laurie wood

could you please introduce yourself a little it

i’m Laurie Wood and i’m a native Utahn, grew up in Utah County, and i’ve lived all my life in Utah County.
and just recently, probably in the last 5 years moved to salt lake, but we were talking earlier aout
something that’s really important to me, is that how long it took me, and i look at people in my generation
to be able to live honestly to accept who i was in college i ran into older wiser lesbians i now know they’re
lesbians but they were very closeted and i never knew that side of them and could never figure out why
they had, there was always something that kept the friendship from going further, or the mentorship,
graduate school i ran into a teacher that i really admired and it wasn’t until later that i realized this shadow
part of her was because she was living a closeted life and so it was tough - almost 15 years as a closeted
person even though i was in along term relationship it’s amazing how you think youre going around
fooling people. and it really wasn’t until i turned 40 and had a midlife crisis left my job in public high
school and decided to be out in a new job - that was just amazing. so i feel like i’m really living a second
life. and i swore that if i can be a mentor and i look at kids that i teach, and adults, and do my turn as the
advisor for the Gay Straight club at UVU and i’ve had kids come to my office and come out - i’m the first
person they come out to, or i’ll have students come out in my classes when we start talking about queer
theory or something. so if i can be an honest person, at least in my queerness, for utah county kids,
that’s why i stay there.

so you talk about some of the encounters you’ve had with older closeted lesbians. do you want to talk
about some of the important interactions you had with them?

well, there, you know, i always thought i - i didn’t have any of the language, but you have some gaydar,
and you know if you have an affinity wiht someone. and to not have the language to talk about it, but then
have, i don’t know, people turn away. for example i had a professor at graduate school, of course she
was at BYU, i’m sure she had to be, you know, but everything you know you take things to a friendship,
but when you’re closeted, you just can’t be whole. and i always of course thought it was me. i though,
oh, there’s something wrong with me, there’s some reason why - and it really wasn’t until i learned the
langauge of being queer athat i could even talk about what it was that all these thigns i thought that i was
just doing all my life that you know ... i wasn’t such a weird person taht drove people way or something.
so i think more than anything i just learned that even though i admired these women, they were terribly
successful, they were great friends, they taught me a great deal, but they also taught me that it is just too
sad to live so - they were always 10, 15 years older than i am. it took me a long time but i finally got it.
i’m turining into them. i have to keep huge parts of my life compartmentalized and that takes so much
energy. i just didn’t want to do it anymore.

when you talk about learning the language of being queer - what is that language, and how does one
learn it?

well, i think when i first went to UVU, one of my colleagues was a very out lesbian. and i didn’t know
anything about queer theory, i didn’t know anything - i’d never meta alesbian that said they were a
lesbian. i knew utah county code very well, of you know, “roommates” and such, but to hear, and i
remember when she first said “queer” or “dyke” i’m just like whoo! but to be able to tlk about the self-
loathing and the internalized homophobia and the double consciousness that you have to... so i think just
learning theory and learning gender theory, race theory, queer theory, those sort of things i started to go
wow, that’s what i’ve been doing all these years and so everyone needs a queer to teach them the way.
and i think i was 40 before i said “yes, i’m lesbian.” and the world didn’t fall apart, and i started shouting it
from the rooftops. and then it has just led me to so many, you know, ways to be active, ways to be
political.

who were some important theorists for you.

butler, you’re going to catch me off guard. and who did i do my thing on... sedgwick. and just learning
about even language, just learning some sur and derrida, and learning wow, i can be a post-structuralist,
and i took my dog and pony, because you can alwasy go to conferences talking about being a queer
theorist in a conservative community sort of thing, so i was the post-modern, po-mo homo, ex-mo kind of
thing... even marxism, and learning about alienation, so theory made me more comfortable in my skin.

do you think having utah county background contributed in a meaningful sort of way, you’re saying
because i’m a pomo homo i’m that much more in demand at conferences like this?

well, it’s interesting. i speak utah county, i speak mormon, i speak that conservative utah valley way, and
so i think i understand my students, and i also understand, and it frightens me and it angers me how even
more conservative and more nazi-like it is than when i was growing up. it really is more oppressive. and
either i’ve forgotten, or i didn’t pay attention, but i think it’s bigger. i mean, when i grew up in american
fork, it was a small town, and there were no queers of course, in utah county. but i think, yeah, growing
up in utah, being in a small town, very white, very mormon, very conservative, it frustrates me that i see
mys tudents are still coming from towns like that. i keep thinking we’re no longer in the... i feel like i grew
up in the 50s even though i grew up in the 60s. i cna’t say i grew iup in the 60s, because they kind of
skipped over utah. the 60s, as we talk about the 60s. but yeah, i mean i am who i am, i am all of my
experiences. so sure it would have been great to have lived someplace where people udnerstood and i
was accpted and could have come out, but i don’t know who i’d be then.

