Episode 128: Queer Economies: Solidarity, Sustainability, and the Struggle for Space
Baylen Campbell
Invest Appalachia
Baylen Campbell is Invest Appalachia’s Director of Programs & Partnerships. Originally from and based in Hazard, Kentucky, Baylen brings experience working as an economic development and social impact practitioner. In partnership with the Community Advisory Council, Baylen leads IA’s Catalytic Capital development, deployment, and community accountability. Additionally, he manages IA’s impact measurement, policy research, and partnership development with a focus on capacity building. He is passionate about utilizing strategic communications and storytelling to shift outdated narratives of Appalachia. Baylen holds a BA in International Affairs from John Cabot University in Rome, Italy, and an MSc in Development Practice from Trinity College Dublin/University College Dublin. He is a co-founder of the Lige Clarke Liberation Fund supporting LGBTQ+ infrastructure and advocacy in Eastern Kentucky.
Eric Langenbacher
Senior Fellow; Director, Society, Culture & Politics Program
Dr. Eric Langenbacher is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Society, Culture & Politics Program at AICGS.
Dr. Langenbacher studied in Canada before completing his PhD in Georgetown University’s Government Department in 2002. His research interests include collective memory, political culture, and electoral politics in Germany and Europe. Recent publications include the edited volumes Twilight of the Merkel Era: Power and Politics in Germany after the 2017 Bundestag Election (2019), The Merkel Republic: The 2013 Bundestag Election and its Consequences (2015), Dynamics of Memory and Identity in Contemporary Europe (co-edited with Ruth Wittlinger and Bill Niven, 2013), Power and the Past: Collective Memory and International Relations (co-edited with Yossi Shain, 2010), and From the Bonn to the Berlin Republic: Germany at the Twentieth Anniversary of Unification (co-edited with Jeffrey J. Anderson, 2010). With David Conradt, he is also the author of The German Polity, 10th and 11th edition (2013, 2017).
Dr. Langenbacher remains affiliated with Georgetown University as Teaching Professor and Director of the Honors Program in the Department of Government. He has also taught at George Washington University, Washington College, The University of Navarre, and the Universidad Nacional de General San Martin in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has given talks across the world. He was selected Faculty Member of the Year by the School of Foreign Service in 2009 and was awarded a Fulbright grant in 1999-2000 and the Hopper Memorial Fellowship at Georgetown in 2000-2001. Since 2005, he has also been Managing Editor of German Politics and Society, which is housed in Georgetown’s BMW Center for German and European Studies. Dr. Langenbacher has also planned and run dozens of short programs for groups from abroad, as well as for the U.S. Departments of State and Defense on a variety of topics pertaining to American and comparative politics, business, culture, and public policy.
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Third spaces where people can gather, organize, and provide support have been critical for LGBTQ+ communities in Germany and the United States. “Building LGBTQ+ Communities in Germany and the United States” participant Baylen Campbell joins this episode of The Zeitgeist to discuss how LGBTQ+ groups can build capital and invest in themselves in order to preserve these spaces, especially as funding gaps and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation threatens to close them. He also discusses best practices in the United States and Germany following the program’s study tours in New York City and Munich.
Guest Host
Eric Langenbacher, AGI Senior Fellow; Director, Society, Culture & Politics Program
Guests
Baylen Campbell, Director of Programs & Partnerships, Invest Appalachia
Transcript
Eric Langenbacher
Hello, everybody. Welcome to this episode of The Zeitgeist podcast at the American-German Institute. I’m Eric Langenbacher, the director of the Society, Culture, and Politics program here at AGI. And today’s podcast is entitled, “Queer Economies: Solidarity, Sustainability and the Struggle for Space.” Joining me from the sunny state of Kentucky is Baylen Campbell. Baylen, welcome.
Baylen Campbell
Hey Eric. Thanks for having me on the podcast today. I’m Baylen Campbell, just to go ahead and introduce myself. I live in Hazard, KY, which is where I’m originally from, and I’m the Director of Programs and Partnerships with an organization called Invest Appalachia, which is a blended-capital impact investing platform helping to leverage philanthropic and investment capital into historically underserved communities in my neck of the woods; across West Virginia, Kentucky, the Appalachian counties of Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee.
