Interview with JoSelle Vanderhooft by Jeremy Yamashiro

JoSelle Vanderhooft is in bold. Jeremy Yamashiro is in regular font.

Alright so we're rolling.

We're good?

Alright so let's start if you want to introduce yourself.

Kay.

Tell a little bit about your history in Utah like where you grew up - that kind of thing.
Yeah we'll go from there.

Okay. I'm JoSelle Vanderhooft one of the many Vanderhooft tribes in the
valley. Basically we have the same last name - it's uh, we're all related. I
grew up, I was born in 1980, and I grew up in Sandy - in the Sandy/Midvale
area. That meant that I would have been just a few months in college
when Matthew Shepherd was murdered. And you asked for something
else. I'm sorry.

Um. Yeah I just, kind of, that's pretty good.

That's basically where I'm from. I've lived most of my life in Utah with the
exception of two years when I lived... one in New York and one in
Kentucky both for a few reasons, but I'm sure we'll touch on that at some
point.

Okay. Cool...so that you say that you were in college for a few months when
Matthew Shepherd got killed.

Yeah the first semester of my freshman year. So I was about 18. And I
know that this is, we're talking about this a lot in the series. So let's see, I
would have been 18 years old, just barely, since I was born in August.

Do you remember....[?]

I'm honestly trying...this is going to sound dreadful, but I'm honestly

trying to re-member exactly where I was when I first heard about this.
And to be fully honest with you, I don't know. This isn't because it wasn't
not important to me at the time. It wasn't because it wasn't on my radar,
although it may have been because I didn't come out until I was nineteen,
and at eighteen years old I was trying very hard to figure out what was
going on with me sexually. So I may not have been as aware of all things
queer as I was from nineteen on. It could have been that, it could be that,
I did know all about it and I'm just not remembering very well. So I hate
to disappoint with that.

Oh no, that's fine. So you came out at nineteen?

Uh huh.

Do you want to tell me a little bit about the stories surrounding that?

I can do all of that. It's a really interesting one. I remember ...I'm one of
these queer people who remembers being attracted to the same sex at a
very early age. I'm going to say between 4-6 probably more around 4-5.
But it was kind of a complicated issue for me because I also have a past of
sexual abuse, and you know, kind of a meanness out there about how if
woman get sexually abused when they're children they grow up to be
lesbians. So I had that cultural misconception for a better word. Because
I think sometimes there is a grain of truth to it. But I had that to contend
with.

To be fully honest with you, I didn't think a whole lot about sexuality.
Until I was kind of late in the game - about 17. In fact at 13 - I still I am
practicing Catholic - at about thirteen I desperately wanted to become a
nun. In retrospect I think it was because I just had been sexually abused I
didn't really know how to process that. Probably knew deep down that I
wasn't quite straight and didn't want to deal with that. And honestly my
thinking at the time was that if I just don't get married and be a nun then
I'll never have to deal with it, which I think is part of the reason, though
there are a lot of reasons, that are involved with the pedophile scandals
that happen. People who know that there is something up with their
sexuality and they're Catholic think that they can just push it away.

As great as the Catholic Church can be on a lot of things, they can be anti-
sex undercurrent even though the parish I went to didn't really advertise
that, it cer-tainly is, there it certainly is in the air as it were, and I think I
kind of picked up on it, and that made the situation even worse. Just by
the fact that no one ever really said anything about it, or did anything to
me. I mean, I never had a member of the clergy try to molest me or some
awful thing like that. It just never really came up. But I don't even really,
I certainly never remember anyone ever saying anything bad about gay
people in my parish. Which is not true for all gay Catholics.

In fact I remember one priest actually talking about how he had at a

parish he had been, he had officiated at before, he had one man from
[____?_____], he had a gay son and he didn't know what to do. And the
priest told him that he should embrace and love his son and the man just
didn’t do it and the poor kid ended up killing himself. And this was
actually what he told us in a sermon, right? So that was clearly not giving
me an anti-gay message right there. And you know it's kind of interesting
because, for as much crap as the hierarchy, especially the arch-bishops
and the bishops, say about gay people, when you get more vocal, when
you get down to the actual parishes and especially the lay people
themselves, it really is a whole different story. Especially in Utah.
There are, there is one very gay anti-gay priest up in Ogden who the less
we say about the better. Honestly on his blog he has a quote from Eric
Cartman about being taller and I think that he really honestly thinks that
was awesome and not horrible because Cartman was saying it. I don't
know what his deal is but we don't want to read his blog. [laughter]

Perhaps the intended irony of it.

I don't even know, I just know that I would not feel comfortable going to
his parish and I'm kind of glad that he's advertising that fact. If I ever end
up in Ogden I can, you know, pick some, somewhere else to go that
weekend.

What do you think, the disconnect, well maybe not disconnect, but why the
difference in practice from the local level to the parish level.

Because I think I had a priest once who actually, and we can get into my
whole issue with sexuality and the Catholic Church, which is kind of a
different story than Mormons and sexuality, and I think maybe important
for people who are watching who are non-Mormon to hear, you know, but I
really think it is because priests, you know, they can't be in this cushy
little office, I mean not that that's all that they should do. They are too
busy to say listen to confessions and deal with getting called at 4 AM
because someone's beloved wife has died and they have to go over and
comfort them I don't think they see a lot of the day to day, I mean, they
have to start out as priests at some point, but I think they forget when
they get into the office of bishop and higher that, you know, this is what
being a parish priest is like, and I think that it divorces them a little from
the humanity of all of that, and since they are not hearing confessions,
they are not having people coming in and saying things like, I know that
the church teaches that my having a gay partner is sinful, but this isn't
what my conscience tells me to do.

One thing that is interesting about Catholicism that for some very bizarre
reason has gotten them played a lot since Vatican II is the primacy of
conscience. So basically, as I think that it's totally fine if you have a gay
partner, even if you have multiple partners, as long as you know you are
committed to them. If I were to go in not thinking this was sinful and
telling a priest that I did this and, you know, I'm confessing it. Well, first
of all, it's just stupid because how can I confess to something I don't, I'm
not sorry for. And secondly, I'm condemning myself before God. You just
you can't do that - it doesn't work that way basically. So con-science has
to be well-formed conscience. You just can't say, well you know, you have
to question why am I kind of going against this teaching, and often you
might find because it is too hard to deal with, or it's too fun doing this or
whatever, and you know you can say, well then, you know, maybe I need
to form my conscience more towards what the church teaches. But, you
know, and that was a big struggle for me but when I really kind of spent
like a whole five months trying to deal with this. It really finally came
down to the fact that for me this was a justice issue and the teaching
made absolutely no sense and was not even all that traditional.

It's interesting because when you really start seeing, not necessarily how
the So-doom and Gomorra story was interpreted, but when you really start
focusing on when the word homosexually first gets mentioned in church
documents, which is you know, a bit different from talking about, you
know, First Corinthians for ex-ample. It was really quite late in the game,
it's really about, yeah, I want to say the 50's, but I don't think that's right
so I'm just going to say mostly around Vatican II and on. And then you
start getting into very differing messages. So basically, if you have an
understanding of how Catholicism works and what sacred tradition is and
how much importance we place on just that the entire tradition of the
church, it's very very untraditional and really kind of stupid, and I think it
really, kind of, is the end result of the kind of anti-sex vibe that you've
had in Western Christianity.

The Orthodox, the Eastern Orthodox churches, so this is big O not little o,
little o Christianity. Little o Christianity means something different but
the big O Orthodox, they're not as anitsex. They have married priests
whereas we've had clerical celibacy in the west for uh centuries, and you
know it's actually kind of interesting how that started. It was really over
inheritance. I could go on and on forever on the specifics of Catholic
history do not answer any questions that you came here for, so maybe we
should focus on maybe being gay and Catholic in Utah.