so how do you think that it’s changed; you say that it’s gotten more conservative...?

well, i believe, and it’s my experience that the changes in the 70s with the influence of the LDS church, i
believe the church as a body turned more conservative and turned more - needed to have more control.
you know i read the same sex relationships in the 19th century, and you know, it just was not a big
deal, you know people like kate packer and dalin oaks came a long, and i think they just, the bigger they
got, the more control they needed. you know our scout master would say, just don’t drink on the scout
trips, and my mother wasn’t a very good mormon, and had her word of wisdom problems, but she could
be promary president and stuff. and boy, that just doesn’t happen now. but i think they saw the success
of the ERA, it just became more global. i dont’ know, maybe people i talk to... the LDS church that i gre
wup in is not recognizable today. it’s not the same thing. it doesn’t have - it’s way more divided, way
more divisive, way mor eblack and white it seems like, and even i went to graduate school at BYU in the
late 70s, and even then right after that they changed the organization and the president of the school was
no longer an academic leader, it was an ecclesiastic leader, and there was a sort of a cleansing, and they
did away siwht a log of graduate programs, and the BYU i went to wasn’t recognizable. i wouldn’t have
survived if it had been. i didn’t really mean to go off on the churhc. but anybody who’s raised here, and
who’s raised mormon, it become sa huge part of your life.

so how do you think that shift in the orientaion of the lds church has affected a queer kid growing up in
utah county now as opposed to when you were growing up?

i htink in a lot of ways it’s made it a lot more difficult, and i think on one hand people being encouraged to
come out and to be honest and then on the other hand, i’d rather see my kid dead than queer... i know so
many closeted parents - you know they can’t ome out, even if their kid goes off as a queer, they can’t
come out to their ward. so i think it pushes more people away. but i think there’s also more places fo
rthem to find - i don’t hink they have to be pushed away from the lds church and then they go to the
streets, they have more mentors and more people who they admire, and that’s what i want to be! if
somebody gets kicked out of their house, i want them t know they can at least come talk to me, and there
are people they respect and that are living good lives if they’re queer.

so you’re an educator. and you say that you had kind of a paradigm shift around your 40s. do you want
to talk about the education system a little bit, and how it sets up and serves or fails queer kids or queer
faculty.

because i was so closeted, and so working on being invisible, i think when i taught high school, i probably
willed myself not to - i wasn’t going to notice any kids, i wasn’t going to advocate for them, and so i don’t
think i went so far as to persecut ehtem or something, you know to protect myself. it wasn’treally until i
left, and i came out, that i got involved in GLSEN, and saw and got involved in the ACLU with the East
High Clubs, and then with the Wendy Weber lesbian teacher that was fired that i really realized how -
because i was invisible,a nd i was blin as well. so i think it’s still tough. i think there’s way too many
teachers who are afraid still, in utah.

coult you say a little bit about what GLSEN is

it’s the gay/lesbian educator’s organization, and it’s national. and they were very active during the whole
East High brew haha with teh legistlature. and they brought together a lot of educators, and i did some
workships, we did some play acting with how to deal with.

so were you involved wiht the East High struggles?

i just started in the ACLU at the end of that, and i knew the teacher camille lee who was the teacher at
east high and i knew here socially. and so i was just starting to be, as part of my awakening, politically
aware. so i got involved in the ACLU, and then one of my first acts as an ACLU person is i had a young
woman who my gaydar told me was lesbian in one of my classes. and i don’t know, we just got to talking
and something about, are we going to have class during UEA, or whatever, this was on the UVU campus,
and she told me where she lived and the ACLU was trying to get ahold of wendy weaver to help her out
because she had been fired. and so i asked this woman, do you know wendy, and she said, oh, she’s my
partner. and i said, we’re here to help you. and so i took them and went with them to talk with the
attorneys, and probably ruined their lives, but they did great. and i don’t know if that... that went on and
on and on, but that was a real chance for teachers to stand up and rally around and know that you can’t
be fired for being queer. although is suspect that districts will be smarter about that.

