There’s a woman living in Steele Creek who when asked if she’s from Charlotte will happily tell you, “I am not, but I’ve been here so long, I feel like I pretty much qualify.”
Meredith Thompson may have grown up in Memphis, Tennessee, but she enthusiastically calls Charlotte home. Thompson has never been a stranger to the Carolinas. Her family is originally from North Carolina and only ended up in Memphis when her dad relocated her family from Raleigh to Memphis for work. After graduating high school, Thompson returned to her Carolina roots to attend Davidson College and has been here ever since – making her mark in lasting and meaningful ways.
Initially, “here” meant the Dilworth area where Thompson was “working for a little public relations firm” she absolutely loved. Back then, she was married to a man, having spent a decade of her life living as others thought she should but not finding the happiness often embraced from living authentically. Today, Thompson is married to a woman she can’t imagine life without, while finding purpose in serving our community as Charlotte Pride’s Director of Programs and Development.
L’Monique King: Let’s jump right in. Did you know you were a lesbian while you were married to a man?
Meridith Thompson: I think I kinda knew and [certainly] knew I was miserable. For a lot of reasons, it wasn’t a healthy relationship. I often wonder if this man was easy going, supportive and a lot of other things would I have stayed married to him. I think I had suspicions [of my sexual orientation] in college, but I ignored them and was determined to go down the path I thought I was supposed to go down. I was determined to make it work and bought into [a heterosexual ideology], thinking, people aren’t generally happy. I think what forced me to truly accept myself was falling in love.
LMK: As our community evolves, we are constantly hearing and learning new language to categorize our diverse identities. We’ve gone from four letters [LGBT] to being called alphabet kids. That said, when you hear Lesbian, Dyke, Femme or Butch, do any of these terms speak to you and how do you identify?
MT: I never really thought about it, I just know that I’m a lesbian – that’s the term that speaks to me. I don’t know if I’m femme, butch or something in between. It’s an odd thing to think about. I don’t know if it’s my age and when I was coming along [or not], because we didn’t have all these words then.
LMK: Aside from being married to a man, what did you want to be when you grew up?
MT: I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian or something having to do with animals. The issue was, I had no interest in science or biology. It was always poetry or words for me. My skill set just didn’t align. So, I ended up getting my bachelor’s degree in English and have had some really interesting jobs as a result. It’s worked out okay – veterinarians have a hard job for a lot of reasons and I did get to channel my passion for animals through the doggie business.
LMK: Doggie business? What do you do for a living?
MT: My wife and I own Canine Café in South End. We’ve been here for 18 years and were located on Tryon (on the corner of Camden) for six years before that. At Canine Café we bake and design personalized doggie cakes, manufacture dog treats that we sell to Whole Foods and Publix and we have our own retail store. People can come in with their dogs and shop. It’s a fun, happy place that we’ve created.
LMK: Wow. That’s over 20 years of being in business. What’s the secret to such longevity in business?
MT: Being different, and I would attribute that to my wife. She is the creative one and came up with the bakery concept long before others were doing it. She was ahead of her time and now, people still love the novelty of a cake with their dog’s name on. We have the bakery on site, where you can see it and smell it. I think that’s very unusual.
LMK: Aside from her creativity, what makes your wife the cat’s pajamas? Pardon the feline reference.
MT: Her zest for life, her humor. Everyday with her is an adventure. She’s very uplifting and complementary [when it comes to] me. I guess I’m needy because I need that and I appreciate it. She’s also patient and supported me when I left the business on a day to day basis to be part of the community in a different way. She’s loud, hilarious, sort of just goes with the flow. She’s always pulling me along to do fun things.
LMK: It’s inspiring and beautiful to hear someone speak of their partner so lovingly. But let’s just say for a moment, in some alternate universe where you’ve been hit in the head with a brick and lost your sense, who would be the celebrity crush could you imagine yourself with?
MT: Mariska Hargitay and U.S. women’s soccer players – <bursting into laughter> any of them.
LMK: <Giggling> Okay, let’s get back to reality for a moment. How long have you been involved with Charlotte Pride?
MT: Not very long and a very long time. I started at the beginning of April of 2022. It was in the midst of rebooting the festival which had been dormant for a few years as a result of COVID. When I first started I thought, I’ll get through the film festival and then it will calm down a bit. Then it was the parade and then, something else. I came to realize; it just never stops. If it [programming pride activities] were just the festival and parade that alone would be a full-time job.
LMK: Definitely sounds like it could be overwhelming. Who helps you with all that?
MT: We have 10 teams that work with us and a working board, meeting once a month. If it weren’t for all the volunteers that work through the night, we wouldn’t be able to have Charlotte Pride. It’s really humbling to see how many people give so much of their time.
LMK: InIn light of the current political climate, specifically the plethora of anti-LGBTQ+ anti-trans and anti-Drag legislation, how, if at all has it impacted this year’s Pride event planning?
MT: For us if we’re thinking about planning Pride, I think specifically the anti-drag legislation has just upended us. We had to think, what do we do? We internalized much of it because you just can’t take Drag out of Pride. This year we have all of our local queens competing on the community stage and queens from Ru Paul’s Drag Race on the main stage and our headliner is Big Freeda.
Drag is such a huge part of pride and the entertainment, but it’s bigger than that. You have to think about people attending pride, people walking around, enjoying the freedom to express themselves. Pride is a celebration of being free to be who we are. How do you police that? Are we going to start thinking someone is too butch or would there be a problem with someone “walking while trans” it’s heartbreaking to think about. So, in planning this year’s Pride, we worried about all that. But again, we know it’s not possible to have Pride without Drag. Excluding Drag is equivalent to saying, this part of our community is not welcome and we can’t do that. That’s how all this started, with Stonewall and policing how people dressed. With the current legislation, it feels like we’re going back to that. It’s very disturbing.
LMK: When you think about the future of Pride and realize generations following Xers and Boomers will be passed the torch of keeping Pride going, what advice do you have for Gen Zers and the generations that will follow them?
MT: Don’t become complacent. We have a lot of younger folks who do a lot of the work of Charlotte Pride who are dedicated year-round volunteers. They definitely give me hope. You may think because they are younger that they’ve had an easier time, but I’ve found that we’ve all had a challenging time coming to terms with ourselves and expressing our identities.
My other word of advice would be – find your community. When I ran the doggie business full time, I had a lot of queer friends, but I think when you start working with other queer folks in the community you find a greater connection – a support network that just runs deeper. Personally, it helps me to know that I’m not alone. So please, volunteer to work with your local queer non-profit. You’ll find your family and realize why the work is so important.