Pride in the Plains: Kaitlyn Richards

Center for Great Plains Studies Author

02/27/2025 Added

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For the spring semester of 2025, our Great Plains Student Storyteller is doing a podcast takeover! Kaitlyn Richards is a masters student in the School of Natural Resources at UNL. This semester, she is hosting Pride in the Plains, a podcast dedicated to amplifying queer voices across the often-overlooked Great Plains region.

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[00:00:00.360]For this 2025 spring semester, our student storyteller in residence, Kaitlyn Richards, is doing a podcast takeover of our regular podcast, Great Plains Anywhere.
[00:00:10.700]For the rest of the semester, we'll release episodes under the title, Pride in the Plains, a podcast dedicated to amplifying queer voices across the region.
[00:00:20.040]Kaitlyn is a UNL master's student in natural resource sciences with a focus on hydrological sciences, with a strong record of community engagement.
[00:00:30.680]She's received the Student Luminary Award and the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Contributions to the LGBTQA plus community.
[00:00:38.300]Thanks, Kaitlyn, for your project.
[00:00:40.280]Hello, my name is Kaitlyn Richards. I use she, her pronouns, and I am the host for the Center for Great Plains Studies' new podcast, Pride in the Plains.
[00:00:53.540]As someone who has been at the university for a couple years now,
[00:00:59.060]I understand the importance of recognizing the land in which I stand on.
[00:01:02.920]The University of Nebraska is a public land-grant institution with campuses and programs across the state
[00:01:10.960]that reside on the past, present, and future homelands of the Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe, Missouri, Omaha, Dakota, Lakota, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Kaw peoples,
[00:01:23.760]as well as the relocated Ho-Chunk, Winnebago, Iowa,
[00:01:28.260]Sac and Fox peoples.
[00:01:29.720]This knowledge allows us to better understand that our opportunity to impact the state of Nebraska and beyond
[00:01:36.900]and occupy these lands is a result of a history of Native and Indigenous peoples' experience of displacement,
[00:01:43.980]violence, settlement, and survival, which continues to inform our present and future.
[00:01:49.880]My goal with this podcast is to amplify Queer Voices' experiences and history in the Plains.
[00:01:57.460]Stay tuned for future episodes on Great Plains LGBTQ plus history, being queer in rural places,
[00:02:04.440]queer on campus, Indigenous attitudes towards sexuality and gender, celebrated pride, and more.
[00:02:12.400]After seeing the application for the student storyteller in residence position at the Center for Great Plains Studies,
[00:02:18.460]I knew I wanted to apply with a project related to being queer in the Plains.
[00:02:22.720]As someone who loves to talk, I knew a podcast would be a great opportunity,
[00:02:27.400]for me to share about queer experiences in the Plains.
[00:02:30.860]As a queer woman, I strive to be an active part in my community,
[00:02:35.440]raising awareness towards inclusion and justice.
[00:02:38.120]During my undergraduate career, in the first few months of my graduate college experience,
[00:02:43.520]I have found ways to stay involved, such as performing in drag shows,
[00:02:47.240]serving as a mentor for queer students, as well as participating in various student organizations.
[00:02:53.560]While I'm on the topic of myself,
[00:02:56.040]I'd love to share a bit about my identity as a lesbian and what it means to me.
[00:02:59.960]Like many queer people, early in life, I didn't realize I was gay,
[00:03:04.420]but I knew that I was very much so different.
[00:03:06.720]Gender roles were not the biggest deal for me growing up.
[00:03:09.700]I would get the boys' toy at McDonald's with my Happy Meal,
[00:03:13.260]I would play kickball at recess, and I would catch bugs during summer nights,
[00:03:17.280]most of which were considered very masculine things to do.
[00:03:20.460]I was often called a tomboy, which definitely perpetrated
[00:03:24.860]the idea that I was a lesbian.
[00:03:26.020]I was also called a tomboy, which definitely perpetrated the idea