could you talk a little mor eabout the wendy weaver story?

wendy was a volleyball coach and a psychology teacher. and i don’t know exactly what happened, but
she said yes, i’m a lesbian, and it doesn’t have anyting to do with what i do. and so she was fired not
from teaching psychology, but from being the volleyball coach. and so the ACLU fought that and it
became a real media thing, and it was very national as well adn the ACLU set some national precedent
when they finally won, that they could not fire wendy for her sexual orientation. but of course it was aout
in salem, springville area, and parents got involved, and suddenly things like volleyball teams do things
like candles, you know, they just do bonding sort of things, but suddenly through the lense of, oh, and the
coach is queer, all those things look like she’s haivng them over to her house, and they’re turning off the
lights and doing stuff with candles and stuff. it just brought out the worst in people and they formed a
citizens group and brought a civil suit against her, and moral charges, and it was just ludicrous. and it
was, well, we proselyte, and therefore, queers must proselyte. they just can’t believe, hey, these are kids,
they’re not... and wendy and her partner had 5 or 6 kids from previous marriages, and they were just
going along great, but that din’t have anything to do with it. they were able to raise these kids. so wendy
- it was really really tough on their family, but it was on the hills of the gay/straight, and of course the
legistlature got into all sorts of... and the eagle forum and stuff... sort of like the prop 8 thing. it seems like
every 5 or 6 years something comes up where its queers agains tthe community, or queers against
community standards, or something. which, from a political point of view, it’s great. it keeps us visible,
and keeps people talking. ammendment 3 was great opportunity to go around and talk to people about
that. so, little by little, step by step, you win one you lose 3 or 4 and then win one and lose 3 or 4, but i’m
really glad there are people like wendy, who will step up and become the poster child for all of us. and
they’re all over; you know, camille did it for east high... there’s lots of heros around the valley that have
done that.

who have some of your heroes been?

probably carol gonotti and laureen mmiller. i worked with carol at the ACLU, and they have been so
influential. carol and i and another woman named jerri foya that we started the women’s festival down at
the redrock women’s festival. and so carol has, even though she was a straight woman when i met her,
she’s done so much for the community. laura gray is another hero of mine. and then - i don’t know. all of
the women who have done things for sWerve, all the people who have worked at the Pride Center -
Valerie is terrific. and they don’t let themselves get burned out, because it’s easy to do.

could you tell a little about the red rock woman’s festival and how that got started.

carol, jerri and i decided, jerri and i were both with sWerve, and carol wanted to do a women’s music
festival, so we decided to join together under the umbrella of the Pride Center, have an opportunity. we
market ourselves to the queer community, but it’s music by women for everyone. last year or this august
we had about 500 people for a 2 day event down in torrey - beautiful outdoor event. and we’re getting
really good reviews on our musicians’ websites and so it’s great. sarah bettins going to fly in from
belgium, and do a show, and on our website it says what a great place torrey is. every year it’s better, but
we’re not going to make it bigger, because we like our space, and 500 people is about all we want. we
don’t want to turn into michigan or something. but it’s such a great place, and it’s great for the small town
of torrey to sort of be overrun by lesbians for a weekend. they are kind of getting used to it, because a lot
of us own property down there. it’s pretty queer friendly because of the artists - the farmers don’t quite
know what to do with us. and we raise money - the festival raises money for scholarships, for a music
scholarship, for we just have people apply. we just gave one to a wayne county sterling scholar winner to
go off to utah state to get a music degree. it’s a non-profit, we raise money for the scholarship.

what was it that made you say, oh, so let’s do a women’s music festival, what was the spark?

well, carol just knew it was a great space, and she loves torrey. and so she really wanted to do
something outside of salt lake for the community, and do something for women to move them ahead, to
give them a venue, to play music and to hear music, and to bring independents in that need audiences,
and expose the audiences here to some great music. and so it’s fun researching all the different
musicians and finding out... but carols’ a great, she just has more energy, and she just needed something
to raise money for, and something to be involved in. not living in salt lake anymore, i think she missed
that. so they need more queer visibility outside this city. and os i was really sad when southern utah
didn’t do their pride this year. because it was growing, it was doing great.

and it seems it’s important to have that sort of visibility outside of just salt lake.

