QUEER SPACES, RELIGIOUS PLACES: SHARING RISK AND MAKING KIN WITHIN A QUEER CHURCH AMIDST A PANDEMIC

This thesis aims to explore the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on a queer, Christian congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church in Knoxville, TN and the impacts of the pandemic queer kinship and intimacy within the church setting. The thesis explores the ways in which queer kinship manifests within the church and how those relationships have been disrupted and altered by COVID. It also compares the long-term effects of the AIDS epidemic on the church congregation and they ways in which they may be experiencing COVID in a similar manner. Finally, the project explores the ways that intimacy has changed and adapted through necessary means and how digital technologies are being utilized in order to maintain feelings of intimacy. This analysis is done against the backdrop of the biosocial implications of risk connected both to COVID-19 and AIDS as well as the larger theoretical frameworks associated within queer kinship and intimacy.