Interview with Skylar Shay

Interview with Skylar Shay

Autobiography

Coming out (Sexual orientation)

Drag community

Drag shows

Female impersonators

Gay community

Gay men -- Family relationships

Gay men -- Social conditions

Gender identity

Gender nonconformity

Melvin, Tyler

Performances (creative events)

Student affairs services -- North Carolina -- Cullowhee

Western Carolina University -- Graduate students

Tyler Melvin, stage name Skylar Shay, is interviewed by Sarah Steiner as a part of the Gender and Sexuality Oral History project. Melvin identifies as gender fluid and performs emotional drag with a fluid persona. Growing up in a rural Southern Baptist home, Melvin did not know what the term “gay” meant until middle school. He was outed by friends his freshman year of high school and when the news reached his father, he was kicked out of his home. Melvin managed to stay in school, largely due to the encouragement of one teacher, while living in his car, at various friend’s houses, and in group homes. Melvin is finishing a master’s degree in higher education student affairs at Western Carolina University. He is an advocate and resource for the queer community, specifically the drag community, on Western Carolina University’s campus; they work to help others avoid the isolation he has felt the past 6 years he has been on campus. Includes additional photographs of Tyler Melvin in and out of drag.

Shay, Skylar

WCU Gender and Sexuality Oral History Project

Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC 28723

2000s (Decade); 2010s;

2018-09-25

Steiner, Sarah

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

application/pdf; audio/mp3; image/jpeg;

photographs

sound recordings

transcripts

interviews

eng

Sound

Text

StillImage

35984

https://southernappalachiandigitalcollections.org/object/35984

2018-10-26

All rights reserved. For permissions, contact Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina U, Cullowhee, NC 28723;

Jackson County (N.C.)

North Carolina, Western

0:37:55 (sound recordings)(duration)

10 pages (transcript)(duration)

LGBTQIA+ Archive of Jackson County