2021 ISSUE 1 Jan/Feb - Focus Mid-South Magazine

Serving the Mid-South LGBT+ Community and its Allies | JAN+FEB 2021 

THE 

SHEROES 

ISSUE 

KIMBERLY 

LOONEY 

PLANNED PARENTHOOD 

NASHVILLE’S 

PHYSICIAN+ALLY 

MAUREEN 

HOLLAND 

FROM THE LAWYER 

WHO BROUGHT US 

MARRIAGE EQUALITY 

NASHVILLE 

LGBT CHAMBER 

CELEBRATING NASHVILLE’S 

LGBT WOMEN-OWNED 

BUSINESSES 

ELIZABETH 

DOTSON 

DICKSON MOM OPENS 

CHARCUTERIE BOARD 

BRICK + MORTAR SHOP

Every season has challenges and 

every new year has opportunities. 

If you’re seeking a career with a company 

that will offer you both – come join us! 

fedexishiring.com

FROM THE PUBLISHER, 

RAY RICO 

PUBLISHER 

Ray Rico 

MANAGING EDITOR 

Joan Allison 

ADVERTISING+FINANCE 

Leila Hinkle 

Diversity is an important 

noun. Inclusion is a 

life-changing action. 

There has been much talk 

about social injustices, racial 

equality, and community reform 

over the last year. At Focus, we 

are excited to kick off the new 

year by incorporating these 

principles into our lives and 

business plan. 

Recently I read an article that 

quoted activist Vernā Myers 

that said, “Diversity is being 

invited to the party; inclusion is 

being asked to dance.” As we 

venture into a new year and a 

new era, please continue to 

embrace diversity. More 

importantly, let us all be sure to 

focus on the act of inclusion. 

• Focus is committed to 

bringing you a variety of 

stories, including the voices 

of those in our community 

that are oftentimes 

overlooked. 


partnering with businesses 

that share our vision and 

interest – to have a positive 

impact on the LGBT+ 

community and our allies in 

Memphis and the Mid-South 

region. 


leveraging relationships with 

leaders, and the leadership 

of organizations that share 

our vision, to positively 

impact communities. 

As the year begins, we 

strongly encourage U.S. 

consumers, business owners, 

and team members of 

companies, to make inclusiondriven 

decisions about how, and 

with whom, you’re spending 

your money. Invest in brown 

and black-owned businesses. 

Spend money with LGBT owned 

businesses. Your support is 

more important now than ever. 

This year, we hope you not 

only make it to the party but 

that you dance. 

Cheers friends, 

Ray Rico, Publisher 

Focus Magazine 

DESIGNERS 

Joan Allison 

Daphne Butler 

contributors 

Joan Allison 

Savannah Bearden 

Sarah Rutledge Fischer 

Focus ® Middle Tennessee is all about LGBT + people and their allies…their work, play, 

families, creativity, style, health and wealth, bodies and souls. Our focus is on you. 

Focus ® Middle Tennessee is published digitally, bi-monthly and available online. 

Focus reserves the right to refuse to sell space for any advertisement the staff 

deems inappropriate for the publication. Press releases must be received by the 

first of the month for the following issue. All content of this magazine, including and 

without limitation to the design, advertisements, art, photos and editorial content, 

as well as the selection, coordination and arrangement thereof, is Copyright ©2021, 

Focus ® Mid-South. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this magazine may be copied 

or reprinted without the express written permission of the publisher. For a full list of 

our editorial and advertising policies, please visit focusmidtenn.com/policies. 

Certifying LGBT Businesses. 

Connecting Our Communities. 

Focus ® Middle Tennessee is published by 

Ray Rico Freelance, LLC 

2294 Young Avenue 

Memphis, TN, 38104 

focusmidtenn.com 

Let’s be friends. Tag us! 

Twitter: @focusmidtenn 

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INTERACTIVE+SOCIAL MEDIA 

Sheena Barnett 

Chellie Bowman 

Proud Member 

Nick Lingerfelt 

Joe Woolley 

#focusmidtenn 

Facebook: @focusmidtenn 

#focusmidtenn 

SHEROES / JAN+FEB 2021 / focusmidtenn.com / Page 3

CONTENTS 

JAN+FEB 2021 

14 

5 COMMUNITY 

Understanding non-binary pronouns 

can be tricky if you’re new to this show 

of respect. We give you a primer on the 

basics. 

8 

12 

6 FOCUS SOCIAL MEDIA 

7 THEME: SHEROES 

8 ASK ALLIE 

We all need someone to look up to. Allie 

offers help to find trans youth role models. 

10 COMMUNITY 

Despite COVID, Nashville’s LGBT Chamber 

is boosting engagement. See the events 

and activities in which you can participate 

in CEO Joe Woolley’s ‘Chamber Chat.’ 

12 HEALTH+WELLNESS 

Dr. Kimberly Looney, Chief Medical 

Officer of Planned Parenthood of North 

Mississippi and Tennessee, fills the void 

of care for the LGBTQ+ community in 

Nashville. 

14 LGBT ADVOCATE 

Maureen Holland was on the plaintiffs’ 

legal team for the Obergefell v. Hodges 

case. Her ‘holistic legal’ practice employs 

justice, respect and healing. 

16 

20 

BE PART OF OUR NEXT PUBLICATION 

‘HOME SWEET HOME’ 

MAR+APR 2021 

Submit story ideas: editor@focusmidsouth.com 

Editorial submission deadline: February 1, 2021 

Advertising inquiries: sales@focusmidsouth.com 

Ad space reservation due: January 28, 2021 

16 HEALTH+WELLNESS 

Collaborative practice lawyers are 

changing the rules of divorce for the 

better. 

18 ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT 

We’ve got fresh, syndicated content 

straight from a Hollywood tattler! 

20 FOOD+DRINK 

They were boards that she created just for 

friends, but Elizabeth Dotson has taken 

the idea to a storefront. Boardables is her 

new brick and mortar charcuterie board 

business in Dickson. 

23 ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT 

Ray Rico gives you his Pop Culture picks. 