Like I said I think that is very different, at least for me, on being gay and
Mormon although I do recognize some similarities. So first of all the
difference is you have a church with Catholicism that is not focused on the
family whatsoever. Since Vatican II we've tried to become a little more
Protestant and I could go on a huge roundabout about why I think that
was a bad idea. So there is kind of this more, kind of, family values kind
of talk that really honestly feels pasted on. Historically Catholics have not
been about the family. I mean hell, we didn't think that sex was that
important and thought it was pretty bad, so why would be saying that
family life is this awesome amazing thing? That's really kind of Martin
Luther that got pasted on when we decided that we wanted to be like
Protestants in post-Vatican II. So first of all, that there isn't really a whole
lot of that that I got growing up. I mean, priests are celibate, we have
celibate brothers and sisters, meaning monks and nuns. In fact, the only
non-celibate position in the Catholic Church is that of deacon. And you
can only have a wife if you're a deacon if you were married when you were
ordained. If she dies, you can't re-marry if you're a deacon. But that's
just a little interesting thing that nobody knows, well a lot of people don't
know. So you don't have that whole family structure to contend with and
families are forever and, you know, you have to be straight to get into the
highest level of heaven and all, that we don't have. So there isn't that
onus on you.
Also, I come from a unique position in that I'm a convert and my family
isn't particularly religious so there was absolutely no religious [__?__]
there against me. In fact, I'm not "out" to all of my family members, but
that just kind of comes from not talking to a lot of them sometimes
because my family is huge. I mean they're all Mormons other than me.
But most of them know or they wonder, why she is not married and almost
30, and they probably figured it out by now. But I haven't gotten any grief
for it. So that hasn't really been a part of my struggle growing up. Where
the real problem came was, yeah this was not fun. I converted when I was
18, yes. Because my father didn't want me, he really hated the Catholic
Church, did not want me joining any religion, especially that awful one
until I was an adult. He actually died when I was 16. He committed
suicide which we can talk about as well. So, I could have probably done
that at that point, but it felt to me at the time like it was going against the
4th Commandment, so honor thy father and mother.

So I waited until I was 18, it was hard but I did it. But then shortly after,
about a year after I converted, I started having this whole sexuality
struggle and I was going through a lot at that time as well. My father just
committed suicide, about six days before my 17th birthday and I really, I
really, most suicide survivors who are survivors of parental suicides that I
have talked to, really kind of say that it took them about two years before
it really, really started getting bad for them. And that was exactly true in
my case. I had a complete mental meltdown when I was twenty. So I was
trying to deal with that, I was trying to deal with leaving high school and
going to college, when all my friends were going out of state for colleges,
or going to places that were not the University of Utah - that was really
hard. I was dealing with the breakup with my first actual boyfriend who
later turned out to be bisexual as well, but more on the gay side. That
was really hard because I had just lost my dad, and he reminded me a lot
of my dad and it was a very kind of strange father-daughter thing for me,
and all about my sexual identity because before then at 16 I kind of felt,
well maybe I'm gay, but then I got attracted to him and thought, oh this is,
okay well I guess I'm not gay. Again, it was this, we'll get married and I'll
never have to deal with the issue. I mean, you know when you're getting
romantic feelings, I mean, I've had little crushes in my teens but nothing
really came of them. When you have your first boyfriend at 17 and that's
kind of the first time you've even kind of hugged and not even heavy
petted, but just like pet on the back, this is probably looking very strange
for whoever's watching this now, but you know there's a lot going on
sexually there and for me. There was abuse and a lot of other things. I
get lost in my trains of thought, bear with me.

So I'm trying to deal with all of this when I'm 19 and I go to my father
confessor at the Newman Center at the U who is this incredible Dominican
priest named Father Bart who I have not seen around since for a while,
but that could be because I don't go to that parish anymore. And I told
him that I thought maybe I was bisexual and I had just gotten into this
huge fight with a good friend who was dating my ex and it was just this
whole nightmare. And I was actually on valium when I went to talk to him
and that made this confession even more bizarre. And I told him that, and
I remember that at 19 asking him if God was punishing me because of this.
So this is kind of an interesting situation. Growing up I didn't have anyone
around me who was saying, oh, gays are all bad and they're going to burn
in hell. I mean my stepmom had lesbian friends who she introduced to me
and I remember when I was 8 years old being scared that they were going
to molest me, so you know where did that come from? Nobody told me
that. But I mean just asking him, “Is god punishing me?” despite having
all these very positive or ...it was either positively mentioned or not
mentioned at all, and maybe the not-mentioned at all was the problem.
But I remember asking that and just I couldn't go to church after that even
though he was really quite nice to me about it, and said if my conscious
told me it wasn't wrong then he wasn't going to interfere with that, but it
still honestly felt like when he explained what the teaching was to me that
it was considered this moral disorder.

I didn't go to church for a while because it was like, I already felt like
everything in the world was wrong with me. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention,
I was seeing a horrible therapist at the time that diagnosed me with a
personality disorder. Turned out to be a wrong diagnosis, but she was
just, she had a little hard on for this disorder. This [___?___] personality
disorder which is, this is about a decade ago when research on it was not
all that good. Basically the message I got from her was that I was
incurably insane, and nobody could like me ever, and that I was just
poison. She didn't use those exact words, but that's what all the
literature basically said. That I was impossible to treat, and that I was
just going to make everybody's life a living hell. And of course I'm going
to school and have no friends. So it's kind of not difficult to see how
dealing with this and even getting a fairly positive response from a fairly
liberal priest hurt me. And it's not something that I'm entirely over. And
it's not his fault, I don't blame him, but I do definitely blame how the
church handles this. I think it hurts a lot of good gay, lesbian, bi and trans
Catholics who would be its strongest allies actually.

I will say honestly that some of my Catholic friends would be horrified to

hear I'm not currently attending church and I haven't for a couple of years.
And I know I should be. It's not that I dislike church, I'd like to go, but I
just feel so icky about the whole sexuality issue that it is very difficult for
me, and it's something I pray about quite a bit. But I love the mass, I love
the church when it's not behaving like this. But it's just being so
ridiculously anti-gay for me right now that it really honestly doesn't feel
safe. Even if I know that I have a good liberal priest. Well, I don't want to
say liberal cause I don't like liberal/conservative talk when we're talking
about religion. Let’s say an understanding priest, or one who knows that
this is kind of bull, and isn't going to go with it. Even having a priest like
that, it still just doesn't feel right. And you know, we could talk forever
about how I should be going because the church isn't about some priest,
it's about Jesus, but you know, it's difficult. And it’s a struggle a lot of
queer Catholics face. So I didn't deal with that for about, I really just put
it on hold. I tried to date a couple girls. It didn't really work cause I had
so many other issues that were going on.

I think subconsciously I was probably pushing people away because I just

didn't have the equipment at that point to deal with, I never even really
dealt with my sexual abuse. Which by the way, I just want to stop for a
minute and point out to any young person who is listening, sexual abuse
doesn't necessarily have to be adult on child, it can be peer, what's called
peer abuse. It can be teen on teen or child on child and that's what it was
in my case. And I guess it's kind of hand-waved a lot and kind of
dismissed as being trivial but it’s very real and it has very lasting
damages because the first time I was molested I was seven years old and
it was by another seven year old in an open classroom. A seven year old
boy, and it wasn't the only time he did it. And it took several times for me
to get the...well, I didn’t even report it. I was just scared to leave school
cause he threatened to punch my breasts in if I did. So I just ended up
hiding in a closest, and my mom ended up coming into the classroom to
say, “Where's my daughter? She didn't come out.” And then they found
me crying in the closet. So if any kids are watching, any teens are
watching in the future, if this has happened to you, I really highly
recommend that you talk to a trusted adult about it, or a trusted friend
who is your own age even, and if you feel that therapy is something you
can do and have the resources to do, I highly recommend talking to a
therapist, or a rape or molestation counselor at the rape recovery center
because it is very serious and it can hurt you. It hurt me for several years
and still continues to, but it’s something that I could have resolved a lot
sooner. So, just my little PSA. I know this is not quite what the
interview's about but since this is for youth to watch, and it's not talked
about a lot I think it is something they need to know. We can get back on
track now.

