Mourning Dolly
Artists for Others is an organisation that was founded among friends as a place where artists could build a united front and use our shared platform and art to amplify and uplift the causes and values that are most important to us.
The reason I want to start this by mentioning that is because I think when honouring the legacy that Dolly Parton has left behind, it's deeply important to me to highlight that as part of her innate care and love for any and all people, not only did she speak up for queer folks at a time when it could have cost her a large chunk of her country music audience and career, she also did it alone.
Dolly began her career in 1967 with her debut album and then managed to balance her very full and successful professional life while also spending those same decades championing women's rights, civil rights and gay rights.
Dolly used her platform to help us see past our differences to the humanity that unites us all, and she always made sure everyone knew that humanity included the LGBTQ+ community. Her ability to practice and stand-by her faith as a Christian while maintaining such open-hearted and progressive beliefs long before their time of acceptance within the mainstream American public, is just another testament to her ability to live as a truly deserving role-model no matter which community you claim. Dolly lived out her faith and worked hard to keep building bridges, even if it got messy.
In 1991, Parton released a song called Family, with the lyrics: "Some are preachers, some are gay. Some are addicts, drunks and strays. But not a one is turned away when it's family." To have so simply and almost flippantly written queer people and priests into the same space was somewhat ground breaking for that point in time and yet she knew exactly what message she wanted to send and she stood by it. “Dolly didn't make some giant political statement or scream it from the mountaintops. Instead, she made a family portrait and put us within the frame, perhaps without listening to those who might have told her not to."
This steadfast and immovable approach to standing up for others is something that I personally have a deep respect and admiration for. She faced every critic, reporter, or interview head on when her values were questioned and answered everything with the calm grace of a woman who knew exactly what she believed in and what her role was in sharing those beliefs.
Dolly Parton was a bona fide superstar by the mid-1980s, just as the AIDS crisis was coming into focus and conservative Christian groups were ramping up their anti-LGBTQ+ attacks. Committing to her love and support of the queer community at this point was risky and based on the scrutiny she faced in public, one can only imagine the battles she fought behind closed doors. But she pushed onward and showed that you can appeal to the whole of America without throwing LGBTQ+ people under the bus. “To me, people are people. … Many of my friends are gay, male and female. I don’t judge people. I don’t care what people do in their bedrooms and people shouldn’t care what I do in mine.”
We know now that Dolly’s advocacy for the transgender community started within her own organisation. Dolly’s book editor, Elissa Altman, revealed this past week that Dolly actually paid the medical costs for a member of her staff to transition back in the 1990s. When she was asked about anti-transgender bathroom bans by CNN in 2016, Dolly said “I think everybody should be treated with respect. I don’t judge people and I try not to get too caught up in the controversy of things. I hope that everybody gets a chance to be who and what they are. I just know, if I have to pee, I’m gon’ pee, wherever it’s got to be.” Her advocacy for the queer community was always coming from love and being relayed exactly as such. While openly denouncing several recent anti-trans and anti-drag bills, she also told the Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that "I just want everybody to be treated good."
Dolly also voiced her support for gay marriage years before the U.S. Supreme Court made it a fundamental right in 2015. Telling CNN host Joy Behar in 2009 "Sure, why can't they get married? They should suffer like the rest of us do." and later also said, “I think love is love and we have no control over that… I think people should be allowed to [marry]. I’m not God, you know. I believe in God, I think God is the judge. I don’t judge or criticize and I don’t think we’re supposed to.”
Ultimately I know I could write pages and pages about why everyone should be at least a little sad and a lot grateful when looking at life of Dolly Parton, but I hope that I was able to impart just a kernel of true appreciation for the woman that she was and the values that she stood for in this relatively brief summary (emphasis on relatively) of my personal admiration for Dolly Parton. The world is a better place having had her in it, and AFO will proudly take our place among the millions of people who willingly shoulder the responsibility of carrying on her legacy. Rest in peace our honky tonk angel.
Erika Dünser (contributor)