Page 4 / focusmidtenn.com / JAN+FEB 2021 / SHEROES

TODAY’S LGBT+ LESSON: 

PRONOUNS 

community 

Gender neutral pronouns have been around for centuries. 

At least as far back as 12th century Old English, the 

pronouns were almost indistinguishable, which prompted 

the use of ‘she’ to distinguish the male and female pronoun 

from each other. In 1789, William H. Marshall recorded the 

existence of the pronoun Ou, that expressed he, she or it. 

Now, probably owing to more people being comfortable 

expressing their true selves, we have a new nomenclature. 

It’s true that you can’t always know what someone’s 

pronouns are by looking at them, but asking and correctly 

using someone’s pronouns is one of the most basic ways to 

show your respect for their gender identity. When someone 

is referred to with the wrong pronoun, it can make them 

feel disrespected, invalidated, dismissed, alienated, or 

dysphoric (often all of the above.) It is a privilege to not 

have to worry about which pronoun someone is going to 

use for you based on how they perceive your gender. If you 

have this privilege, yet fail to respect someone else’s 

gender identity, it is not only disrespectful and hurtful, but 

also oppressive. 

If you’re new to using the proper pronouns when referring 

to someone who is non-binary, know that it’s OK to make 

mistakes when meeting someone. Just correct yourself 

promptly without making a big deal of it. Though there are 

some variations, here is a chart that shows you the basics 

and how the pronouns are used in grammar. 

PRONOUNS SUBJECT OBJECT POSSESSIVE REFLEXIVE 

He He I This He 

Him asked told office is reminds 

His him his himself 

She She I This She 

Her asked told office is reminds 

Hers her hers herself 

They They I This They 

Them asked told office is remind 

Theirs them theirs themself 

Ze Ze I This Ze 

(or Zie) asked told office is reminds 

Hir/Hirs hir hirs hirself 

Ze Ze I This Ze 

(or Zie asked told office is reminds 

Zir/Zirs zir zirs zirself 


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theme 

While I may be the first 

woman in this office, I will 

not be the last, because 

every little girl watching 

tonight sees that this is 

a country of possibilities. 

—Kamala Harris 


life 

DEAR 

ST’R 

PHOTOS FROM THEIR WEBSITES 

Dear Allie, 

Last November, watching Kamala Harris take 

the stage as the first someone-who-looks-likeme 

to be elected Vice President of the United 

States, I found myself sobbing uncontrollably. 

I have always known that representation is 

important, but I don’t think I really understood 

how important until that moment. 

I have an 11-year-old daughter who was 

assigned male gender at birth. She came out to 

me last year, and we are lucky to be surrounded 

by love and support, but ever since that night 

in November, I’ve been painfully aware of how 

little she must see herself represented in the 

world around her. Any suggestions on what I 

can do to change that? 

Yours, 

Mom in Seek of Trans Role-models 

Dear Mom-ST’R, 

What a historic moment it was to watch 

Vice President Elect Harris address the nation. 

So many of us shared the profound moment 

of realization that you describe, and it is 

phenomenal that you are determined to make 

sure that your daughter gets to share that 

experience, not only as a woman, but also as a 

woman who was assigned male gender at birth. 

HELPING TRANS YOUTH 

FIND INTERESTING 

ROLE MODELS 

by Sarah Rutledge Fischer 

You want your daughter to see herself represented in 

the world around her, and you may not have much 

control over what she is or isn’t exposed to in school 

or the media (though I encourage you to write letters 

and make your voice heard). But you do have control 

over what she is exposed to in your home and in your 

company. That is where you can begin to make a 

difference. 

There are many ways to go about this, but I 

suggest that you set a goal of focusing on one new 

transgender role model each week. Start with a list 

of 20 or 30 transgender figures that you want to 

research. You will probably include some of the 

more well-known public figures like Laverne Cox, 

Elliot Page, and Marsha P. Johnson, but you should 

also seek out role models in professions and 

pursuits that interest your daughter. 

If your daughter is into STEM (Science, 

Technology, Engineering, and Math), she might 

want to follow: 

Karissa Sanbonmatsu – Sanbonmatsu is 

transgender structural biologist working in 

epigenetics at the Los Alamos National 

Laboratory. A great place to start is 

Sanbonmatsu’s January 2019 TED Talk on the 

biology of gender. 


Miles Ott – Ott is a transgender biostatistician 

currently teaching at Smith College. His 

research is focused on public health and the 

statistical analysis of social network data. 

If your daughter is interested in government, 

there are many excellent role models to follow, 

including: 

Delaware Senator Sarah McBride – McBride is 

the first transgender state senator in the United 

State. A good place to start might be her 

memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Different, but a few 

passages deal with difficult topics, so consider 

reading it together or pulling out excerpts. 

The list goes on. If she’s an athlete, she can 

follow track star Andraya Yearwood, cyclist 

Veronica Ivy, weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, 

golfer Mainne Bagger, and swimmer Sharron 

Davies. If she is interested in film, look into the 

Wachowski Sisters. If she’s interested in chess, 

she can study the games of Natalia Pares 

Vives. If she’s a writer, check out author Lexie 

Bean. 

Each week, you and your daughter can pick a 

name from the list and learn about that person. 

Some weeks, that will mean watching 

documentaries or listening to podcasts. Other 

weeks you will visit websites, read news 

articles, or even send an email or letter. Some 

people will interest your daughter more than 

others, and as you go, she will probably start 

adding names to the list. Before the year is out, 

her concept of what transpeople can do in this 

world will have expanded tremendously. 

And of course, no matter how great it is to 

have role models, it is even more important to 

have people-like-us to look up to in daily life. If 

you can, reach out to a LGBTQ+ community 

center or youth organization to learn how you 

and your daughter can get involved in your 

local transgender community. That should get 

you started. 

Be 

PrEPared. 

Learn more about 

HIV prevention at 

Planned Parenthood. 

866.711.1717 

PlannedParenthood.org/Tennessee 

Your friend, 

Allie 

To submit your own question, email Allie 

at Allie@focusmidsouth.com. Focus Mid-South 

reserves the right to edit letters for length 

and clarity. 

