Trans Man in a Van: driving toward queer resistance in Iowa.

Ty Bo Yule
12 min readJul 13, 2023
Iowa has fancy rest areas.

August came to the upper Midwest in early June this year. It was already eighty degrees when I loaded into Cookie, my van, at six AM. She doesn’t have AC anymore. The vent fan’s effectiveness fluctuates with road speed and elevation. I was channeling a seventies road trip movie trope with my windows open, driving into the morning sun.

I got to Ottumwa around noon. It was over ninety. I emerged from my van, hot and stiff, into the reinvigorating Queerness of ABBA, animating the pre-Pride assembly in Central Park. Pride was in the town square, surrounded by the courthouse, city hall, public library, and a Catholic Church. A volunteer showed me where to set up, opposite the bandshell, under a tree. Someone had created and hung giant rainbow curtains around the stage.

How’d they get those big gay curtains up there?

I hadn’t really remembered to include Iowa as a red state until I forgot to request Friday night off from my bartending job and I needed to find a Pride close to home for Saturday. When I pulled up the ACLU’s anti-LGBTQ legislation map, there was Iowa, right next door, waving at me with almost thirty bills introduced in just their last session. That’s a little too close to home.

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Ty Bo Yule
Ty Bo Yule

Written by Ty Bo Yule

Retired queer cult leader. Opened the last dyke bar in Minneapolis. Grew a beard at Harvard. Find the story at chemicallyenhanedbutch.com. It’s funny. So am I.

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