so it’s not the beware of the city, don’t... or sort of ghetto-ize all the queer you know... like, go off... i love it
that we get people at the festival from all over the state, and i think it’s a place where maybe they... pride
doesn’t appeal to everyone. especially if you’re middle aged and don’t drink, and a woman. it’s fun to do,
but... so this has great feeling. and the straigh tmen come from the town and love it. and all the
volunteers for most of the venues are from the town people. and so it’s kind of a bridge and so they have
great things to say. and the businesses love us.

are you a musician yourself?

no, i can play the radio.

so talking about pride, you know the big Pride Festival that happens up here in SLC not appealing to
everybody - can you expand?

well, i worry i can get on my soap box... i worry that a lot of th things that we do in the community,
especially here in the city, are kind of elitist. they’re expensive, and they, i don’t know, the fundraising
dinners, i know they have to be expensive to pay for the hotels and all that sort of thing, but the’re a whole
bunch. i’d rather see Pride go back to being free. i’d rather not have a Paula Poundstone and have it
free and more welcoming. i really liked sWerve - all of our events were sliding scale, and we really tried
to keep the costs down. our festival, we do all day saturday, half a day on friday, for $45, and i mean that
is rock bottom prices for a whole lot of music. 15 acts i think we had. so we really try to keep so that it
doesn’t become something that only a few of us who have means can attend. so i’d like to see Pride... i
LOVE Pride, i love all the booths, i love to see the community out, and il ove the businesses, but there’s a
whole bunch of people who don’t go simply because of the price,and because... i just think they can do
more so that you don’t have to be a rich gay boy that drinks to have a great time.

so you’re involved with sWerve?

i was. when the festival broke off, and decided just to be its own affiliate with the Center rather than
another laer of sWerve, i went of sWerve so i could focus on just doing the music festival. and i was, you
know, it’s always good to have turnover, new blood.

can you talk a little bit about what sWerve is and your experiences with them.

i think sWerve is terrific, it’s a women’s organization, an afifliate of the Pride Center, that provides places
and activities for people to meet, and associate, so you don’t have to go to the bars all the time. so every
month we would have an activity from... we started witht he Breast Dialogues, that was a sWerve activity.
talent shows, picnics, ward camp outs we called them, oktoberfest, you know, lots of different things. one
saturday night a month people could come - most of the events were free, we had 2 fundraisers int he
year - but they could come, spend a few hours, meet peopl ein the community. real low key, you know
provide some wine and beer and some pretzels, put on some music, you know. and then we, on our
fundraisers, we started a scholarship, the sWerve scholarship, and we’ve been able to give probably now
$10,000 in scholarships to any woman who wants to continue their education after high school in
anything. so they could go to hair school, they could go to mechanic school... and so some of the
recipients have come back and served on the board. it’s just a really nice... and it changes with the
leadership, the focus, so sWerve, the time of sWerve was really really a great thing, because when i first
moved to Salt lake, it was a way for me to get to know people around here. and anyone who identifies as
a woman comes. and most of the times they bring their little gay boyfriends who like to come to.
because we just have fun times.

switching gears a little, what are your thoughts on the word ‘queer”?

i like it a lot, i like because it’s gender neutral. the GLBTQ you know, i’m always worried about leaving
someone off. because there are a lot of transgender people in the community and there’s bisexuals, and i
don’t know. i think queer, we’re all queer. and i also like it because it has that shock, sort of, it. when i
teach queer theory, my students are shocked that it’s, but it’s in the book, called Queer Theory, and it’s ok.
but i think it’s a way to own the language, take something that was hurtful and can now use it in a really
thoughtful.. i’m sure there was a time that i was offended by being called queer, but i can’t remember what
that felt like. and the same thing when.. Brandy is another one of my heroes, and when she started the
dyke march, she got a lot of flack, and a lot of women said they wouldn’t march in the dyke march,
because they didn’t like the term, and it firghtened them, and it seemed so in your face, and brandy said,
yeah, that’s exactly what it is. it’s very, very empowering. and i think queer is empowering. and it seems
less political. because i think “gay” and “lesbian” the “GLBT” seems really political, and it’s almost like
you have to identify being lesbian, and identify with lesbian political views, but Queer there’s room for
people who, they don’t care if people get married or not, that is the last thing they want to do is mirror a
heterosexual relationship, or adopt, so i think GLBT and civil rights is over here, and then Queer is more
who we are, you now, i can be from salt lake and i don’t have to be a democrat or a republican or a
lesbian. you know, i’m just part of the queer community.