I really kind of put dealing with this off for a very long time. And the way I
ended up actually dealing with religion and sexuality was I had a really
bizarre and out of the blue panic attack about it when I was 23 years old
that lasted an entire sum-mer. So every day I was so upset I was shaking.
I mean I had an anxiety disorder but this was the worst it's ever been. In
retrospect I really think that as much as I don't think that God does
terrible things to people, I think that at that point I wasn't giving him a lot
of choices, and this was sort of the inevitable end of blocking that out, so I
don't think he reached down and said, “Boop! You're going to have a panic
attack that, you know, almost kills you,” but I think that it was him
making good out of something bad. It finally forced me to do the very
painful work of dealing with it, and it made me a better human being and
a better Catholic. I wish it had happened differently, but I'm very glad it
happened, and that I found supportive gay Catholic friends.

What did that look like when you say it forced you to deal with that?

Good question. It was really to start doing my own research about why
the church taught what it did, and to talk to some priests about it (gay
and straight), to talk to a lot of lay Catholics who are much more
intelligent, or much more informed, I think I'm trying to say on the history
of sacred tradition and Catholicism than I am. So it really forced me to do
a lot of my homework that I had just immediately closed the door to, by
saying this is not for me anymore, I can't be a part of the church. I found
out that I could, but it's just very difficult and way more difficult than it
should be. The church definitely should be reaching out to queer
Catholics, because one thing is, it's just wrong on what it teaches. I mean
we could go on forever about that. But I mean it’s really just putting all
that together and doing some very painful work that I'd avoided cause,
let's be honest, I'd had a lot of pain in my life to deal with before then, and
I wasn't at a point in my life where I could add more on to that. So it's
interesting being a Catholic in Utah things like this happen and people
don't see them because we're all talking about Mormons. Not that we
shouldn't, but there are religious minorities out there that deal with this
too.

What was the end result, you think, of that kind of work?

I think it honestly made me a lot more socially responsible. The part of

Catholicism, there are many different movements within it. There's the
Charismatic Movement, there is the SSPX movement which is the Society
of St. Pius the Tenth, there are uber-traditional Catholics, and there may
be priests. There's Opus Dei, which is not what the Da Vinci Code told you
about. They're not really that scary, but they are kind of hard-lined
conservatives. They don't, however, beat themselves. I don't really know
how that got into the movie. But they don't do things like that and there
are liberal Catholics and conservative Catholics, Catholics that wear purple
hats, but seriously there are a lot of movements. And the movement that
attracts me the most is the Social Justice. If you have ever heard of Oscar
Romero, he was a big proponent of that and it really is honestly about
doing good works for people, because Jesus, you know, is in everybody
that we meet. In the poor and the disenfranchised and the hated in
society, and I think really, kind of, be in a group that the church doesn't
like very much, really kind of turned me on to that more than it would
have if I had been straight, or if I had just said, “Bye Catholicism,” and not
in my own way.

It's made me a lot more helpful to gay Catholics who, I'm on this mailing
list where a lot of us congregate, who talk to me about my experiences. It
made me get back into Christianity and for all of the bad things that
churches can do sometimes, I think especially when social justice is
concerned, there are a lot of things in there. And I think that really
peeling the fat, I mean in a way going through my own Passion really, my
own Garden of Olives, my own Calvary really. And I don't think it's
blasphemous to compare it to that because it really, I can really
understand what Jesus suffered. I wrote a poem actually about it. I wrote
a memoir [____?____] should get a copy of this called the Memory Palace
which is about a lot of what we're talking about, and I wrote a poem
modeled after the 14 Stations of the Cross. That was about me dealing
with the subjects we've been talking about. Kind of comparing my
struggles to that of Jesus, I mean clearly each section is titled after a
different station like, Jesus is condemned to death is the first one. And it
goes all the way up to Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross, to the actual
crucifixion, taking the body down and putting incense. But really I think,
really honestly it brought me closer to God, the suffering face of God, so
it's an experience I really wouldn't trade, as bad as it was, as much as it
shouldn't have had to have happened.

So the mailing that you talked to me about was that [___?____]

No you know I don’t want to bash the Dignity Mailing because a lot of
people on the Dignity mailing list helped me out at a very hard time. But
it’s ultimately not where I settled because the practices, they’re a little
too theologically liberal for me. I don’t think they’re as into the Latin
mass for example, or the church before Vatican II kind of messed a lot of
things up. I have a [___?___] respect for them. I just don’t think that going
to a Dignity Mass would be the best thing for me. Al-though I probably
will at some point. But if I hear a priest doing the wrong congregation, or
the wrong consecration formula, then I’m out the door. That’s not okay.
It’s another thing for Catholics. It IS the body and blood of Christ, okay?
It’s not just a symbol, so you’ve gotta do the consecration correctly - you
can’t just wing it. But no, Dignity’s great, just not really my thing. They
help a lot of people.

But yeah, so if you’re not really into the Dignity scene, it’s really hard to
be a queer Catholic. It doesn’t suck, I’m not going to say that, although
sometimes it does feel that way, but it’s difficult. But you know, it’s the
difficulty, it’s when St. Paul talks about the thorn that he experiences, and
his strength and weakness. And I mean, I think the upside of that is that
it brings us closer to an understanding and is a cause for our humility.
Humility in a good sense, not being humiliated, but being humble and
being, and not being prideful. So, yeah. It’s interesting.

It’s hard not to talk about my life, it’s hard to talk about a lot of things
without certain threads of identity. Like I can’t really explain my life
unless I say I’m gay, I can’t explain unless I say I’m Catholic or mentally ill,
I mean it’s another thing kind of. I don’t call myself a person with mental
illnesses. No, I’m depressive. It’s an identity for me and a very political
one. But that’s kind of another story. I think we’ve talked a lot about
religion and I’d love to cover a couple of other things in the interview
since I’m not, my life does revolve around God, because it should, but
there are other components other than going to church and dealing with
church issues.

Do you have one off the top of your head that you want to pull out?

Well, now that you ask, [sneezes] excuse me. No, I’d love to honestly talk
about kind of, how I got, how I kind of went from being this, kind of, you
know, well not closeted, because you have to know you’re in the closet,
but I’m going to say very kind of sexually disconnected young person, to
being, I mean, to working for Queer Caper. Basically I think that’s kind of
an interesting story. So how did I get involved with Queer Salt Lake aka
Salt Lake Metro. For younger people in the audience, we started out of
Salt Lake Metro and through a long and involved story, ended up kind of
forming another newspaper called Q Salt Lake. It’s the same thing, same
staff. So the way I started was actually by a very strange accident. So
this is just slightly after I get over the whole sexuality and religion issue.
Literally, just about nine months, bizarrely nine months, I’m finishing up
at the University of Utah and I have my Honors thesis. Turns out I’d
screwed up the title page. I had formatted it in the descending pyramid, it
was supposed to be an ascending pyramid, I don’t know, it was really
dumb. So I had to go in and with the correctly typed up page and get it
signed again, honestly the most irritating thing. So I went in and as I was
waiting for my advisor, I was checking out one of the posting boards
where people, if the department gets a mailing like, hey, there’s going to
be a conference and we need papers, they put that up, or hey, somebody
needs to hire a proofreader and they pay $9 an hour, they put that up.
One of the flyers on this board was, “Hey! We’re starting up a gay
newspaper and we’re looking for writers.” And I hadn’t done journalism, I
was about, how old was I? I was about 23 at the time. I hadn’t really done
any journalistic writing since I was 17 and at that age it feels like a huge
expanse of time. Now not so much, but you know, 17 to 23, a lot happens.
Though I said, you know, I was kind of getting into other forms of writing
other than play writing, which was what I wanted to do for about a decade
of my life. And I said, “Hey, I can do this. Especially if they pay.” So I
called them up and said, you know, “I’m interested,” and the editor of the
time, who actually, I have his job, but that took several years, said send
me over some samples, and I did. And I felt a little weird about them
cause I thought well, you know, showing him stuff I kind of wrote when I
was 17, I’m a lot better now. But I guess it worked enough for him and he
said, “Yeah, we’ll give you a first assignment.” So I went out and covered
the Stonewall Caucus meeting in 2004.