When we met in New York City in September, the U.S. was bracing for a critical election. By the time we arrived in Munich in March, Trump was in office again, and the AfD had won a major victory in Germany. These political shifts gave new urgency to our visits and conversations and the varying sort of challenges and threats that the queer community is facing in this current political climate.
Eric Langenbacher
Thanks, Baylen. So, amid this backdrop, with these dramatic political shifts in the United States, maybe a little less dramatically, but still important in Germany, we found ourselves asking—this is the second year of our Building LGBTQ+ Communities exchange program—the participants found ourselves asking: How could LGBTQ+ communities maintain economic autonomy? How can they build collective power and protect spaces that are under threat? So, we’re going to explore a lot of these issues through real-world examples from our various site visits, briefings, and discussions in both New York and Munich.
Our first big issue is looking backwards, just for a second, at how queer communities have invested in themselves up until this point in time. This, I think, is a very important issue in this political moment, because we can see that public support is sometimes conditional for the community. We wanted to ask ourselves what’s at stake with variable levels of public support.
I think the first thing to note is that, especially in the United States right now, there’s a lot of political pressure, a lot of funding cuts that are coming from the U.S. government. Actually, the Human Rights Campaign has an excellent overview of the various budget cuts that have been announced or implemented. They estimate that the total financial impact on the LGBTQ+ community is estimated at about $2.67 billion, which includes eliminating $74 million for education and training components of the Ryan White program, which deals with HIV/AIDS issues. The CDC has eliminated standalone funding for STI prevention, viral hepatitis and HIV programs, and the list just goes on and on and on. So, Baylen, what are your thoughts on this particular political moment that we find ourselves in?
Baylen Campbell
Thanks for outlining some of those statistics, Eric, because I think it’s so important to really ground us in the realities that the community is facing in this moment. It’s been quite staggering to see the impacts, whether pressing or forthcoming, on the community, and I was thinking through this a lot during our time in Munich. So, in my work, I work primarily in rural communities, where the financial and funding landscape is very different than in, say, New York or Munich. And having to think through what the level of scarcity and financial sustainability is for some of these key anchor institutions in both geographies is quite concerning to say the least. We’re in a moment across the country here in the U.S. where entire ecosystems of nonprofit organizations and community development organizations are directly under threat. So, it’s a question of: How do we equip the LGBTQ+ community in any location—rural, urban, U.S., or Germany—to be more financially sustainable to weather moments like this to adapt and ensure that we can build more capital across a longer period of time? In my work, we use the “Community Capital Framework” model, which comes from the Center for Community Investment. Often thinking through beyond financial capital, other forms of capital are critical for building strong and resilient communities: our built capital, ranging from physical infrastructure in our community, real estate, public spaces, utilities; social capital, which we know the queer community is rich in, because this encompasses the networks, relationship and trust, social norms that enable collective action and cooperation; human capital, including our skills and knowledge, education, health; cultural capital; natural capital; and, lastly, political capital, which refers to the power and influence that the community has to shape policies and decisions.
Eric Langenbacher
That seems like a very, very fruitful framework, Baylen. When we when we think specifically about LGBTQ+ organizations, are they building these multiple types of capital? Are they prioritizing some forms of capital over others, and do you think that there is a good strategy or intervention that could be considered to help the community build stronger organizations?
Baylen Campbell
Well, this was what, to me, felt like a sort of unsung or unspoken area of priority, at least, I’m coming from my perspective. Where it feels like they’re in, say, looking in New York, where, for example, the LGBTQ Center is a facility, a piece of real estate that’s an essential third space that has, over time, incubated economic opportunities, programs, etc., that has become more financially sustainable and able to leverage additional capital and expand not only its facility to build on additional wings, but offer additional resources and be more not only financially sustainable, but interdisciplinary in some ways. But when we were in Germany, shifting through this political moment, the majority of our site visits were visiting incredible organizations, doing so much of the same work that The Center is in New York, but entirely dependent on government facilities and public funding at the same time. So, assessing and looking back at the history in Germany and the moment we’re in now, it sparked concerns for me about, “OK, but is this enshrined in stone, quite literally?” and, “are these organizations building financial capital and assets to ensure that these essential third spaces can be sustainable long term?”
