Queer Joy Interview #7: Lou Anne Smoot
Talking with Lou Anne (She/Her) and her wife Brenda on 7/2/24 at their home in Tyler about coming out, and PFLAG events.
“[Queer Joy is] being happy in your own skin, with who you are, and feeling happy that way.
When I first started trying to find an organization that I could get advice from, come out to, or find a community, I looked up a bunch of different organizations on the web, and the only one that was in Tyler was East Texas PFLAG, which is why I went. So my initial contact with PFLAG was on April the 10th of 2000 and I went there for support. I didn't know what I needed. I just knew I needed to know somebody else in this town that's gay.
Then PFLAG branched out and decided to participate in the Dallas Pride Parade, the Alan Ross Pride Parade. [Our float was] real cheesy, but we were proud of it.
PFLAG started an Adopt-a-Highway program in 2009. We put Tyler Area Gay's name on the highway sign, off the highway because there was no way we could put PFLAG on there unless we just used the initials, and no one knew what that meant. We tried parents and gays, we tried all kinds of things, and they refused to do it unless it was our legal name, they gave us all kinds of trouble. So we gave up and said, ‘Let's put this under Tyler Area Gays.’
In 2010, Tyler Area Gays worked with the Tyler Civic Theater to bring The Laramie Project here. Complaints led the theater board to not let the play go forward, but TAG and PFLAG had a pretty big protest on April 13th, 2010 across the street from the theater to rally the board into not not giving in to a few complainers and they changed their mind. They had us fund it and they had no objections at that point, because what else could they say?
At that time, people were not out except to other gays and to get out there on the sidewalk and hold up signs for The Laramie Project. I was amazed at how many showed up and were willing to do that thing. It was really amazing.”
-Lou Anne Smoot (She/Her)
Check out Lou Anne’s book Out!