So this was at the big Democratic state convention. So I kind of followed

what they were doing and talked to a couple candidates about whether
they were pro-gay or not. I did an interview with Peter Corroon, with
Jackie Biskupski who was then the only GLBTQ member of the State
Legislature, now three of them. Well I guess, four openly gay in the state
because of Stan being on the City Council, but she was the only out person
at the time. So I talked to her a little bit, got to know her a little bit. She
was probably, “Who is this kid?” cause I kind of knew who she was, but I
kind of hadn't known exactly what she had done. It was a little bit of an
awkward situation, but I hope she's forgiven me since. I hope she's not
watching this and remembers me. So that worked out really well and I
just kind of kept on and really liked it. And I left at the end of that
summer to go to Louisville, Kentucky because I had a theater internship. I
was going to do, remember I still want to be in the theater at this point.
And so I said, “Can I keep writing for you while I'm there.” And I said I
don't really see a problem.
So I did a couple of articles every issue, and did some news briefs and
things like that. And as I was working, I was a literary intern at the
Actor's Theater of Louisville, as any theater fag knows, sorry I shouldn't
use that word, as any queer per-son knows, especially gay guys, that’s a
really important theater in the country. Not only because they do some
really excellent work, but because they have what's called the Humana
Festival for their plays, which is basically the most prestigious theater
festival in the country. A lot of really good plays get their start there. So
I was very eager to work for them and honestly when I was done with that
internship, if I had wanted, I could have probably moved on and not been
doing this interview with you now, because I would have been in the
theater somewhere in the country reading scripts. But as cool as that
would have been, I discovered a few things.

I discovered, that as much as I love the theater, it and I were really going
in two separate directions. The kind of plays I was writing at the time
weren't really get-ting picked up for readings even though people were
asking to see copies of them. I really honestly in retrospect think that I'm
just a novelist poet and short story writer at heart, and it just took me a
little while to figure it out because I really did love drama, and still love
the theater quite a bit. I think I burned myself out a little by that point
too, and honestly I was loving what I was doing for Salt Lake Metro. I just
loved it a lot and honestly if Michael Aaron sees this I'm going to deny it
later, no kidding, no, its just I've never told him this, but there's no reason
not to, it was really largely because of this newspaper that I came home.

At the time I thought I could have gotten a job as a drama [__?__] at Salt
Lake Acting Company and they didn't really need people, and then I just
said, okay fine, I'll just pursue this instead, and my poetry at that time
was getting a lot more recognized. People were wanting to buy it from me
and publish it. And some of my short stories as well, and it just ultimately
was a good turnout. I don't really regret doing things as I did, although I
do miss the theater quite a bit, and some-times do wonder what my life
might have been like if I kept up with it, but I probably would have been
really mad at the theater after a while because, it just wasn't at the time,
and maybe still isn't now, kind of going where I was interested. But you
know that's okay. Things happen. So yeah because of the paper I'm kind
of here with you. And I’ve been with them as I told you before we started
since 2004; it's now almost 2010. I've been the assistant editor there
since 2007, January, and it's a job I've liked quite a bit. It can be very
stressful at times, but every single job in the world is. Its' a lot of hard
work but I think there is a lot of satisfaction in it. And I mean I'm not
afraid of hard work to begin with, but there's a lot of satisfaction in at
least helping the community getting information they need, and knowing
maybe sometimes you've written a story that has made a difference for
the better. I sincerely hope that my writing has done more of that than
making things worse.
So this is kind of a two-point question in response to that. So why do you
think at the time the Salt Lake Metro was begun in the first place, like
what need was it fulfilling, or what was I guess the vision of the people
involved in that? And kind of related to that, why, if you could go a little
more specifically into the role that you think your work specifically plays
in it, or that the Q Salt Lake plays in our community now.

Okay, well to be fully honest with you, I was there when they were
starting up, so when they opened their doors and they were putting out
their first issue, so I wasn't privy to a lot, to any really of the
conversations of why it was needed. And kind of how it was set up and all
that. I didn't know anybody who was involved in it until I made that, you
know, pivotal phone call. From what I've gleaned over the years working
there, and I'm not trying to bag on the Pillar which was the only, the main
newspaper in the city at the time. They were a great publication but from
what I've gathered, it seems honestly like that was a monthly publication,
the Pillar was, and when Salt Lake Metro started out, and even today,
we're twice monthly. The schedules changed a bit but there are two
papers a month and sometimes three, depending on how long the month
is and what our print schedule looks like. There are twenty six issues that
we do a year now. And when you're coming out that much more often, so
that's like double the times of the monthly, you can just cover more news
and you cover it in a different way, it's a little more timely. I think we're
honestly ready at that point in our history because this is 2004, this is the
same year we had the [___?___] campaign, this is three years after Equality
Utah changes its name. So it goes from being Unity Utah to Equality Utah.
I think that was in 2001 that they did that but I could be wrong. This is
really...we've long since had a very gay-friendly city.

I remember as early as 1999 hanging out at the Queer Student Union at

the U. Actually I think it was then the Gay/Lesbian Student Union, so yeah
I feel like an old-timer. I remember feeling very welcomed and affirmed
there, but I think it was re-ally about 2003 and 4 that things really started
heating up, because now we've got a gay marriage ban on our doorsteps.
Now we've actually got, you know, a law that's going to be a threat. Not
that they gay adoption bill in 2000 wasn’t but this was stepping this up.
This was a Constitutional amendment. So I think, I don't know exactly
what role that played in the community, and Michael Aaron would be a
great person to talk to if you haven't already. I’m sure you know that.
But I’m assuming that was part of it. As I’m assuming that the difference
in publication schedules was. And just the Pillar, I think it was also
gearing towards a slightly younger demographic than the Pillar was,
although I can't say for certain about that. So I think those were the
reasons.

And as far as the role that the paper fills in the community, it's interesting
because in this decade, especially in the latter part of it, I think we've
seen a lot of mainstream papers picking up a lot more gay stories than
they certainly did in the 80s and 90s, and I would say even in the 2001 and
2. They’re a lot better about it now. So I wouldn't say that oh we're the
only ones talking about Equality Utah or the Common Ground Initiative or
whatever but there is still that community niche. I think I actually saw
somebody, it was Ruby Ridge, and she actually made the same argument
and I fully agree with it so I’m going to regurgitate it here. It's really
filling a niche because typically one of the big papers talk about us, it
really is still for a straight audience because it always starts out when
they're doing a story, and not to bag on them, but it's different when
you're talking to straight people then when you're talking to family. But
these stories always start out, oh you know, uh, Heather is raising this
four year old boy and three paragraphs down, it's like, and three
paragraphs down it's like, and surprise, she's gay! Right? And you know,
and it's just very clearly written for people who really have no idea what
this is like. We don't need to do that because everyone knows what it’s
like that's reading it. I mean, we've got straight people that are reading it
too, but it is geared towards queers. So I think it's just helpful to kind of
see stories told to you instead of about you.

