The un-natural state : Arkansas and the queer South / Brock Thompson.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Powder-puff -- Drag and the politics of performance -- Drag in the daylight -- Rags to drag riches -- The current reigning symbol of excellence -- A crime unfit to be named -- The ingredients of offense -- Race, sex, and queer renegotiated -- Redefinition -- Public and private prejudice -- Constructing a gay life -- Creating space, separating the self -- Losing space, separating identities -- Mansion on the hill -- Economic opportunity and the queer community -- And then she came -- Epilogue: queer comes home.

This is a study of gay and lesbian life in Arkansas in the twentieth century, a deft weaving together of Arkansas history, dozens of oral histories, and Brock Thompson's own story.