These Gender-Nonconforming People Are Building a Safe Haven on an Appalachian Farm

Growing their own food and winning over their neighbors, they feel safer in rural West Virginia than they ever did in the big city.

Illustration by Kelsey Wroten

Up the narrow, winding roads where the Appalachian Mountains cut through West Virginia, the countryside is dotted with squat one-story homes. Some are decorated with American flags and covered in slabs of cheap plywood; other homes are sturdier buildings painted with delicate country motifs. In each yard, animals wander freely, and golden sunlight bounces off the purple wildflowers and rolling meadows.

One small town here, a settlement established in the 1800s, has a Walmart, a gas station, a Wendy’s fast food restaurant, and a handful of churches. Down a forked road, half an hour outside town, the pavement turns to gravel and the landscape changes to deep forest. It’s here that Honeybee Williams’ new home comes into view, its sharp, modern angles contrasting with the softness of the countryside and her surrounding 65-acre-farm. On a summer afternoon, Williams, a 26-year-old transgender woman from Maryland, sits at a long, rectangular table in the garden in…