Equity has been our focus 

from the tornado recovery to the COVID-19 

response, access to assistance and support 

does not look the same for all businesses and 

communities. We are dedicated to an inclusive 

and equitable Nashville, where the 

marginalized have an advocate and support. 

Our membership is open to all and we are 

here for you. Join us today. 

We represent over 500+ Corporations, Entrepreneurs, & 

Small Businesses who want to keep Nashville OPEN & EQUAL. 

advocate. educate. connect.

community 

by Joe Woolley, CEO 

Nashville LGBT Chamber 

As we close out 2020, advocating, 

educating, and connecting our 

members, the LGBTQ+ community, 

and Nashville as a whole in this 

uncertain business climate created 

by COVID-19, remains a priority for 

the Nashville LGBT Chamber. Every 

business and person, from our 

corporate members down to our 

small businesses and gig-workers, to 

our networking members and 

followers, have all been affected and 

are hurting more and more as the 

pandemic wears on. We want you to 

know: We’re here for YOU. 

Our membership and 

programming remains open to 

everyone during these times; we are 

asking for members to pay if they 

can but no one is turned away or 

dropped as a member. Please join us 

at any of our events, or subscribe to 

our newsletter for more information. 

We’re proud to showcase some of 

our work below. Special thanks to 

Focus for letting us highlight our 

work and our members! 

(Bolded text = web links!) 

BE A MEMBER AND FIND 

OUR MEMBERS 

In honor of this month’s issue, we are celebrating womenowned 

businesses. It is impossible to highlight every deserving 

company, but here is a list of a few members from several 

different industries: 

• Rubenfeld Law Office 

• LA Security 

• And 3 Foods 

• MAYDAY! Computers 

• uBreakiFIX 

• Diversity Builder 

• TN Event Designs 

• Tonda McKay Photography 

• STF Events & Catering/EV Originals 

If your business fits this category and you’re not listed, please 

consider joining our chamber and taking advantage of 

membership perks. We want to help you promote and grow 

your business! If you’re interested in joining the Chamber, go to 

nashvilleLGBTchamber.org to learn more about membership 

levels and benefits. 

We’ve proudly added several new businesses and individuals 

to our membership, even during the pandemic. A great way to 

support the LGBT+ community during a difficult time is to 

frequent chamber member businesses—just look for our OPEN 

and EQUAL membership sticker on windows and next to cash 

registers when you’re out shopping (with a mask of course!). A 

full list of members and certified LGBT-owned businesses can 

be found on our website directory. 

STOPPING THE SPREAD, KEEPING 

THE VIRUS NUMBERS DOWN 

Even with a new vaccine on the way and 

continuing to follow CDC guidelines, 

new cases continue to rise. We can 

stop the surge and protect our 

economy, flattening the curve—again. 

Please remember: Wear masks. Stay at 

least 6 feet apart. Wash your hands. 

Get a flu shot. Thank you for being part of 

the solution. We will beat this virus. 

NashvilleHealth and community 

partners, including the Nashville LGBT 

Chamber, launched #MaskForNash, or 

#ÚselaPorNash—a community-wide 

effort to encourage citizens to care for 

our hometown by wearing a mask or cloth 

face covering when in public. 

We’re also a partner in the #MaskNowPartyLater campaign. 

Help us have fun, and enjoy concerts, and more in Music City as 

soon as possible by wearing 

your mask and following 

CDC guidelines! 

The Nashville LGBT 

Chamber is a proud 

participant in, and 

encourages members to be 

part of, the Good to Go Program, 

a hospitality safety program 

created by the Nashville 

Convention & Visitors Corp to 

help businesses in every industry 

implement health and safety 

guidelines. 


WEBSITE RESOURCES 

FOR COVID-19 

Members continue to enjoy our new and improved website 

and member portal. These upgrades help members and the 

community find information and communicate with each other. 

If you haven’t visited our website in a while, check out the new 

features! 

While you are on the new site, make sure to check out the 

COVID-19 resources page, where we share all the news and 

information our members need to know about. There, you can 

find out things like: webinars, news releases, hospitality 

members offering takeout dining services, hot deals exclusive to 

members, and more. 

Feeling Excluded? 

Find a place 

with 

us 

THE RAINBOW CONNECTION 

The Nashville LGBT Chamber will continue The Rainbow 

Connection Series virtually in 2021. Each month, we offer two 

networking events, a member highlight session, and an 

educational opportunity. This series will help our members and 

community stay connected and informed as we navigate the 

pandemic. 

Network Connect is just that: networking events for you to 

connect to others for business or personal needs. To 

complement our traditional PM Brewing Up Business, we now 

offer additional morning networking opportunities, called AM 

Brewing Up Business. These events include a short program 

of announcements from our chamber’s staff and then small 

group networking. 

OPEN TABLE 

CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

DISCIPLES OF CHRIST 

FB LIVE SERVICES EVERY SUNDAY AT 5:00 PM 

1130 HALEY RD. | MURFREESBORO, TN 37129 

OPENTABLECHRISTIANCHURCH.ORG 

Member Connect gives an in-depth highlight of one of our 

corporate members and one of our small business members. 

In these webinars, there is a Q&A session wherein members 

have the opportunity to talk about what they’re working on, 

questions or issues they need help with, or anything else they 

want to address. 

Classroom Connect is designed to help LGBT+ and allied 

business owners expand their entrepreneurial skill set with 

educational webinars that connect participants to trusted 

experts. The Classroom Connect Series is made possible 

thanks to HCA Healthcare/TriStar Health, who joined as the 

title sponsor of the Classroom Connect Series. We will start 

2021 with a session on LGBT Business Enterprise Certification 

and Metro Procurement Policy and Opportunities on January 

28, 2021. Future dates include: 

February 25, 2021 

March 25, 2021 

April 22, 2021 

May 27, 2021 

Check our website for topic and presenter information. 

