly judged as backwards and ignorant. But if we keep leaving these places, how will our neighbors have the opportunity to learn, to practice empathy, to love better? We can't abandon these places and people and then laugh at them. They need and deserve our love and presence too.”

Prevette regularly speaks to audiences large and small via panels, podcasts and more.