Eric Langenbacher
So, I was really struck by, or one of my conclusions, I suppose, from the two site visits is that there’s three sources or three vectors that seem to be relevant here. First of all, there’s government funding, right? Secondly, there’s philanthropy. And thirdly, there’s just consumerism. There are the businesses and the private spending that has sustained so many of these different spaces. I was also struck that the balance is kind of different. I was struck by the fact that in New York—and of course New York is exceptionally special—but it seems like so much was done with private philanthropy. I’m thinking of places like the Leslie Lohman Museum that is dedicated to LGBTQ+ artists and artistic expression, The Center, all these organizations had so much philanthropy behind them. You don’t see that really in Germany. Germany does not have the same kind of philanthropic tradition. Also, there weren’t the same tax benefits as in the United States, and the German organizations seem to look first to the government for government funding. That being said, I feel like where we’re at today is that there is a complex intertwining of the different actors or the different vectors. The Center, for instance, has state grants, grants from the City of New York, so it’s not purely philanthropic or privately funded anymore, and I think that in Germany there’s also a little bit of private funding. I’m thinking of the queer archive that we went to in Munich, which has both private donations as well as a grant from the City of Munich. But the third thing, and I’d really love your thoughts on this, because this is one of the things that I noticed both in New York and Munich as well as in year one when we were in Florida and Cologne, that one common observation and lament from so many folks that we met with was the decline of the private spaces. This came up particularly with the decline of lesbian bars, but now gay bars also seem to be struggling and closing down in record numbers. I think the same probably goes for queer bookshops and things like that. It seems to me that, yes, politics aside, and this political moment aside, there’s also something else going on: a bigger trend that’s affecting these “third spaces,” as you put it, especially the private enterprises. Any thoughts on that?
Baylen Campbell
Well, I feel like we could open six cans of worms on any of those, and given this only a thirty-minute podcast, I can’t outline a very robust critique of philanthropy, the philanthropic sector in the U.S., which inherently is the byproduct of a broken system, but it’s also a space where real innovation happens that the state cannot often do. And while I would hope that state funding would align with community needs and be dispersed in an equitable way, we can’t assume that that norm is something that will persist. So, I think it’s a balancing act of all of that, of philanthropic resources, state funding, and creating capital products and investment strategies that facilitate and equip communities to build their own wealth and to build their own assets that can build collective wealth that facilitates the work that communities need, the programs and resources that communities need at a local level. So, stepping back and really questioning how systems can equip localities and individual communities with the resources that they need.
We can look to history for this. Even thinking about Stonewall, where the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia and the community was using this as an essential community space and using the Mafia’s protection to protect the community from abuse from the police and the NYPD at the time. However, what I’m really trying to question is: What would it look like to take the Mafia out of the equation and equip the community with that asset in their own right? And there’s a ton of different applications or examples of the solidarity economy at work, even if it’s not necessarily viewed through that lens. Thinking about the diversity library in Munich, which is a public space, which received a small amount of funding from the university there. However the collection itself, the operations and program are self-sustained and driven through contributions from the community through individual leaders and what I would classify as civic entrepreneurs in many ways. I think it’s that sort of analysis of the intersection of economic development and civic infrastructure and questioning how we can invest in communities. Sure, build your financial capital over time, but in the long-term power-building analysis, that enables communities to build political power and have more of a say-so in shaping how our systems evolve over time.
Eric Langenbacher
I love that concept of a civic entrepreneur, and I’m really glad you brought up the Library of Diversity, because that was truly a special place with some of the most dedicated volunteers and activists that maybe I’ve met. But this brings up one of the most interesting issues that our cohort debated which is, you talked about power before, right? So, the issue is: Should queer spaces be independently owned and governed by the community or integrated into the public sector through various partnerships and funding. It comes down to basic issues of ownership, right? But also from a more critical perspective, the dreaded allegation of selling out comes up as well. So, Baylen, do you want to take us through some of the discussions that we had in New York and Munich and where the cohort came down in the end on this important issue of power and ownership?