Our virtual programs will continue even after the crisis subsides, 

in addition to resuming in-person events, such as advocating 

against discrimination at the state capitol, rainbow ribboncuttings, 

and more events. We can’t wait to see people in 

person! If you need assistance or are interested in learning more 

about what we do, we’d love to hear from you. Visit our website 

for more details on these programs: nashvillelgbtchamber.org

health+wellness 

Someone becoming what 

other people may not think 

they should be – but who 

they inherently feel like 

they are – must feel like 

being set free. 

– Dr. Kimberly Looney 

Planned Parenthood Physician 

story and photos by Savannah Bearden, Director of Communications 

Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi 

Dr. Kimberly Looney may 

have been born in Memphis, 

but her upbringing and 

education was 100% Nashville— 

a fact she calls both “exciting 

and depressing all in the same 

moment.” 

“Literally from my bedroom 

window, I could see my 

elementary school, my middle 

and high school, my 

undergraduate and my first 

year of undergraduate school,” 

Looney laughs. “Then I got 

accepted into med school, 

which happened to be across 

the street from my 

undergraduate school.” 

That med school was 

Meharry Medical College, one 

of only four Black medical 

schools in the country. It sits 

across the street from her 

former HBCU, Fisk University. 

“I loved Meharry, their 

mission of serving the 

underserved, and I loved seeing 

people that looked like me 

doing big things and being 

educated. But I was like… I 

don’t get out of this block on 

that.” 

Fueled by that restlessness, 

Looney ventured north to 

Washington D.C. to do research 

for the National Institutes of 

Health, then returned to her 

Memphis birthplace to become 

a surgeon at UTHSC Memphis. 

When she moved to Chicago 

for her residency, a chance 

run-in with a former Memphis 

colleague introduced her to the 

field of family planning, which 

focuses on birth control and 

abortion care. 

“I said to her verbatim, ‘Why 

would you need to do a 

fellowship in that?’ And she 

looked me dead in my eyes and 

said, ‘Did you train where we 

trained?’ Meaning Memphis. 


And that’s when it clicked for 

me,” Looney remembers. 

”You know, we saw young 

parents, women struggling 

every day. That’s why I need to 

do this. And so that day, I made 

the commitment—that’s what I 

was going to do when I got 

done with my residency.” 

After completing her 

fellowship training at Emory 

University in Atlanta, only she 

and one other person elected 

to stay in the South to practice 

family planning. 

“Everyone else went up north 

or out west, of course,” she 

sighs. 

Seeing the void of care in 

Tennessee and wanting to 

make an impact, Looney moved 

back to Nashville and began 

providing abortion services for 

Planned Parenthood of Middle 

and East TN, now Planned 

Parenthood of Tennessee and 

North Mississippi (PPTNM). 

“You know how you make 

career goals? When I started 

working at Planned 

Parenthood, I said to myself, 

‘One day I want to run this.’” 

She met that career goal in 

June 2019, when she came on 

board as PPTNM’s Chief 

Medical Officer. 

One of her first initiatives in 

her new role was to expand 

LGBTQ+ services at PPTNM, 

including the introduction of 

gender-affirming hormone 

(GAH) care statewide via 

Telehealth. She attributes this 

to experiences in other clinical 

settings where she witnessed 

providers being callous or 

negative to transgender and 

non-binary clients—usually due 

to lack of familiarity or 

understanding on the clinician’s 

part. 

“That got under my skin,” she 

asserts. “I don’t really care 

what the components of a 

person are. They got a heart, 

they got a soul, they got a 

mind— that’s it.” 

While PPTNM has served 

in-person GAH patients at their 

Nashville and Knoxville health 

centers for several years, 

Telehealth appointments are 

available for anyone in 

Tennessee, and the Memphis 

health center will begin 

in-person GAH services later 

this spring. In addition, PPTNM 

Looney reviews charts at Planned Parenthood’s Nashville Clinic, northeast of the Gulch neighborhood. 

offers PrEP, contraception, and 

other reproductive and sexual 

wellness services for the 

LGBTQ+ community. 

“There’s a need for 

affordable care in this area. 

And that’s where we really are 

trying to plug the gap,” Looney 

says. “This is a population— like 

a lot of other marginalized, 

minority, and underserved 

populations— where insurance 

may not be plentiful or may not 

be sufficient, even if you are 

insured. So there are sectors of 

this population that go without 

the care they really need and 

deserve because they just can’t 

afford it.” 

When asked what is the most 

fulfilling part of bringing these 

expanded LGBTQ+ services to 

PPTNM, her eyes begin to tear 

up. 

“There’s a question that we 

ask every GAH client,” she 

explains. “Something like ‘Is 

there anything about your 

transition that stresses you?’ I 

remember asking a patient that 

and their response was ‘No, this 

is the best I have ever felt in my 

life because I get to be who I 

am.’ That really resonated with 

me. Someone becoming what 

other people may not think 

they should be— but who they 

inherently feel like they are— 

must feel like being set free.” 

“For me, the most rewarding 

part is being able to 

understand the value of 

someone feeling like they are 

their true self. It really is.” 

To learn more about LGBTQ+ 

services or make an 

appointment at Planned 

Parenthood of Tennessee and 

North Mississippi, visit 

PlannedParenthood.org/ 

Tennessee or call 866.711.1717. 

Dr. Looney with her husband at Standing Strong Nashville event. 


lgbt advocate 


MAUREEN HOLLAND 

by Sarah Rutledge Fischer | photo by Joan Allison 

Holistic Attorney 

In the early 2000s, Maureen T. Holland 

was developing a philosophy of law. 

Though she was a successful attorney in a 

thriving private practice, she was not 

content to address each of her cases as a 

mere legal dispute separate from the 

individuals and communities in which it 

arose. She wanted to practice law with a 

focus on the way each decision and aspect 

of legal practice impacted the client and 

the community. She wanted to approach 

the practice of law in a manner that was 

focused on problem solving. 

Holland has a deep respect for the 

power of naming things, and so she 

changed her business cards to read 

“Holistic Attorney”—an announcement of 

her intent to the world—and that title has 

been central to her practice ever since. 

