Written by Mollie Talbot for The KC Scene
Moving back to KC from Denver in 2020, it felt like I stepped 70 years backwards. I was angry and I’ve been a chump about it. You can imagine my surprise when much of my Missouri angst was challenged while 30 feet in the air on a lift with Jared Horman as he painted LGBTQ icon Chappell Roan and described his experience of “coming out” to his fraternity in Springfield, Missouri, and how their loving reception to his vulnerability catapulted him into loving himself and others more fully.
Jared, in collaboration with Christine Riutzel, now sit partially outside their bodies in the shape of Chappell Roan’s flowing red hair and magnetizing eyes at 39th and Broadway near Hamburger Mary’s, where Chappell watched her first drag performance. While Chappell has accomplished more for the queer community than arguably anyone in the last several years, I can’t help but note the parallels between her activism at large and Jared’s activism in Missouri, particularly Kansas City. A man with too many accomplishments and titles to detail in a single article but the humility to prefer I highlight the queer community rather than his achievements, Jared managed another one during our chat. In Jared’s mural of Chappell, I saw the reflection of his own courage; the same defiance to live boldly in a place that isn’t always ready for it and, in doing so, made me fall more in love with the place I once again call home.
More than a Muralist: Stonewall Sports
While Jared came out to his college fraternity during an “anonymous unless you’re ready to claim it” fire-side confessional, every fraternity stereotype within me suspected it was about to get sad, fast. Instead, just the opposite happened. It was hard for me not to tear up when not only did his Pi Kappa Phi brotherhood show him unconditional love, several brothers later encouraged him to be president. Their acceptance gave him confidence to be himself in all environments. For many who’ve felt marginalized by simply being themselves, it’s often a single moment or act of love that makes all the difference. For some, seeing a queer icon represented on the side of a building deep in the Bible Belt might be that moment.
After college, Jared moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he went to work for his national fraternity and immersed himself in a community showcasing the entire LGBTQIA rainbow called Stonewall Sports. Named after the Stonewall riots of New York in ’69, this Stonewall was less about the fight for basic human rights and more about kickball and the joy of existing fully embodied as your entire self. As a queer-identifying man, Jared describes how meaningful it is to take up space in sports when many in the circle experienced some of their earliest traumas and discomfort while participating in childhood. There’s invisible pressure to perform heteronormativity—psychoanalyzing how to hold one’s body, how to run, how to celebrate. I’d never considered this, but imagining a place where everyone is safe to be fully embodied in a fun, competitive way makes it easy to see how much more this is than a sports league; it’s communal healing.
Like many, Jared returned to KC when family made him reconsider his distance. While settling in, he looked up the KC chapter of Stonewall Sports only to find it didn’t exist. And what’s a guy with a bleeding heart for the care of others, who knows the cost of disconnection, to do? Jared spent the next two years making connections and forging relationships with allies and members of KC’s queer family, becoming the first commissioner for Stonewall Sports KC in 2019.
The group has grown exponentially through the years, and I imagine Jared’s insistence on handing the reins to others under the condition they weren’t all cisgender white men has something to do with it. Scrolling through the board members on its website today, you’ll find a virtual kaleidoscope of representation. These are the kinds of choices that matter and affect real change in communities. As a cisgender white man himself, it perfectly encompasses who Jared is and what he stands for as an artist, community leader, and advocate for the marginalized.
Chappell as Chapel
Missouri isn’t exactly known for making life easy for queer folks. Which makes icons like Chappell and advocates like Jared all the more vital. Many Midwestern queer-identifying folks find themselves in a fight for their life to simply… live. Some mask their identities or emerge at the cost of rejection from family systems and communities they seek connection from. Yet, something else can happen at this junction. Occasionally, a phoenix-style rebirth takes place when one chooses themself over the rejection, transmuting into tenacious-in-love activist caregivers. Not only for those who live and look like them, but for whole communities.
In the bathwater of my Missouri frustration, I threw out the baby born of people who’ve fought harder than most to advance visibility and appreciation for gay love and joy. Which, after experiencing for myself in my late 20’s after pushing against my own inherited narratives, gifted me, my marriage, and my sons with an experience of joy and soul-witnessing that has made me a better person.
Queer Missouri Voices of Note
While Chappell Roan was born in Willard, Missouri, a suburb of Springfield, you may not know that another prominent voice for the gender-queer community is Caleb Hearon. Now more popular than Mr. Beast (iykyk), this rising writer, actor, and comedian graduated from the same college as—and is friends with—the man, magician, and muralist we’ve been chatting about today, Jared Horman. Chappell and Caleb are singlehandedly reshaping narratives not only for queer youth but for Gen Z as a whole.
In addition to these two powerhouses of self-love, advocacy, talent, strong boundaries, and hilarity, Missouri has been a hotbed for the beginnings of incredible drag artists—most notably Mo Heart, Maxi Glamour, Daya Betty, Widow Von’Du, Crystal Methyd, and KC’s own Minti Varieties, who will be opening for Chappell’s KC shows.
With a list of out and proud powerhouses like this you have to ask why and how so many notable people within the community have roots in Missouri. As Jared posited to me during our chat, while people on the coasts are quick to wish away the Midwest, calling to separate from the states they see as backwards (like I have), they forget what kind of people are created when forced to fight even harder for their cause. Big voices often come from small places and end up making the biggest differences of all.
If Chappell, a woman, drag artist, musician, icon, and advocate for the queer community is our Midwest Princess, I’d argue Jared makes a great case for being our Midwest Prince. Another Missouri-born artist whose meteoric success urges those of small, marginalized, and sometimes traumatized beginnings to buck the typical scripts and become their biggest, most loving selves in the world—especially when the world doesn’t seem ready for it.
While I moved back angry at Missouri’s past, Jared and Chappell remind me this place doesn’t just hold us back—it forges voices that reach far beyond its borders.
Jared’s work can be found at KC’s AIDS Day mural down the street from Chappell at 3515 Broadway, at Club Q in Westport, on his website jardhorman.com, or even on the flag of KC which he designed. But if you go looking for him, keep your sights high and watch for the trail of marginalized individuals he’ll be lifting up with him as he goes and grows.
PS: Maybe like me, you’re not IN the queer community but align yourself as an ally, first off, know that you’re welcome at club Q, Stonewall Sports, and any and all of KC’s Pride parade and events, what you won’t find much of in KC’s queer family is hatred or discrimination.