Baylen Campbell
Yeah, absolutely. And you’re right, this is certainly one of the more robust conversations that we had at certain points. When it boils down, it’s that both models come with benefits and vulnerabilities, and I think that we should really challenge ourselves to not think of this as an either-or but a both-an because a-both and approach truly facilitates, again, building wealth at a community level but also enshrining and aligning public infrastructure and resources with the needs of our community. So, thinking through how we can utilize public and philanthropic dollars to better integrate these systems and cultivate more sustainable and aligned infrastructure.
In my work with Invest Appalachia, we utilize philanthropic resources more like loan products. We’re an entrepreneur community organization, very similar to all of those we visited, may struggle to access capital from a traditional bank or lender. We utilize grant dollars to provide a loan guarantee, or a loan loss reserve, some form of credit enhancement, or a recoverable grant that functions like a 0 percent loan to help ensure that these community-aligned, locally owned businesses and organizations can access the capital that they need. There’s always a critique of, are you selling out or many valid critiques of extractive capitalism at work in any community, right? This isn’t a full endorsement of any system because we should all work off the assumption that we work within at least somewhat broken systems, so it’s about how we identify strategic interventions that can facilitate actual problem solving and fill gaps where necessary. So, I think it’s about how the community identifies where we can be pragmatic and tactical to advance the needs of the folks around us.
Eric Langenbacher
Alright, so why don’t we shift and talk a little bit more about the future. I would love to ask you a follow-up question, because a couple of times now, you’ve mentioned how the system is broken, and I’m wondering if you can share a few more thoughts on what you mean by that and what could be done to fix the problems that you identify.
Baylen Campbell
Yeah. I’m thinking through various systems. So, our financial systems associate morality with risk oftentimes or function off of where we have to assess the economic conditions of the LGBTQ+ community, where in many places, especially LGBTQ youth are unhoused, have struggles with economic mobility, while on the other end of the spectrum, the LGBTQ community across both geographies statistically has higher educational outcomes, in many localities higher economic outcomes as well. So, I think through how the community itself can aggregate resources to ensure greater access to economic and educational opportunities for the next generation and ensure that they can achieve their goals.
This also applies in a health lens as well, where many in the LGBTQ community aren’t able to access affirming healthcare services. And we’ve seen across many of the site visits where these community centers like the Center or Letra and Sub have healthcare for community members, whether that be mental or physical health, on-site. I think those are wonderful examples of what real innovation looks like in this space, but I think taking a more entrepreneurial approach to how we make them more sustainable long-term is important.
Looking forward, I think that there’s a lot of exciting models we can pull from around how we can generate economic development and building power within the community long-term. I think diversified ownership models of these organizations of enterprises like cooperative models for housing and real estate development is very, very exciting and we’re seeing lots of innovative uses of models like that in in parts of the U.S. as well as parts of Europe. Mutual aid infrastructure, I think, is something that has been historically very powerful within the LGBTQ community, especially weathering challenging political and economic moments, specifically the AIDS crisis. But we are seeing a sort of rebirth of mutual aid networks in the U.S. around disaster response as well as protecting vulnerable communities. So, I think how we can scale and formalize those is something that’s really exciting. They’re also models, there’s an organization in the Midwest doing community real estate funds, which I think are very exciting. They’re being done in rural Minnesota. Giving community members an option to invest in $20 to $5000 into a collective real estate fund that rehabilitates and revitalizes dilapidated buildings and historic downtowns that would give an entry point for economic opportunity as well as building an economic base for members in the community. It also really intersects with what we’re really talking about at the end of the day is: How do we keep communities in place? This is a conversation about anti-displacement and anti-gentrification. We heard a lot in Munich about concerns about the community being out-priced from the neighborhood. How can we ensure that the community has a stake in housing, in real estate, not just these essential third spaces?