These days she works to bring respect, 

humanity, a sense of interconnectedness, 

healing, teaching, and service into every 

case. Holland is most widely known for her 

work on Obergefell v. Hodges, but her 

favorite area of law is civil rights 

employment law. That is where she is able 

to apply her philosophy every day. 

“I love what I do in Memphis. I love being 

a civil rights employment lawyer. I love 

helping the individuals that our law firm 

helps. I love the practice of law. I love using 

my education to help others advance social 

causes and social justice. I’m very 

enthusiastic about that, and Memphis 

provides an opportunity to practice in the 

area of law that I really enjoy and yet also 

practice in the way I enjoy practicing law. 

And I feel like if I can do that every day, 

that’s a win.” 

For Maureen, it was not enough to hold 

this philosophy alone. Her enthusiasm for 

the good that holistic law practice can 

bring both attorneys and clients led her to 

spearhead a 2007 regional conference, 

titled Lawyers as Peacemakers, Lawyers as 

Problemsolvers, where members of the 

greater Memphis legal community spent 

three days exploring the possibilities of 

collaborative law, restorative justice, 

therapeutic jurisprudence, transformative 

mediation, holistic law, and problemsolving 

courts. The work that has come out 

of that conference has begun to change 

the legal landscape of Memphis, through 

holistic practices like Holland & Associates 

PC and collaborative legal organizations 

like the Memphis Collaborative Alliance. 

LGBTQ+ Rights Champion 

Nationally, Maureen T. Holland is most 

well known for her work on Obergefell v. 

Hodges, the 2015 landmark civil rights case 

in which the Supreme Court of the United 

States ruled that the fundamental right to 

marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples 

under the Constitution. She came to the 

case in 2013 when she teamed up with 

fellow attorneys Abby Rubenfeld and 

Regina Lambert, and with the support of 

the National Center for Lesbian Rights 

undertook to challenge the lack of 

marriage equality in Tennessee. Their case, 

Tanco v. Haslam, made its way through the 

Sixth Circuit Court, was consolidated with 

three other cases from around the country, 

and set for review by the Supreme Court 

under the name Obergefell v. Hodges. 

Holland worked closely with the 

Memphis plaintiffs, Ijpe DeKoe and Thomas 

Kostura. The two had married in New York 

in 2011, but when DeKoe, a Sergeant First 

Class and full-time reservist in the Army 

Reserves, was stationed outside of 

Memphis, they were relocated to a state in 

which their marriage was not recognized. 

“There had been some individuals who 

were against same-sex marriage,” 

remembers Holland, “who thought—if you 

don’t like what Tennessee has to offer in 

terms of marriage recognition, well then, 

just leave the state. But if you’re assigned 

here by the federal government, you can’t 

just up and leave—not if you are on a 

military base, and you are part of that 

process.” 

Holland spent a lot of time helping 

DeKoe and Kostura navigate the onslaught 

of media, and she was well prepared for 

her role. Before Obergefell, Holland had a 

long history of representing LGBTQ+ 

clients—fighting discrimination and sexual 

harassment and working with couples to 

create documentation to secure rights that 

couldn’t be obtained through marriage. 

Moreover, Holland was personally invested; 

she and her wife had married in 2011 in 

Vermont, but that marriage was not 

recognized in Tennessee. It was important 

that the focus stay on the clients, but 

Holland was able to draw on her own 

personal experience in her representation. 

“When a reporter was asking me, ‘Well, 

why does this matter or how does this 

matter,’ I could use my personal 

experiences to explain how things matter 

without identifying myself in that 

explanation. It really helped me—because I 

was going through it also—to explain what 

was going on for our clients. I knew 

personally how that was.” 

Mother of Wasps 

In the Spring of 2020, when the world 

shut down in hopes of slowing the Covid-19 

pandemic, and legions of people began 

baking bread and raising chickens, 

Maureen T. Holland became fascinated 

with a wasp who had built a nest in her 

recycling bin. Each time Holland threw out 

her recycling, she would see the wasp. 

“She was very shy and hid on her little 

nest, and I’d think, ‘she’s not very smart. 

She’s going to end up having to move her 

nest.’ And I’d haul my bin to the street.” 

But each time she brought back the 

empty bin, the nest was still adhered to its 

side, and each time the mother wasp would 

return to sit on her nest. Holland became 

fascinated and started doing research. 

She learned that her wasp was a red 

paper wasp, a non-aggressive and 

beneficial pollinator who also eats bugs. 

She learned about the life cycle of the 

female wasp—the way she, like any single 

mom, works tirelessly to build the nest for 

her young, to feed them day in and day 

out. The way her children’s survival 

depends entirely on her. 

Then one day, the unthinkable 

happened. The mother wasp did not 

return. And that is when Holland took on 

the most unusual of her many titles— 

Mother of Wasps—and began to raise the 

young by hand. 

Her learning curve was steep. 

“There is almost no information about 

how to [raise wasps]” she laughed. “As it 

turns out, there is no one who really has 

done this.” 

But after much trial and error, she landed 

upon a homemade meal worm paste that 

the infant wasps would eat. (She would 

later supplement their diet with royal jelly 

from honeybees.) Eventually the first 

female wasp emerged from her custombuilt 

cocoon area. 

“She was enormous and beautiful and 

would be killed within a few days by a 

cardinal. But the other two females who 

also had emerged, they laid eggs, and 

those eggs became males. Those females 

would end up dead after a period of weeks. 

I then hand raised the males. They were 

attacked by ants. The saga goes on and on. 

But I learned a lot, and one survived. I 

watched him leave into the world.” 

And with his flight, Holland succeeded in 

raising the grandson of that original 

mother wasp who had so entranced her. 

These days she uses the experience to 

advocate for the humane treatment of 

these gentle pollinators. And she still keeps 

a nest or two in a box on her windowsill. 


health+wellness 

Shutterstock 

by Sarah Rutledge Fischer 

In our culture, divorce is 

assumed to be a battlefield. 

