🚜 what was the 'Lesbian Farmer Conspiracy'? 🚜

QUEER WORD
LESBIAN FARMER CONSPIRACY

What It Means:

The Lesbian Farmer Conspiracy is a tongue-in-cheek reference to a real conspiracy theory which claimed the US government was secretly encouraging lesbians to become farmers and relocate to conservative rural states in order to influence elections.

Let’s Use It In A Sentence:

Emma's mum became convinced the lesbian farmer conspiracy had claimed yet another recruit when she came home wearing dungarees and said she'd quite like to grow her own tomatoes.

A Simpler Time?

Sometimes I look back at the 2010s and think, ‘aww, weren't we all so innocent then?’

And, yeah, it's probably too soon to be nostalgic about a decade that only ended a few years ago, but I can't really help it. We had Gangnam Style. The Ice Bucket Challenge. People were planking. We all briefly wondered whether that dress was blue and black or white and gold (what did we decide in the end?).

And even our right-wing commentators felt…. almost quaint.

Don’t get me wrong. They were still pretty hateful. But instead of goading politicians into legislating against our rights, or spending their days insisting LGBTQ+ people were some monumental threat to society, their focus was on things that were…. a little more eccentric.

In fact, one of America's biggest conservative radio hosts spent quite a lot of energy spreading his tin-foil-hat conspiracy theory that the US government was secretly encouraging (and funding) lesbians to become farmers.

Yes, really.

Huh? Lesbian Farmers? What?

Our story begins back in August 2016.

The US Department of Agriculture announced a summit to discuss the experiences of LGBTQ+ people living in rural America. Conservative outlets covered the story, seeding a mild moral panic by suggesting the government was planning to hand out grants and subsidies to LGBTQ+ people.

One person, however, managed to connect the dots in a way nobody else could.

American radio host Rush Limbaugh claimed that the Obama administration was encouraging lesbians to become farmers and move into Republican states in order to influence future election results.

As you would expect, there was absolutely no evidence to back up his claims.

There were, however, a lot of lesbians on the internet with a particularly snarky sense of humour, who decided that if they were going to be accused of secretly infiltrating rural America, they might as well lean into it.

From Conspiracy to Community

Yes, if there’s one thing we can rely on in this world it’s for the good people of the internet to respond with mockery and mischief.

Rather than arguing with the conspiracy, queer people embraced it wholeheartedly.

Within days there were fake musical trailers with songs like ‘I'm A-tractor-ed to You’ (which should have won a Tony, as far as I’m concerned), memes celebrating the supposed lesbian farming agenda, and T-shirts declaring ‘America Needs Lesbian Farmers’ (which, delightfully, you can still buy to this day).

Like all good internet memes, the joke has since escaped its conspiracy theory origins, and there are many people who are proudly celebrating the lesbian farmer conspiracy without really knowing where it began.

As far as conspiracies go, it's difficult to think of a more wholesome one.

After all, who wouldn’t want more lesbian farmers?