Eric Langenbacher
We’re rapidly coming to the end of our time, but I wanted to ask you, Baylen, so you know you’re completely and wonderfully immersed in some of these different issues. You were there in New York for an incredibly fruitful week as well as Munich, so I wanted to ask you: If there was one best practice from both countries that could be imported—I know imports aren’t super popular right now, right?—what would you say? Was there a best practice that you saw in New York that you think maybe the community in Munich and Germany might benefit from? Conversely, was there something that you saw in Munich that you thought might resonate and help the community build stronger and denser spaces in the United States?
Baylen Campbell
Are you asking best practices in terms of finance, funding, and philanthropy, or are you asking in terms of just like general operating?
Eric Langenbacher
Well, I’ll give you an example from my observations. You mentioned the importance of health and healthcare matters and we talked a lot about that with all sorts of organizations. And I just got the impression that those issues are less acute in Germany than in the United States, because I think that in Germany, for instance, there’s this fundamental belief that healthcare is a right and that everybody has a right to the appropriate healthcare for their particular and unique situation. Whereas I don’t think that that battle is won in the United States. So, for instance, I would say that one of my takeaways is that we need to make sure that we engage in discourses where we push just how fundamental this right is and then hopefully everything would kind of flow from that. Conversely, I mentioned this before, the Germans reflexively look to the state and to government to help them achieve various goals. I was extremely impressed with how, well, “generous” sounds like it’s undeserving, but I was very impressed with how robust the government funding, at least in Munich was. Bavaria and Munich are some of the more prosperous places in Germany, but I don’t know… I agree with you that it’s about self-help; it’s about self-organization, and if you look too much to the state, especially when government funding can be fickle—as we have found out in this country and Germans might eventually find out as well—that that’s an issue. So, I would hope that our German friends would find inspiration from a lot of these American efforts to kind of self-organize, self-finance, and you mentioned so many very interesting, innovative projects and initiatives that are going on in the Midwest and elsewhere in this country that maybe the Germans could take some inspiration from that.
Baylen Campbell
Yeah, great points. And I agree with all of that. I think being in Munich and getting to meet so many of these organizations and understand more deeply the level of public support for the community was honestly very heartening and wonderful to see. Because here in Kentucky and much of the South and across the U.S., even the Library of Diversity, I was there and thinking, “this is so beautiful.” And it also made me a bit angry, thinking that if this were to exist in some community here in Kentucky or many across the states, it would be challenged based on legality, you know? It couldn’t even exist, which is infuriating. So, I think there are certainly things that the U.S. organizations and the community could look to Germany toward in terms of coalition building and aligning messaging and how to really enshrine public support and government funding in some cases. But the context in the U.S. right now especially is so different, right? So, the community in the U.S. and especially New York is much more diverse and robust, and there’s not a lot of homogeneity across the board, but there is beautiful coalition work happening. And the best practice that I saw across both communities is the investment in our history and archiving and preserving that history, because it is what has to ground us, and in a moment where it feels like everyone is living in somewhat of a post-rational society, it’s beautiful to see the LGBTQ community holding on to our lived history and lived reality and then utilizing it to inform where we go next.
Eric Langenbacher
Alright. Well, we have unfortunately come to the end of our time for this podcast. This is the last product from the second year of our Building LGBTQ+ Communities here at the American-German Institute. So, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of the individuals and organizations that so generously opened up their spaces and devoted time to meeting with the group as well as extending my gratitude to all of the participants today and to Baylen. Thank you, Baylen.
Baylen Campbell
Thanks so much, Eric, and thanks to AGI for all their investment and support through this program.
Eric Langenbacher
Alright. Goodbye, everybody, and I hope that you will join us again for the next issue of The Zeitgeist.
This podcast is part of the project “Building LGBTQ+ Communities in Germany and the United States: Past, Present, and Future” and is generously funded by the Transatlantik-Programm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland aus Mitteln des European Recovery Program (ERP) des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz(BMWK) (Transatlantic Program of the Federal Republic of Germany with Funds through the European Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry for Economics and Climate Action (BMWK)).