But then again, also with kind of the dailies, they really still are focusing
very much on hard news so like the mayor signing the two ordinances for
fair housing and workplace laws that now include sexual orientation and
gender identity. I mean those are big newsworthy things that papers are
going to cover regardless. But you know we're still not getting things like
certain vigils they don't come to, or certain things people want to know
about that aren't necessarily these big political, thousands of people
marching around Temple Square. You know they're still not covering, and
for a reason, because straight readers don't care. Why would they care
that there's going to be a bingo night down at the church, you know? So
there is a very community feel bout it which I think a lot of people like. I
mean, I’m hoping I’m not completely off-base and people who are
watching are like, no that's not why I read Q. But that seems to me to be
one of the reasons, and you know, like I said, it's just a slightly different
take on things. Again we're articles where we don't have to spend forever
explaining what transgendered is, not that a lot of, you know, cisgendered
people know necessarily, but at least GLB people who are cis at least have
heard what transgendered means, kind of knows transgendered people,
so the setup you get to, half it at least, and you know its honestly having
opening gay, lesbian, bi and trans columnists, although I don't think we've
ever had a trans person, so I probably shouldn't say that . GLB then. You
know, just talking about issues from that perspective. You are not going
to see that in the Tribune. People would have, I mean if you've looked at
the message boards, there are at least five people I can think of who
might have aneurisms at the very suggestion. It's just not going to
happen at least not now. The only kind of people that would really do that
I think are the alternatives, and that is just about getting ready to get into
the City Weekly and the Catalyst, who Ruby had mentioned, have treated
our community very well. And I think they have, but for as amazing as the
City Weekly's coverage can be, and I'm not trying to trash that or the
Catalyst at all, it's still not all about gays all the time. And what it is, is
that you get a slightly different perspective. And while I think there's a
universe of difference between, say, issues that racial minorities face and
sexual minorities face, there is a little overlap, kind of like the circles
where there is a tiny bit of overlap in the middle. They're very different,
but I would say its the same as having [___?___] newspaper, where as you
might get, you know, coverage of immigration rallies or immigration
issues in the newspaper – that's only the tip of the iceberg you're getting.
And again, what are the stories you see in the Deseret News and the Salt
Lake Tribune, with the exception of a couple of features every now and
then that just seem to pop up for whatever reason, its the political stuff
about laws and about signing bills and about domestic partner ordinances
and about Buttars, you know, spewing his mouth off about gays again. I
mean it's not really about all the other issues we face so I think that's a
very long answer to your question but I think it's all about that. I would
say from my perspective, that's what it is, readers might say something
different and we're going to put out our reader survey which we haven't
done since I think '05 in a few months. It's going to come out soon and
then we'll see honestly what people are feeling. What they want to see
and what need it is serving for them, and what needs it can serve.

But I’m very excited about gay papers even though they seem to be in a
perilous time right now. As we're doing this interview of course, this
comes about a week after the Washington Blade and all the papers that
Windows Media owned which is about five in total, after they've closed up,
but they aren't the only papers out there and it is really honestly sounding
like it was largely due to bad economy and probably even more are due to
some really stupid financial decisions on their part. Decisions which we
aren't making. So I’m very excited about what queer media can do and
what it is continuing to do, and while I’m very nervous about the changes
that are going on in journalism as we speak, and I wouldn't say I'm
necessarily excited to see what's going to happen, I’m confident that
queer media is not going to go away, just like, you know, Latino and
Latina media is not going to go away, and black media is not going to go
away, and any kind of minority media is not going to go away. Because,
you know, there's still are those issues of privilege out there that makes
so much of reporting you know, straight cisgen-dered white and upper
middle class, and when that's not what America looks like at all and not
what it's ever looked like.

Sure I think that's really interesting. That's a very very important kind of paradigm
shift. Some of the interviews we did earlier today are with people who grew up in
he 40's and 50's.

Oh interesting.

Where, so here you're talking about queer people speaking for ourselves. To our-
selves, versus, I’m an isolated individual and I’m receiving the rhetoric of that
straight white cisgender whatever, and that seems like its a super, super crucial
transition.

I love to talk of it about that because the people you're interviewing grew
up in the 40's and 50's you said right?
Um hm.

I grew up in the 80's and 90's, so that's, we're at least two, maybe three
genera-tions apart. My mom was born in '43 so we're actually three
generations apart. She's just a little before the baby boomers. But I think
a lot has changed then. So since some of these folks you were talking to
have been were born and grew up, we've had homophile movement in the
50's, we've had Stonewall, we've had, I’m trying to remember the name of
it, Ben Williams would slap me, because I edit his stuff all the time, and
it's looted my mind, but we have, I want to say the Gay Liberation Front,
but that's not right, but we had the movement, we had the change in the
homophile movement that started right after Stonewall with a lot of, kind
of, more radical gays for lack of a better word, saying, “Why are we trying
to say ‘Yes, we're mentally ill. Don't hit us,’ we should be proud of who we
are.” Then we get into things like AIDS and Act Up which is what was
going on when I was, I mean I’m born in 1980, AIDS hit in 1981, so I mean I
don't remember a time when this was not a concern. I don't really
remember a time when even though I didn't know what Act Up was when I
was 7, 8 and 9, that was still going on and I’m still getting the effects of
that somehow. Even out there in white cisgendered straight Utah.
[laughter] But that is a very big paradigm shift, so we've, I mean, you can
see it sometimes, even in how we talk.

So I’m kind of, at the, one of the senior members of Gen Y, sometimes I
wonder if I should be in Gen X. I think Gen Y because, honestly, what do I
have in common with 40 year olds? I mean, we're at completely different
places in our lives. But it's interesting because people in Gen Y and the
very tail end of Gen X feel a lot more comfortable with words like “queer.”
As, “I'm a queer youth,” “I’m a queer woman.” Whereas I know if I say
that around somebody that you might have been interviewing today, he or
she would flinch. Because that was an insult, and since then we've been
reclaiming it, and I think we've reclaimed it quite successfully. But there
has been a very large paradigm shift. It's all about becoming more proud
about who we are. Saying that, you know, sexual orientation that is not
straight, and gender identity that is not cisgender isn't a bad thing – it's
not a disease. And you know, since then another thing, we've had
homosexuality taken out off the DSM as a disease. Although, and I could
be wrong about this, but it seems like there's some debate about whether
or not they're going to bring transgenderism back. I’m really hoping
that's a rumor.

Well I know that gender identity disorder is still in the DSM.

Yeah and a lot of transgendered people, I don't want to speak for them,
but from what I understand, some people have a real problem with that.
We probably shouldn't go much further into that. But it is interesting and
I’d love to talk for a minute about pathology and sexual orientation, if that
doesn't feel too much like we're derailing anything. I find it kind of
troubling. Let's see how do I exactly want to phrase this. I mean, it was
just ridiculous that homosexuality was ever considered a disease. Same
with transgenderism. That's probably not even the right word, but you
know what I’m trying to say. Because it isn't something that harms
anybody. There are things that you can do with that orientation that are
harmful, and there are ways that society can harm you because of it, but
in and of itself it doesn't cause any discomfort, or unhappiness, or
malfunction, and when people realize it, there really wasn't a case for
leaving it in. So that's kind of its own separate issue. But when I hear
people often saying about, “Hey, we're not on the DSM anymore,” there's
this sense of "Oh thank god we're not considered sick or crazy, and as a
depressive and someone with mental illnesses other than depression, I’m
willing to take objection to that. Because yeah, I mean, obviously it never
should have been in there, but you know what's wrong with being
mentally ill, I mean its not a picnic, its not a lot of fun things to it, but it
doesn't mean that you are damaged and awful and not really a person,
and I think that stigma’s still very much out there. I’ve been saying this
forever and people sometimes, like my girlfriend I don't think really likes it
when I say it, but I think that the gay rights movement, and the movement
that is just kind of starting to get recognition within the disability
community of people with mental illnesses, I think they have a lot to learn
from one another. And I’ve thought this forever, but I wasn’t really able
to verbalize why until recently. And I think it’s because we have that
history of pathology right? Even though one is, you know, clearly a mental
illness and one isn't. But we have that shared background where at one
time if I had gone into a psychiatrist I would have been diagnosed as a
depressive and as a lesbian and confined to an institution, because of one
or the other, and that shared history I think makes it easier to talk to one
another, even though, especially since you have movements that are still
very real because this is only ‘73 that we take these out of the DSM
disorders, there is still a very large movement in the country that does
treat homosexuality as a disease.