so you think the labels gay and lesbian have a lot more baggage?

mm hm. and it’s all that... i know the transgender community doesn’t feel really welcomed in lots of either
- i know we’ve worked hard in sWerve that those women are welcome, and i don’t know anyting about
men’s organizations or how they might be accepted, i know that there are lesbians who will somehow see
if someone is bisexual, or goes from a relationship with a woman and finds a life partner in a man, oh,
you’re not being true to who you are. and i just think sexuality is on a continuum, i think it’s flexible, and
so queer doesn’t have all that baggage. but you know, AIDS is a gay man’s sort of political issue, and
AIDS isn’t a queer issue, queer isn’t political. and it’s great, the media doesn’t use it. i think it describes
our lives where GLBTQ might describe our activism. i hadn’t really thought about that. i feel more queer.
and i think i’ll be more comfortable being a queer old lady than a lesbian old lady. i don’t know. maybe
my mother will say we’re queer before she dies. i don’t know. i don’t know if i’ve ever heard her say
lesbian.

you talk about being in a mentorship position, and especailly as a teacher it seems like mentorship is
something that you’ve devoted a lot of thought to. could you talk a little bit about that relationship
specifically, as it relates to queer kids and queer mentors, some of the special difficulties, the need for it...

there is a huge need for it. and i think those who fear us have done a terrific job in making us all so
worried that we are going to ever look like we’re after the youth, and they have us so worried about
seeming predatory. they’ve won in lots of ways, because it’s hard to be a big sister, a big brother, all
those sorts of things. i mean, they have through fear tactics stopped that. and so most of th epoeple i
know that try to be there, to be a mentor, or at least be visible, have to do it fairly passively. i mean,
students have to come to me, and they, you know, you have to go through all the codes, and all the, i
don’t know, i’ve got all the toaster ovens i need, i’m not going to... as educators especially, they are so
afraid setting up teachers... and i had a student when i first started at UVSC bring a sexual harrassment
charge against me because he said that he felt sexaully harassed by me being a lesbian, and he was part
of the little eagle-ettes, i mean, he was associated with the eagle forum, and was going through the
college taking classes from - somebody had profiled us, and you know, i wasn’t tenured, and it was just a
pain in the neck. i mean, it was fearful. and they printed the story in the school paper, and yada yada,
and it was good thing that i knew the president,a nd he knew me, and so he at the top said don’t worry,
you’r enot going to lose your job. but if my being a lesbian is sexual harassment to a straight boy, the last
thing i want to do is have someone come pose in my class as a queer kid and me make any kind of overt
like, hey, i know where you’re coming form, i’m always there for you, kind of thing, and somehow it being
turned... and high school teachers are even more afraid of that. and so that linking of if you’re queer
you’re a pedophile, if you’re queer you’r ea predatory, if you’re queer, you’re after our youth... that tactic
has really hurt queer kids. because they also know they dont‘ want to get their teachers in trouble. and
they also know that someone’s going to turn it into that. so that’s really unfortunate.

it seems if you want to undermine the strength of a community, that mentorship/mentee tie is the one you
go for first.

mm hm. so that’s why i love seeing that theyre’s that strong youth center and aplace for kids to go down
at the pride center. because that is a safe space to be a mentor. but i suspect that all the gay men that i
know would really worry about reaching out to any of their students, because i do think it’s worse just in
the society’s mentality, worse for men, because people dont‘ think there are such thing as lesbians.
whenever they’re talking about gay issues, they’re really just talking about men. you know? it seems like.
at least my students never think women.. i mean, they know i am, but when they talk about queer, they’re
just, ew, men. there’s more of an ick factor for them.

why do you think that is?

i think it’s the overt masculinity and i think gay men are so much easier and have been visibly in the
media more, and unless you’re really out here s the diesel dyke kind of thing, you’re not really stereotyped
as a lesbian and you’re given a lot more lee way. and i think masculinity is so much more tightly
constructed than femininity, and i think that especially because it’s my opinion that boys going through
puberty get aroused if a cat goes by, and so they just get terrified in lockeroooms, or in gyms, basketball,
whatever, and i think they’re so terrified of ever appearing queer they won’t sit next to their friends at the
movies and stuff. i mean, i think it’s much harder to reign in and be that masculine, and so i just think gay
men and any kind, they really dont‘ think of women preying on young girls like they do think that men do
on young boys. and i suspect it happens, just like it does in the straight community. there are people who
like younger... and straight teacherw who abuse their teacher student relationship are, i mean that’s just a
relatioship you can’t abuse, in anyway, but somehow we’re the ones to fear. despite the page that seems
to be full, every week, in the tribune, about straight teachers and their students. seems to be like a rash
of them, this fall, maybe they’re being more viilant or something. or maybe it’s a witch hunt, i don’t kow i
dont‘ believ what i read.
in a mentor position, what would be the best advice to give to this new gneeration of queer kids that are
coming up?