Two people who can no longer 

live their lives as one turn to the 

courts as an arena for the 

destruction of their union and 

all the carnage that will entail. 

Litigation, which presumes 

antagonism between the 

parties and usually amplifies it, 

is slow, expensive, and a matter 

of public record. By the end, 

after a brutal process that, on 

average, takes a full year and 

costs tens of thousands of 

dollars, both parties are left to 

pick through the rubble of their 

lives and move forward. 

For LGBTQ+ families, the 

experience can be even worse. 

Our legal system is rife with 

both internalized bias and 

outright homophobia. In cases 

in which one member of a 

hetero-presenting marriage has 

come out as LGBTQ+, 

aggressive attorneys routinely 

weaponize that person’s 

sexuality. In the dissolution of a 

same-gender marriage, the 

effect of preconceived notions 

about gender, which frequently 

influence custody or spousal 

support decisions, can be 

unpredictable, leaving 

attorneys unable to offer their 

clients clear guidance. And that 

doesn’t even account for the 

harm suffered by the children. 

“Nobody has ever called me 

and said, I’m coming to see 

you. I want to get a divorce, 

and I also want to make sure 

that my children suffer terrible 

depression and anxiety, 

feelings of abandonment, and 

have difficulties in their own 

adult relationships one day,” 

says Elizabeth Yarbrough, a 

Tennessee family law attorney 

and family mediator with over 

twenty years’ experience 

handling complex divorce and 

family law matters. 

Yarbrough, whose passion 

for resolving family conflict 

began in childhood, spent years 

frustrated and disillusioned 

with the extent that her work as 

a family law attorney often left 

her client’s lives in shambles. 

But in 2007, Yarbrough was 

invited to attend a conference 

titled “Lawyers as 

Peacemakers, Lawyers as 

Problem Solvers.” That 3-day 

conference on holistic 

approaches to the practice of 

law, the brainchild of Memphis 

attorney Maureen T. Holland, 

created the momentum for a 

new way for Yarbrough and 

others to practice family law in 

Memphis—a momentum that 

became the Memphis 

Collaborative Alliance. 

The Memphis Collaborative 

Alliance (MCA) is a team of 

legal, financial, family and 

judicial/mediation professionals 


who promote the use of 

collaborative practice to 

resolve family disputes. In the 

context of divorce, the 

collaborative process is an 

alternative to litigation that 

provides a pathway for 

dissolving the legal bonds of 

marriage with dignity and 

privacy in a way that saves 

time, money, emotional 

distress, and relationships. 

In a collaborative case under 

the MCA, each party is 

represented by an MCA 

attorney, and all members of 

the team—clients, attorneys, 

and consulting professionals— 

sign a Participation Agreement, 

committing to resolve their 

issues without litigation. 

Though each case certainly has 

its own set of unique 

circumstances that determines 

how the parties meet 

throughout the process, 

generally issues are explored 

and resolved collaboratively by 

the parties and their attorneys 

together at the table. Teams 

may also include a Financial 

Neutral who assists both 

parties in collecting and 

understanding their financial 

information, prepares budgets 

and net worth statements, and 

assists in developing creative 

ways to divide financial 

resources and assets. In 

situations where there are 

children or other dependents 

involved, the team will include a 

Neutral Family Professional—an 

experienced psychologist, 

therapist, licensed clinical 

social worker, or family 

counselor—who can help 

neutralize conflict and keeps 

families focused on their most 

important needs and interests 

rather than their ongoing 

conflict. 

The possibility of resolving a 

divorce cooperatively seems 

like an impossible idea to many 

of the clients who come to 

Yarbrough and the other 

attorneys in the Alliance. 

Frequently a client is already so 

deeply in conflict that trusting 

their spouse to come to the 

table in good faith seems 

impossible. But the MCA 

attorneys and professionals 

have seen the process work 

over and over—even in the 

When you go to divorce court and you’ve done motion hearings 

and mediations and gone through discovery and spent everything 

that’s available to spend,” says Yarbrough, “nobody is going come 

out of that winning—except for maybe the lawyers. 

—Beth Yarbrough 

most fraught cases, and they 

are convinced that a 

collaborative process leaves 

everyone more whole on the 

other side. 

To help her clients 

understand, Yarbrough 

compares divorce to an 

appendectomy. No one wants 

to go through one, and most 

people only arrive to the 

process in quite a bit of pain. 

But litigating a divorce, she 

thinks, is like an old school 

appendectomy—where a 

surgeon cuts her patient from 

sternum to groin and pulls all of 

the internal organs out on the 

table, just to reach and excise 

the problem area. A 

collaborative process is more 

like a laparoscopic 

appendectomy; it is more 

modern, less invasive, and more 

likely to lead to an easy 

recovery. 

Not only is the collaborative 

process less invasive, it is also 

generally less expensive. 

There’s an old joke among 

divorce attorneys: A client asks, 

“How much is this going to cost 

me?” The attorney says, “How 

much have you got?” It’s dark 

humor, but there is truth to the 

joke—not because attorneys 

are running up fees, but 

because the combative nature 

of litigation often means that a 

person who can spend more 

will. And that means 

devastating family resources, 

leaving both parties without 

solid footing once the smoke 

has cleared. According to 

Yarbrough, a complex 

divorce—one that could cost 

$50-$100,000 if litigated— 

could be resolved for a fraction 

of that cost through 

collaborative law. 

“When you go to divorce 

court and you’ve done motion 

hearings and mediations and 

gone through discovery and 

spent everything that’s 

available to spend,” says 

Yarbrough, “nobody is going 

come out of that winning— 

except for maybe the lawyers.” 

Yarbrough’s collaborative 

divorce cases turn out 

differently. 

“I don’t want to tell you that 

we end these cases in a drum 

circle singing,” she says, “but 

photo by Matt Yarbrough 

everybody does leave with 

respect. And we treat one 

another warmly at the end. We 

try to send people off into the 

world in good shape to manage 

their family relationships after.” 

The burden of a divorce 

attorney is to know that no one 

ever wants to be in their office. 