I mean let’s talk about reparative therapy or about some Christian-run

counseling services. If it were true that people no longer believed other
than the APA and there's even a movement in the APA that is kind of like
not cool with it being taken out, but if all of society believed this then we
wouldn't need a LGBQT therapist guild in Utah to say, “Hey, we're
affirming we don't believe in reparative therapy. If you want a therapist
who won't say you should go to Evergreen, come to us.” I just did a story
with them. This is 2009 we wouldn't have them if there wasn't that
pathology argument that was still out there. So I think that as when we
are talking about alliance-building within oppressed communities, there is
a hell of a lot we can learn from one another and I think that it just is not
being learned because nobody, because gay people are like, "We don't
want to be associated with crazy people!"

It's like, it's still totally acceptable to call people crazy, or insane, or
bonkers, or nuts. You hear it all the time in political discourse. Especially,
liberals do it I think almost worse than conservatives do. Because what do
you hear? The right wing nuts. The crazy Republicans. The crazy
Libertarians. The crazy people who were there. It's still totally acceptable
to call people that, and it's wrong. And really honestly hurts because
people with mental illnesses aren't stupid, we see what you're doing.
[laughter]

I think that this is a huge missed opportunity to form an alliance,

including with the larger disability community who get mental illness
issues. Not all of them do. And often I don't feel very welcome in the
disability community because I hear words like crazy b_ thrown around.
And I hear words like temporarily able-bodied, where I feel kind of like
well, you know, my illness is just a part of my body, just you can't see the
part of the body that it's in. You know, it doesn't necessarily have to
affect the way I move, although it does. You might have heard of a
symptom of depression called, essentially motor retardation. And
honestly sometimes I will be so depressed that like if I were to reach out
and turn off the microphone, if you asked me to do that and I was in a
clinical depression, I might not be able to. Or I might be exhausted by the
time I could hit the power button. But that's kind of on the side. There’s
a tremendous possibility to build an alliance here and it's, honestly I think
that we don't want to be seen as crazy people. Because again that's the
worst thing you can be. And also because we're only about twenty years
out from being a diagnosis. I think that's the reason it's not happening. I
doubt you're going to hear anyone else say that in one of these
interviews. Intersectionality is out there.

And it's fortunate cause this is people that are at the intersections that are going to,
like you're doing right now. Bringing awareness to..

Exactly. You know, I'm a lot of different minorities. Clearly, I'm white,
although not so much. I sometimes wonder about white privilege because
a lot of people say I'm a person of color. But you know, that's kind of
beside the point. I mean I'm female, I'm bisexual which is kind of a
minority in the GLBT community, a friend of mine who's transgendered
often says it's like the big L, the big G, the little b, and the little t. Right?
[laughter] You know, but it is being at a kind of this, and you know,
mental illness which is another minority group. And also kind of the
broader category of disability. But you're absolutely right, I think it is
people who, do I mean everybody has intersectionality going on in their
lives. They just may not think about it. But it is kind of being forced to
think about all these different issues that make me a little more willing to
grasp what intersectionality means. And able to kind of, in my own daily
living, kind of work that again into social justice that I'm interested in.
And how, I mean I'm not usually out there waving signs or anything
because I'm a reporter, I have to be writing in a notebook. But you can be
an activist without doing, that it's honestly just how you behave
sometimes in daily life and what kind of, if you hear someone saying,
"Stop being a psycho," you say, "You really shouldn't call people that
because first of all, it's an insult, and secondly it comes from the clinical
term psychopath or psychopathy which is no longer used.” It's not
antisocial personality disorder. So you're basically calling somebody who
just did something, I don't know, weird or unexpected, let's say I'm
running around making faces and someone says, "You're such a psycho
JoSelle," well, you've essentially called me a sociopath! I mean, you know,
think about these things! We’re getting off on a bit of a tangent. But
yeah. Intersectional issues are important to me. So what else should we
talk about?

Let's see. What kind of important change have you seen, so you're kind of in a
privileged position as far as seeing the big arc of LGBTQ history in Salt Lake City.

Absolutely.

What is it that you think have been some really, crucial transformations that you've
been witness to.

That I've been witness to, yeah. Cause I clearly can't speak for anything
before the 80's and probably even during the 80's. What things have I
seen? And again, just keep in mind this was really on the periphery of my
awareness growing up because I thought I was, you know straight. If I
thought I was gay we didn't want to deal with that. So, important things.
Clearly, 1995 we have the West High GSA, gay-straight alliance. I would
have been, I was in high school at the time. Or was I, I forget exactly what
date that was, and the date, what time of the year that happened is
crucial because it means I was either in 9th grade or 10th grade. So I’m
either a young high schooler or about ready to leave middle school. But
I'm kind of in that area when this happens. You know what, I think it was
high school. So I'm a freshman in high school and, you know, not
identifying as gay at that time, but definitely seeing, and thinking that it
was very cool that students walked out of their classes in protest because
they weren't going to allow this club to happen. And just hearing my mom
talk about how really ridiculous Senator Hatch was behaving, because hey,
it was kind of his fault that this happened in the first place, because he
was pushing this legislation through to say, “We want Bible clubs.” Well,
you know, if you can allow that, you can allow a GSA. And you know, I
went to Hillcrest High School which is just up the road from where we're
doing this interview. We didn't have a Gay-Straight Alliance officially
there because I don't know how it is now, but at the time it was a very
conservative neighborhood. But I do remember hearing some rumors that
there was an unofficial one, and there was some redhead girl who worked
as a janitor who was a lesbian, and, "oh my god," but I didn't know who
they were talking about. I think I might have seen some red-haired girl
pushing a mop at some point but I wasn't telling tales out of school or
anything I didn't know. I mean there was that rumor I heard. I think it
was from a good friend. Also the same friend who didn't want to go to the
U of U because there were lesbians in the theater department, I told her, I
said, "What? I don't think there are lesbians," and she's like, "Yes! There
are lesbians in the theatre department!" I mean, there were tons of gay
guys but I don't think I ever met any lesbians when I went there. So,
yeah, I kind of wish she'd been right.
And if you're uncomfortable with queer people, theatre might not be the best field
for you to go into.

