How to find the local queer people when there don't appear to be any queer events nearby
are you sure there are no events?
Because they're a lot more common than you think, but you have to look in the right place! The social media algorithm sadly will not feed them to you. You will generally have to go through at least one layer of introduction before you meet folks directly.
Yes, this is a bit of a secret social club. Because many of these people lived through being too public might get you raided by cops or get you dead. They're rightfully cautious. They want to make sure people showing up aren't there to do harm. And the more rural the area, the tougher it will be to find people, but they're definitely THERE and likely having the same thoughts that nobody else is there.
Queer social activities are overwhelmingly run by middle aged folks (who have time, money, skills, and energy to do so) and they tend to use different social media because that's where they originally built communities!
The advice here for hunting down groups assumes you are an adult who can figure out logistics and safety of contacting other adults and getting yourself somewhere safely.
For social media, check Facebook and Meetup. These are most likely to have large local-ish groups putting on events. Join some groups. Many may be private and require approval before you see content. Even if there's not one immediately nearby, join the closest one, whatever "close" is. Even if it's not a perfect fit, they generally know the other even smaller groups nearby and may give you an invite to closer group or even direct contact info for The Local Guy where you text him.
Next up, Instagram. You'll pick up some folks a little younger and more business and pop up events this way. Sometimes you may not see an event until after it happened! Message the person and ask when next one is. Good odds there's a repeat.
Still no luck? Check out specific types of businesses/orgs in your area that tend to have an overlap. Maybe the local bar or coffee shop has a gay night once a month. Check their posts for last month, or if you can filter by date, look specifically in June. If they had one, message and ask about if they have an upcoming one. Even if they don't, they may put you in contact with organizer from past one.
For organizations, check for groups serving HIV+ populations and the neurospicy. Even if you fall into neither category, because of the overlap, there's good odds they offer specific services FOR queer folk. Contact them and they'll know who in the area is putting on events.
Check furry groups. Generally they do most organization via Telegram, which will require an invite. Find the nearest furry convention, check to see if they have a message board. Search for telegram. there's likely one attached to the convention and asking there of "hey, is there a furry telegram group that covers X area?" there will be one. I hope you like bowling, because this is by far the most common non-convention furry event.
(and if your reaction is EW Furries, you need to kill the little Puritan living in your head that hates people having fun doing stuff in a way you think is Cringe. Bowling is not that uncool.)
Still no luck? Now you're going to have to go search for individual queers in the wild! Your best luck is going to be with three other types of groups:
1. SOME Church activities
2. activities that attract the neurospicy (train groups, collecting groups, etc)
3. Tiny specialty groups where everyone is old and its in danger of dying out
If you're really rural sometimes the ONLY group doing any activities is the local church. If they're listed as "open and affirming" that's what you want. Unitarians and Congregationalists are most likely to fit that definition. But you should be able to run web search for that exact phase of "open and affirming church" + "your town" and it'll show you SOMETHING nearby. You may still come up with nothing, but the ones that are doing that tend to be really dedicated, so they will have info about what local groups are friendly to queers, if not open about that. They will also have non-religious activities like knitting or potluck even if you don't want to go to a service.
Neurospicy activities- check your surrounding libraries for activities as well. Even if you're not that brand of spicy, the overlap is high. Find an activity you are reasonably interested in and go meet locals. You'll find out which ones are queer after a few meetings. Often it will turn out everyone is and nobody said anything until one person does. (like our local hackerspace. secret trans hangout)
Endangered skills- do you really want to learn some weird, specialty skill that's dying out? Ask around. call the senior center and have them post a note. Post at the library. stick a thing on a bulletin board at the grocery store. Pick something you are GENUINELY interested in learning like flint knapping, or how to cook a regional dish, local history, how to spin llama wool. Weirder and more endangered the better. Post several! Give them a way to contact you by phone. Unless they are horrendously bigoted up front, you are about to learn a skill and once you disclose "hey I'm gay", you are about to be introduced to every solitary queer in the area that is a friend of a friends' granddaughter's classmate. Often your mentor won't quite GET it, but you're their favorite person now so they're trying. And as you get introduced, suddenly the local flint knapping group is also the queer flint knapping group! and you should post on social media about your cool new activity and SURPRISE, you found them all! Also they now all have cool knives. win-win!