No one comes to see any of the 

attorneys at the MCA because 

things in their marriage have 

been going well. But the MCA 

Professionals see it as an honor 

to help guide their clients 

through a difficult process with 

dignity and kindness. They see 

it as their greatest 

responsibility to help forge the 

functional family structure that 

emerges on the other side. 

“It’s almost as if the family is 

your second client—like the 

family that you’re creating, that 

comes out on the other side of 

this, is a client to everyone.” 

To learn more about the 

Memphis Collaborative 

Alliance, visit their website at 

https://memphiscollaborative. 

com. 


arts+entertainment 

INSIDE 

story by Romeo San Vicente 

Selena Gomez is going to climb 

every Mountain 

One of this year’s TV pleasures has been watching a 

homebound Selena Gomez earnestly trying to learn to cook via 

Zoom calls with various famous chefs on her HBO Max series 

Selena + Chef. We 

had no idea that in 

between mastering 

the mechanics of a 

proper French 

omelette she was 

negotiating new 

deals for herself, but 

coming soon(ish) 

she’ll take on the 

role of real-life 

lesbian mountain 

climber Silvia 

Vásquez-Lavado. 

Writer-director Elgin 

James (Little Birds) 

will adapt Vásquez-Lavado’s memoir, In the Shadow of the 

Mountain, as a starring vehicle of Gomez (whose casting got a 

nod of approval from the queer Peruvian climber herself). 

Vásquez-Lavado not only climbed Mount Everest but became 

the first out lesbian to climb the highest mountain on each 

continent, a challenge known as the Seven Summits. No 

production or release dates are known yet, but this is already 

Appointment Cinema. 

Guess what pandemic The 

Second Wave will be about 

Queer screen darling Taylor Schilling (Orange is The New 

Black) is back for an upcoming limited series from Michelle and 

Robert King (The Good Wife, The Good Fight). It’s called The 

Second Wave, and it’s about two neighbors, played by Schilling 

and Audra McDonald, who find themselves locked down again in 

New York City when an unexpected second wave of the 

coronavirus breaks out. The women are forced to handle their 

lives and jobs from the confined space of their apartments, while 

contending with an even more deadly version of the virus, one 

that may spell the end of humanity itself. The six-episode series 

will co-star Leslie Uggams (Deadpool), Steven Pasquale (The 

Good Wife) and Hamilton’s Phillipa Soo, and with vaccines 

currently rolling out, maybe by the time this series hits your TV 

screen, it’ll have the retro feeling of scary science fiction that 

can’t possibly happen again. Fingers crossed! 

PHOTO BY STARFRENZY 

Guardians of The Galaxy hero 

Star-Lord is bisexual and 

polyamorous. Now what? 

This isn’t an announcement, really, even though it is. And it 

hasn’t made an official impact on the films that draw inspiration 

from Marvel Comics canon. But Guardians of the Galaxy 

protagonist Star-Lord has been revealed to be both bisexual and 

polyamorous in the ongoing comic book series. This is both a 

very significant development and, annoyingly, possibly not 

going to matter at all when it comes to the film adaptations. 

That’s because Star-Lord is played in the films by Chris Pratt, an 

actor who has always been quietly friendly to the LGBTQ+ 

community, but whose recent surge of public religious devotion 

has made the prospect of him playing a bisexual space hero 

somewhat unlikely, given his association with an anti-queer 

church. The Guardians film franchise continues, of course, and 

not everything canon in the source material finds its way into 

comic book-based films, but if queer fans were to consider 

lobbying hard for a little inclusion, now would be the time to 

start. And while we’re waiting for some official Pratt reaction, 

here’s what we’d like for starters: some cuddling with Drax. 

We’re pretty certain that the perpetually shirtless Dave Bautista 

would be up for that. 

Tampon Rock wants to be your 

favorite scripted lesbian 

musical comedy podcast 

The internet built celebrities out of YouTube content creators, 

and it has also begun doing the same with podcasters. As the idea 

of scripted podcasts continues to evolve – kids, they used to call 

them “radio shows” and there were characters and stories and 

your great grandparents loved them – more and more queer 

content is coming out of that movement, too. Witness Tampon 

Rock, an LGBTQ musical-comedy podcast rolling out as we speak. 

Created by comedy writers Alysia Brown, Sarah Aument and 

Sophie Dinicol, TR follows two lesbian characters on their 

respective romantic and musical adventures in Oakland (they’re in 

a band called G.O.A.L., or The Greatest of All Lesbians, which is a 

perfect band name, you must admit). The serialized story 

chronicles the rise of the band as the members fall in and out of 

love, and will feature original music throughout. Yes, it’s ambitious, 

and that’s nothing less than what we should expect from goaloriented 

queers, so break out the headphones and listen. 


food+drink 

Specialty meats, cheeses, fruits, and special spreads? 

GET ON BOARD! 

by Nick Lingerfelt | photos courtesy of Elizabeth Dotson 

Elizabeth Dotson’s life has always revolved around food. 

She’s a preacher’s daughter, but she doesn’t minister in a pulpit. 

She evangelizes through Parmesan cheese and pepperoni. 

Dotson owns Boardable 

615, a store that carries 

artisanal foods, mixers and 

homeware. She focuses on 

sourcing her products from 

local makers. 

“I like food,” Dotson says. “I 

like people. And I... like it 

when people enjoy eating 

food I create. 

“I’m a Tennessee native who 

has spent 18 years in the food 

service industry, helping 

others start businesses in 

various food niches including 

gastro pubs, bars, breweries, 

and bakery services. I’ve also 

spent time in the business 

sector, looking for my place in 

it all. 

Dotson hatched the idea for 

her business back in January 

2020. She decided to make 

these boards ‘to-go’ after her 

friends kept asking her to 

make them for themselves. 

She left her job in June 2020 

to focus on Boardable 615 full 

time. “I didn’t want to go work 

for somebody else,” Dotson 

said. “I’m tired of working for 

other people... It’s my time.” 