[00:03:26.240]to a young Kaitlyn that she was different from other girls her age.
[00:03:29.580]Gay was a word I heard growing up every now and then.
[00:03:33.160]At age 12...
[00:03:34.820]I didn't like most things that girls my age liked.
[00:03:37.430]I liked Shawn Mendes, but solely for his music.
[00:03:40.830]I didn't quite understand the crushes my friends had on guys.
[00:03:44.510]Overall, I just didn't really relate to girls my age.
[00:03:47.870]I had the idea that I might be gay in the back of my head, but I refused to say or do anything about it.
[00:03:54.050]I remember discovering the Am I Gay quiz online, a common experience for queer people in my generation.
[00:04:00.270]I actually took the quiz so many times that I memorized the answers I needed to be straight.
[00:04:04.830]I honestly just wanted to conform to the people around me.
[00:04:08.070]When I was younger, I was a heavy news watcher.
[00:04:11.410]At the dentist, most kids probably preferred to watch cartoons or Disney Channel while getting their teeth cleaned.
[00:04:17.830]I was just excited to watch Channel 13 news.
[00:04:20.990]I enjoyed watching it in the mornings before schools and watched the 5 o'clock news when I got home.
[00:04:27.190]In the summers, I would watch it more frequently.
[00:04:29.750]I was 12 when I watched same-sex marriage become legalized on June 26, 2015.
[00:04:35.090]I remember confirming what I watched on TV by searching it everywhere online and on social media.
[00:04:41.350]This brought some sort of relief because although I wasn't confident in my being of gay,
[00:04:47.210]I knew that one day, if I was, I could get married.
[00:04:51.230]Not even a full year later, I watched the news as a gunman entered the Pulse nightclub in Florida on June 12, 2016.
[00:04:59.250]I remember crying in the shower that night.
[00:05:02.370]I was so worked up because this showed me how being gay could get me killed.
[00:05:06.450]It wasn't until early high school that I started telling people about the secret I had been keeping for years.
[00:05:11.870]It was scary, but a bit relieving to share that part of me.
[00:05:15.770]I received acceptance from most people I shared with.
[00:05:18.690]I had to remember and remind myself that those who matter don't mind, and those that mind don't matter.
[00:05:25.990]This mindset helped me stay positive.
[00:05:28.750]Someone reacted poorly to my coming out.
[00:05:30.590]Most of my friends knew my senior year of high school, and almost everyone in my circle knew my freshman year of college.
[00:05:38.170]It wasn't until sophomore year in college that I told my mother on National Coming Out Day.
[00:05:43.890]I texted her late at night saying,
[00:05:47.010]I've been wanting to tell you something very important about me because I think it's important for you to know.
[00:05:52.470]Today is National Coming Out Day, so what better way to tell you that I'm gay?
[00:05:56.710]I then followed this.
[00:05:58.490]I woke up at 2 a.m. that morning with a bunch of messages just overflowing my phone saying,
[00:06:08.570]I'll always love you no matter what.
[00:06:10.390]I bawled my eyes out reading these messages.
[00:06:13.510]Although my mom has only shown me love and affection, I was terrified to tell someone that I was so close to.
[00:06:20.150]To this day, she has only shown me love.
[00:06:23.170]I came out to the rest of my immediate family over the course of the next year.
[00:06:28.230]The secret I'd kept for so long was finally out of the back of my head.
[00:06:32.010]Coming out is scary, and the world is scary as a queer person.
[00:06:36.550]For that reason, I vote with queer rights in mind.
[00:06:39.630]I give back to the queer community in ways that I can.
[00:06:42.210]Being gay is an identity that I'm proud of.
[00:06:44.830]Now that I've shared a bit about my story, I would like to hear other queer people's stories from the Great Plains.
[00:06:50.990]With my project, I'm interested in conducting interviews with people from various backgrounds and experiences.
[00:06:57.970]Contact cgps at unl.edu to share your story.
[00:07:03.070]Thank you so much for listening.
[00:07:05.110]♪ ♪
[00:07:08.110]you

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Pride in the Plains: Kaitlyn Richards

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