I didn't know that at the time, but yeah. That would have been really
funny. Well, she's a good person, she just, I don't know if she's still that
homophobic. I hope not. She, I have her friended on Facebook. I should
talk to her at some point. She friended me. And I know she works for the
Church. That might be an interesting conversation. The Church being the
Mormon Church. So I know, that was very pivotal. And not necessarily, I
wasn't a student at West High, clearly. But just seeing what kids my age
could do and seeing that kids my age weren't saying, "Hey, this is okay.
Whatever. We're going to stay in class." They were actively, even the
straight ones, supporting the queer kids in this club. And seeing Rachel
Bachman giving a speech and she, for the young people watching this, she
was actually not gay but a young Jewish lady who brought a suit against
the choir at her school because they were presented as a Mormon choir in
places, when you know it's a public education choir. And a choir in a
public school and you can't really do that. And because of the religious
slant of a lot of their holiday songs, all being Christmas carols and not
really representing any other culture, so that was interesting to see her
get involved. So this was '95. '98 we have Matthew Shepherd getting
murdered and I feel horrible that I can't really say that I was at this and
this place when I heard about it and these were my thoughts. It really
honestly feels in a way that I'm saying it wasn't important to me, even
though that's not the case at all. That I just don't remember what my
reaction was for whatever reason. But again, you know it's like dealing
with AIDS, that was in the culture all around me. And certainly when I
joined QSU, I keep calling it that, wasn't that at the time.

It was GSU.

Yeah GSU. When I joined that, I mean, certainly we talked about it there.
Just kind of knowing that there were some real violent people out there
that could hurt me if they really wanted to. I really honestly think it was
with the Laramie project I started thinking about that. And other than
honestly thinking that it was an incredibly horrible murder, you know, I
really honestly think it took me about a decade to really realize its place in
the West history and in America’s history. And that was honestly after
reading Judy Shepherd's book, which I recommend everybody pick up. It'll
take you about an hour or two. It's very breezily written but very
poignant and a really good snapshot of what the country went through
and what she and her family went through. It was really only talking to
her for an interview for Q Salt Lake which was wonderful, very sweet lady,
that really kind of made me start thinking about what exactly especially in
the West, what society had been like for GLBTQ people before and after.
It's a very hard-to-find line absolutely. Because I really honestly think
that it was just such a brutal horrific terrifying murder that people just
honestly felt that they had no choice but to stand up and talk about it
because it had just. It was that tipping point. Things had just gone so far,
that you couldn't afford to be silent anymore. And you know we already
have this framework being built up in the mid 90's with like GSA's and
that, interestingly enough, that happening in Salt Lake being the shot in
the arm that ...I’m going to muff this I know...I want to say the Safe
Schools project but it's the GLSEN the Gay Lesbian Straight Education
Network. What they really needed, that West High alliance was really
what got them going. I’ve actually talked to the director of it. He said,
"Yeah if it weren't for you guys, GSA's may never really have caught on
because that was all of this attention being focused on them." And you
know there was that undercurrent of that coverage with, "Oh this is
happening. Weird," you know. Evil Utah. Which is sort of how we're
always portrayed. That bothers me.

We can get into kind of what I think about Utah and how Utahans are seen
in the media too. But it was definitely that upswelling really, that I think
helped propel Matthew Shepherd's murder into becoming this whole
movement for hate crimes laws and, you know, to really address
homophobia. Oh heterosexism, I like calling better. But really address
that. So there was definitely that and some other things that were
important. Definitely Amendment 3 and the Federal marriage
amendment. I really think that coalesced a lot of gay activism. GLBT
activism around the country. It’s interesting I said gay there. And you
know for political reasons. But I think that really focused a lot of energy
there even though I do think there's a lot to the argument that maybe
marriage isn't what we should be pushing for right now. But that was
certainly, but that was very important to stop because it would have been
writing discrimination into the constitution and creating a separate class
of people. So people were very right to get alarmed at that no matter
what their stance on the issue.

I think that and Amendment 3 and then of course Prop 8 this last year,
which I really think we wouldn't have seen kind of, 2.0, Stonewall 2.0
which I think is almost, kind of what people have said, minimizing what
this is. But I don't think we would have seen this resurgence if it had just
been Prop 8 passing, it would have been like "suck" but it was all on the
same night that Obama gets elected. That all of this rhetoric about
change comes to fruition. That a lot of people didn't think was going to
happen. A lot of people thought McCain was going to win. Even with
Sarah Palin kind of you know dragging him down. I mean it was very
interesting covering the march around Temple Square to hear people
screaming , "Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!" taking up Obama’s
chant really. And not even in an appropriate way because his whole point
with that speech is that we could make the America that we deserve and
wanted regardless, and he didn't say anything about you know this is a
racial issue or this is an issue about sexism. No it was everybody who was
fair-minded and wanted a better and more equitable America could
participate, so I mean just having that message and not everybody there
I’m sure voted for Obama but I think most everybody there was probably
inspired by what he had to say. So Obama’s election definitely, I’m trying
to think of what else, cause these seem like very obvious ones.
And for every obvious big thing like this there are a million other little
things that go on. I mean we could talk about anti-retroviral drugs
becoming so effective and how that really kind of slowed people dying.
We could talk about Magic Johnson, you know being public about having
AIDS and how this straight basketball player oh my god suddenly
everybody can get it when hello, diseases don't discriminate. I mean
these are all things that are important. All things that are leading up to it
and especially, oh my god, AIDS and Act Up. I mean, let's be clear, not
everything Act Up did I’m cool with. Going in and disrupting masses and,
oh my god, jumping stomping on communion wafers. I mean I totally get
that there's a lot of people have a lot of hurt in the Catholic Church. Hell,
I experienced some of that. But that's just not okay. You know what I
mean, for so many reasons. Some of their tactics I would call
questionable at the very least. But I mean that whole kind of in-your-face
activism which wasn't new. We certainly saw some of that coming out of
Stonewall. But I think that was also very important. So it's all of these
little things that are kind of fitting together like puzzle pieces. It's really
interesting to look at the movement since, I’d say the homophile
movement in the 50's, because from my vantage as a relatively young
queer person, if you'd put me down with Ben Williams face to face, we'd
probably have a lot to disagree over. He has oodles more experience and
a lot more years on me. The way I see it working is just a lot of
interlocking pieces that are just working to a slow build. And I’m thinking
that Prop 8 is going to be even bigger for the community because of this
Federal Court suit which was just announced today that they will hear.

And we've got the Bush vs. Gore warriors involved. Two straight white
dudes who have no stake in whether or not this wins or loses and god one
of them was on bush's side. I mean , you know he’s not exactly you know
living in San Francisco drinking martinis at HRC events. You know what I
mean? But he's saying this is important and this is wrong. And I hate to
say it but once you start getting people like that on your side, again the
straight white middle classness that's really when movements begin to
take off.

The tipping point you think.

It’s the tipping point, and it's all about bullshit privilege issues you know.
And that's just the way it goes unfortunately. Unfortunately why I think
racism is still incredibly strong in America, despite having, you know, the
Civil Rights Movement and so many gains with that. It’s because it's very
hard for straight white people, and not even to say straight, for white
people to get involved in because it's like, you know, we just don't see life
the way people of color do. We don't experience, for the most part,
racism. So it's very easy to ignore. And I think less so easy to ignore if
you're a white straight person because even if the gay person you're
talking to has a different partner, they're still white. They still have those
racial experiences. So I think unfortunately, racism is just really even
stronger than homophobia was a couple decades ago because of the
incredible race problems that, race problems America has and the fact
that we're so bad, at least white people are, at addressing them and really
listening to what people of color are saying. This is a big struggle I kind of
went through this year trying to make myself listen at least a little more.
I don't want to say understand even, but at least, you know, not get
defensive and hear what people were trying to tell me about their
experiences as people of color. I don't do very well on race issues but at
least I’m trying.

That’s an interesting point. That maybe...

Yeah.

...the reason why queer rights have come so fast and racial rights have come so
slowly is that queer people can pop up in privileged families.

Yes they can.

It’s easier for queer people to undermine that system of oppression directed at
them than it is for people of color – that's what it sounds like.