Shops in the area started 

asking her if they could put 

her boardables in their cold 

cases. That made her decide 

she could have them in her 

own cold cases in her own 

store. So she cashed out her 

401k to make it happen, and 

her husband had a panic 

attack. 

“It’s a gamble, but it’s 

gamble if you do and a 

gamble if you don’t,” Dotson 

said. “You’ll never know until 

you do it.” 

Dotson designs 

“boardables,” a portmanteau 

of the words board and 

Lunchable she coined. When 

making them, she feels both 

at home and connected to the 

people she’s making it for. She 

believes her calling is to share 

in the highs and lows of life by 

arranging bite-sized food to 

nibble on. 

Dotson says that table 

fellowship breaks barriers and 

binds people together. 

“Breaking bread and sharing 

cheese and crackers signifies 

all are welcome,” she said. 

Dotson has three young 

children, June, Ryan and Luke, 

and she relishes the fact that 

they get to see her be her 

own boss. 

Dotson made a space for 

her and her employees’s kids 

at her brick and mortar store, 

which she’s passionate about. 

This alleviates a need for 

childcare for everyone who 

works for her. 

“The girl that works on 

Tuesdays has a kid, so if she 

works anywhere else, she 

won’t be able to take her kid 

with her,” Dotson said. 

Dotson said it’s difficult for 

a working mother. The 

COVID-19 pandemic only 

made things more challenging. 

“We can show (our kids) 

how to work hard,” Dotson 

said. 

Dotson’s boards come in 

four sizes — mini, small, 

medium and large — that cost 

between $11.25 and $110. 

Customers can get one of her 

four signature creations. 

One of her signature 

creations is the Jack Jack. It 

includes pepper jack and 

Colby-Jack cheeses and hard 

and Genoa salamis. It also 

features bacon jam, seasonal 

fruits, nuts, crackers, olives 

and chocolate. 

Customers can also make 

their own and choose from a 

variety of cheeses, proteins, 

spreads and dips. Dotson’s 

favorite flavor combo is 

Asiago cheese, cashew and 

blueberry. 

“I focus on having that 

fancy feeling at home,” 

Dotson said. 

Boardable 615 

128 N. Main Street 

Dickson, Tennessee 

Tuesday – Thursday 10-5:30 

Friday and Saturday 10-6:30 

boardable615.com. 

A variety of artisanal foods, mixers, 

and home ware showcasing our local 

and regional artisans. 

TUE-THUR 

10:00 AM-5:30 PM 

FRI & SAT 

10:00 AM-6:30 PM 

615.560.5955 

128 N. MAIN ST. 

DICKSON, TN 37055 


W e remember 

&honor 

ANGEL HAYNES • DUSTIN PARKER • NEULISA LUCIANO RUIZ 

YAMPI MÉNDEZ AROCHO • MONIKA DIAMOND • LEXI 

JOHANNA METZGER • LAYLA PELAEZ SÁNCHEZ 

SERENA ANGELIQUE VELÁZQUEZ RAMOS • TONY MCDADE 

PENÉLOPE DÍAZ RAMÍREZ • NINA POP • HELLE JAE O'REGAN 

DOMINIQUE “REM'MIE” FELLS • JAYNE THOMPSON 

SELENA REYES-HERNANDEZ • BRIAN “EGYPT” POWERS 

RIAH MILTON • BRAYLA STONE • MERCI MACK 

SHAKI PETERS • BREE BLACK • SUMMER TAYLOR 

MARILYN CAZARES • DIOR H. OVA “TIFFANY HARRIS” 

QUEASHA D. HARDY • AJA RAQUELL RHONE-SPEARS 

KEE SAM • AERRION BURNETT • FELYCYA HARRIS 

MIA GREEN • MICHELLE MICHELLYN RAMOS VARGAS 

BROOKLYN DESHAUNA SMITH • SARA BLACKWOOD 

SCOTT/SCOTTLYNN DEVORE • LEA RAYSHON DAYE 

YUNIESKI CAREY HERRARA • ASIA JYNAÉ FOSTER 

CHAÉ MESHIA SIMMS • SKYLAR HEATH 

REMEMBERING THE LOVED TRANS SOULS 

WHO WERE TRAGICALLY KILLED IN 2020. 

#stopkillingtranspeople

SNEAK PEAK 

This month’s Pop Culture pics focus on reading. Because READING IS FUNDAMENTAL! 

Curated by Ray Rico 

BOOK 

Gay Like Me 

RICHIE JACKSON 

Life takes people in different 

directions sometimes and LGBTQ+ 

persons who have children can 

attest to that. Sharing the same 

sexuality as your children can offer 

challenges though. In Gay Like 

Me, author Richie Jackson shares 

his advice and stories with his gay 

son on life lessons. I enjoyed the 

storytelling Richie recalls, how 

he talks about history, how it has 

shaped him, and the advice he gives 

his son. 

TIP: If you’re looking for a great light read with queer stories 

and life lessons you can relate to, read Gay Like Me. 

BOOK 

Dolly Parton 

Songteller, My Life in Lyrics 

DOLLY PARTON 

WITH ROBERT K. OERMANN 

I dove into Dolly Parton’s new book 

Songteller over the Thanksgiving holiday 

and just found so much joy reading about 

the story behind her songs. I quizzed my 

friends and asked them their favorite Dolly 

Parton song to find a way to read about 

each of those that she had a story for. 

TIP: If you’re a history fan and love love 

love Dolly Parton, get this book! 

You won’t regret it. 

BOOK 

Rainbow Revolution 

MAGNUS HASTINGS 

Over the span of a couple of 

years photographer Magnus 

Hastings built a magnificent 

portfolio of images of 

queer culture that express 

authenticity in its purest form 

in the collection Rainbow 

Revolution. A beautiful 

pictorial book of these 

images capture the identity 

and personality of some well known (and not so well known) 

LGBTQ+ folks and groups. 

TIP: If you’re looking for inspiration (and some great shots 

of gay and queer idols you love) then, check out the 

Rainbow Revolution.

2021 ISSUE 1 Jan/Feb - Focus Mid-South Magazine

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