Grisham, Sketer

Authors

Sketer Grisham
Cecelia L. Parks, University of Mississippi

Document Type

Audio

Publication Date

10-27-2019

City

Oxford (Miss.)

Abstract

In this interview, Sketer Grisham discusses his early life in Ingomar, MS, including how he navigated knowing he was gay from young age in a small community and hearing rumors about others who were also gay. He also addresses the role religion—specifically Baptist Protestant Christianity—played in his life growing up and how his belief affects his life now. He describes moving to St. Louis for work, coming out, and his first experience at a gay bar in Lexington, Kentucky, before he met his husband and moved back to Mississippi. Sketer briefly recounts marrying his husband in Las Vegas in 2002 and their divorce in 2012. He also addresses his political work as a volunteer for Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign in the Democratic presidential primary, and being out in that situation and in his current work at General Electric Aviation. He discusses at length the queer community in Oxford, Mississippi, the challenges of building queer community in Mississippi, and ways to improve that community, specifically through the addition of queer spaces. Sketer concludes by sharing how people regularly reach out to him with questions about being queer and how he feels proud to play that role in the community.

Relational Format

audio recording

Extent

01:34:25

Comments

Additional files include: data sheet, photo, audio file, article from the Oxford Eagle. Transcript is available on request.

Rights

In copyright. For permission to duplicate, repost, or otherwise re-use these images, please contact the Invisible Histories Project: Mississippi.

Recommended Citation

Grisham, Sketer and Parks, Cecelia L., "Grisham, Sketer" (2019). Queer Mississippi (Complete Collection). 15.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/queerms/15