Absolutely, you can have like the most bigoted, you know, let's say, I don't
want to use stereotypes here, but let's say that you have got a really anti-
gay father who's white and finds out one day that his son is gay, and
maybe, you know, he'll reject his son and never want anything to do with
him again but let's say that he comes around. Yeah it's totally fine to do
that because no matter what his son is doing in the bedroom or who he's
attracted to he's still a white person. Now it's just not the same with
people of color because then again, its just like you've got all these
centuries of white supremacy to deal with, so it's just not that easy cause
you know a black person for the most part doesn't pop up in a white family
unless your son goes out and marries somebody who's black, and then
you've got to deal. And even then there's an interracial marriage which is
kind of different. There’s still a white person involved. And you know
even with biracial people it's often, like Obama for example, he's biracial
but he's black identified, and a lot of biracial folks will identify with the
“of color” side as it were. Because it's what people see when they look at
them. I mean if you're looking at somebody who has got black skin that
you can identify as black skin you’re not going to say, you know for the
most part, "I wonder if her mom was white," first you're going to see
that's a black person right? I mean this is my understanding, I could be
completely off base. I don't like speaking for anybody that I’m not a
member of, as far as group goes, but that just kind of what I’ve been
hearing. And that makes me really interested to hear what queer people
of color have to say, and often how they feel the movement is very, the
queer rights movement is not only kind of hostile to bi and especially to
trans people, but to queer people of color, that the reason it's getting a
lot of traction is because of white gay and lesbian people. And gay men in
particular. So yeah, there’s a lot to that, and to truly be a more powerful
movement we're going to have to be a less white movement. Or a less
white supremacist movement.
Our time is actually just about up.

Oh my god, how long have we been talking?

A little bit over an hour.

Wow.

So do you have anything that you want to close on? Anything that you want to talk
about that you didn't think we touched on?

I just rambled the entire time. I hope I haven't.

I'm trying to think of what to close on. Well let's talk about identity. And
another thing that kind of the younger person who is being interviewed
for the series that older people, you're probably not hearing a lot of the
same. In my experience, it seems like older members of the movement
really have kind of stratified kind of identities. Especially lesbians. I
mean, there was this big article in the New York Times a while ago that
had some problems with it but mainly, it did point out about why lesbian
separatist communities are graying, as it were, and not really attracting
new members. And I don't think its because sexism in the country has
gotten any better. I think that moves in a lot of the same ways as racism
does. Although a little better than that's gone, but anyway. I think it
honestly is because the idea of identity has changed so much especially
for women. So in the last two years since 2008, we've had Lisa Diamond's
book come out sexual fluidity, about women's sexual identities, and just
how honestly changeable they are. Not necessarily that, like, some
people try to make it sound like you can just wake up and say, “I’m going
to be straight today,” or, “I can totally be straight if I want to,” but just
how much movement there is kind of within the set of brackets, I guess is
a good way for me to explain it. It used to be the set of brackets used to
be this, but I think these days they are more like this. Probably more
even. For example, it's true of me to say all of these things: it's true to
say I’m bisexual because I’m attracted to both men and women, but I’d
say significantly more to women, so if people call me a lesbian I don't
really take issue to that, it's not quite accurate, but I don't think I’m going
to ever date a guy again, so it's okay. You can say lesbian-identified
bisexual in fact I think that's the most apt to describe me. You can say
pan sexual for me because I’m not, it's not that I don't see gender,
because I think that's a ridiculous way, it's like saying "I don't see race,"
well of course you do it's just that gender is irrelevant to me in who I’m
attracted to. I’ve been attracted to cisgender people to transgender
people to people of about every different race out there, especially women
of every different race you can think of although I know that's not a part
of sexuality necessarily. It's more about gender identity. It’s just that any
kind of gender identity or sexual identity on the spectrum, you know, I’ll
probably be attracted to you. It won't be a deal breaker if you are this...I
won’t consider that. So pansexual can be thrown in. Queer, absolutely.
And there are a couple others I was thinking about that could apply to me.
I said lesbian already. Yeah, I mean, just they're kind of different things.
There are about 5 that we went through that you could apply to me.
Whereas I think that would have been unthinkable a couple of generations
ago. And certainly for people growing up in the 40's and 50's. It just
been, No we've got to stay to this one label cause it's the only thing
people understand,” right? When you say lesbian, it's not like you can
qualify that. It interesting talking to some really good friends of mine who
are heterosexual but who were raised in that time period. If I try to tell
them I’m bisexual they honestly hear that I’m undecided. And it's like, it's
not the same thing, you know what I mean? I've just given up trying to
explain because it just takes too long, and I don't figure they're ever going
to get it. And that's okay, you know, it's unfortunate but it's what they've
dealt with, and it's hard sometimes to step out of your experience. It
sucks but that's the truth and it's interesting to see kind of where this
next generation, so my age and a little, people just right behind me, what
our own identity politics are going to lead for us doing, and then, what the
generations who will come around and we're being interviewed and in our
40's 50's 60's 70's and on up what we'll be saying about those kids today.
“Oh god, when I was, we had a lot of identities back then, but we didn't
have some of these weird identities that are out there now.” I don't know
what it will be but it will be interesting to see.

Or if it'll implode.

Or if it'll implode it will just go back just to being original. Though I don't
think, when something's out of the box, it'll go back in necessarily. But
it's interesting to see how identity has shaped a lot of gay rights
movements in Utah and abroad. Abroad being other states. And I’m sure
in other countries, although I am less knowledgeable. I’m not an
international news writer. I keep up very well I think, but I’m not an
expert. So identity is important and some other thoughts to close with.

Youth absolutely. What I’m very excited to see these days. One of the
things that is exciting me the most and moved me the most is the Youth
Pride Walk 2009 that my friends Chloe Noble and [___?____] are
participating in. And this is another oppressed group we're talking about.
Because not only are these, I mean they're trying to help all homeless
youth, but primarily all LGBTQ ones. So this is a very oppressed group
we're talking about, not only because of class and sexuality but because
they are considered throwaway people. I mean homelessness is kind of
it's own, it is a class issue, but it seems so big it is almost it's own, it is its
own oppression. Not even almost. And seeing these kids really have the
opportunity to get a voice and organizations that are trying to help them
get a voice and a say in things, I think that's gonna to be really where
people should be looking in the next decade even. To see what homeless
youth are going to do to make our country a more just place, especially for
homeless people. Which is just this, I will say this: listening to what Chloe
and Jill have gone through has completely changed how I see homeless
people and made me aware of prejudice I have against them that I wasn't
entirely aware of, and I’m very ashamed to admit I had. And probably still
have. So just the fact they're doing this is changing so much. And it'll be
interesting how intersectionality plays out as people hopefully start
catching on to things like forming alliances with mental ill people and
other groups. And I probably ran out your time now so. Thank you.

Thank you so much JoSelle. I think we got some really good stuff.

I hope I didn't babble too much.

Oh I just realized as we were talking. And again this is kind of my own

white privilege showing that I’m likem oh my god Yamashiro! I really hope
I didn’t' say anything about people of color that offended you or sounded
too ignorant.

Oh no.

If I did you would be totally fine in correcting me and yelling at me.

No.

I’ve been trying to get very educated on these issues.

No I don't think that, no I don't think there's anything.

Good, good. Cause I’m not very good at them. I will honestly admit that.

And I’m really I think, for me at least, whether it's talking with someone who's white
or someone who's straight or whatever, I think it's that intention that I have the best
intentions and maybe something comes out a little strange but it's almost more that
intention that's important.

I think that, one argument I’ve been reading about is that intention does
matter but often not for much because you can say horrible things but
have the best intentions but I think it's important because if somebody
has good intentions it's easier to approach them and say hey look what
you said was wrong or offensive or just badly thought out and this is why.

Yeah and I think that's like you were saying, sure stuff like that needs…[cut off]