i think because they hopefully are living more authentic lives, and finding more acceptance and at least
recognizing that there are battles out there that they can join and fight politically, i guess i would say live
honestly, and don’t be so patient. i think my generation is too patient. i think this is taking way way too
long. i get worried that i hear that gay men are contracting AIDS because somehow this generation didn’t
quite get it, that they need to be ever vigilant - i just want them to be what i wanted my generation to be.
you know? i want them to just speak out, and act up, and demand - i don’t want them to be patient. it just
takes too damn long. and they need not to wait around for someone else to do it. you know - we’re here,
we’re queer... i really did like the anarchist queer groups, i just think, like, in your face. quit being so
polite. i guess i would say. quit respecting authority. especially because i’m not going to be it very long.
well thank you so much, laurie -

i hope you can get a few moments of lucidity

i thought there was some incredibly valuable stuff. i think you’r ethoughts about gay/lesbian political
identity versus queer personally , and going after the mentor ties to hamstring a community that’s trying to
develop itself, that’s the crucial one..

and it’s something... i don’t know. i think the right, the conservatives, are so organized, and they’re so
smart, and they pick their battles, and they’re unrelenting. and they just go and go and go, and we’re
stopping hunger, and the wars, and we’re wanting marriage, and we’re wanting adoption... and we
because we see how complex life is, we don’t have the single answers, and so consequently you know,
we want some flexibility and some fuzziness... you know yeah, but they i think their message is just so on
target always, and it’s so simple, and you don’t even have to think. it’s just right or wrong. you know?
the only good queer is adead queer kind of thing. but i think we need to be smarter. of course, i think all
the progressives need to be smarter. but i don’t know. i’d like to see what the educators organizations
are doing, because it hink the queer clubs are getting marginalzied, and it’s just a way to, oh yeah, those
over there kind of thing. and we ghetto-ize ourselves. so i’d like to see them figure out ways not to do
that.

do you think that’s an inherent weakness to a progressive pilicy

yeah! because it’s cooperative, it’s consensus, let’s hear different point of views, it’s not just one way of
doing it, i think it’s just inherent. i learned in the ACLU you know, you just sort of think, the ACLU believes
this, and, like, who in the ACLU? we would jsut argue all the time, and have so many ways of looking at
things and stuff, and i love that an organization coul dhave so many different takes on things, like
polygamy, i mean, you know? just to problematize that kind of stuff is cool.

do you think there’s a way that various groups as disorganized as we are can win against...?

yeah, i think so. and i wish it weren’t marriage. i really wish it weren’t marriage. because... i want to start
a campaign about doing away with allowing religious leaders to do state marriages. that’s the only thing
religious leaders can do, is they sort of marshallize them or whatever, and if you took that away, and
totally had separation of, and everybody could have a civil union, gay or straight, and if you wanted to go
to a church, fine, but you’re not going to get a state marriage in a church, and if you want those rights, you
go to the city hall, and everybody can. and then it doesn’t have naything to do with religion or anything.
i’d like to see us, let’s do away with marriage. i’d like to do totally away with that. because i used to think,
oh yeah, let’s assimilate. but i’m sick of assimilating. and i live this perfectly conservative life, and i don’t
want to assimilate. i can’t even imagine people who are younger and flamboyant and totally want to not
live a heterosexual-style life. i just don’t want to be nice and get along. i hate all that stuff. oh, i wish we
didn’t have these in the pride parade, because they just think we’re boys in bikinis... and i’m like yeah!
why not? i want to show how queer we are. i don’t want to be respectable if that means that i have to act
just like straight people in order to be accepted in the world. even though i do, pretty much. i’ve
assimilated, and it jst makes me mad. i just need to find out ways to be more radical. i think we can
eventually do away with the national marriage act and everything like that, but i think it will always be like
abortion, it will just... they’ll just do something else to marginalize us.

leanne mortenson - UVU prof - out lesbian english prof