Posted on 12/28/2006 10:36:24 AM PST by presidio9
Thanksgiving in Salem at Aunt Teri's house and the family is picking at Sasha Villarreal, asking questions, pushing buttons.
So, are you lesbian? What if you meet a nice boy? One uncle says he'd rather his teenage daughter be pregnant than gay.
It makes Sasha nervous, brings a little flutter to her heart. She's 18. Family is important to her. But she doesn't back down. She comes right back at them, kidding, asking questions of her own.
Well, why do you like girls, Uncle Tony?
Their response? Uncle Tony puts his hands over his ears, like he doesn't want to hear another word. But Grandpa just laughs, and Sasha feels good about that.
She remembers the ride home to Portland that night, rehashing the day with her supportive mom, grateful to pass another milestone in an already momentous year.
Takes on activist role
Sasha's been out for a while. But in 2006, she pushed aside the last vestiges of her fundamentalist upbringing and stepped to the forefront of queer youth activism in Oregon.
She helped organize the Oregon Queer Youth Conference last February. She helped put together the Oregon Gay-Straight Alliance, a school-based group that fights homophobia, and now serves on its board.
In the summer, she traveled to San Francisco for a national gay-straight conference, which inspired her to get even more involved.
"I told myself that it was my job to try and make my school, Portland and eventually the state a better place for queer youth," she says at a Starbucks near her Southeast Portland home.
As always, she's decked out in a cool kid uniform: Six hoop earrings, black Motorhead T-shirt, black pants, tongue stud, lip stud, nose ring and heavy mascara. She's tall, and her hair is chopped short, framing a full, unlined face.
Coming out to her deeply religious extended family started late last year and has continued slowly throughout 2006. Their grudging acceptance was a relief and gave Sasha the confidence to speak out on behalf of herself and other queer teens.
Her mom, Gina Hansen, has noticed a marked difference in recent months as Sasha makes her way toward adulthood.
"This year, she's 100 percent out," Hansen says. "She has no shame at all."
Struggling with confusion
The Sunday school teachers told her homosexuality was disgusting, a sin punishable by eternal damnation.
And Sasha was a kid, so she believed them.
Sasha and her three siblings lived with their grandparents in Salem for several years while their parents were in and out of trouble with the law. Twice a week, grandma and grandpa took them to church, where the teachers hammered home the lessons of conservative faith.
"I remember them telling us that people who were homosexual would go to hell if they didn't cleanse themselves," Sasha says, "that they were disgusting and basically godless, very low people."
When she was 11, Sasha moved to Portland to live with her mother, who is divorced from her father. That's when she started questioning the teachings of her old church.
Hansen, who is now remarried, has a liberal philosophy about sexuality and a wide circle of gay and lesbian friends.
One lesbian couple, in particular, was especially close to the family, coming over for barbecues and movies. Sasha loved them but felt bewildered at the same time.
"It made me really confused as to why these people were so 'disgusting,' " she says. "They seemed like really good people to me."
About the same time, Sasha began questioning her own sexuality. What followed were several years of silent struggle after she realized she had a crush on her best friend. Ultimately, Sasha decided her Sunday school teachers were wrong.
"I wasn't completely positive at first," she says. "It was scary and weird. I still felt like it was so wrong, but my feelings were so strong I thought it couldn't be fake."
Growing more comfortable
Sasha sits in a crowded downtown coffeehouse surrounded by four adults, making plans for the statewide Gay-Straight Alliance convention next spring.
Listening to her hash out the details of a needs assessment questionnaire, watching her pull out an appointment book so she can organize her week, it's easy to forget that she's a baby-faced senior at Cleveland High School who's just now applying to colleges.
But it's true. Her bedroom is cluttered with the detritus of teenhood: porcelain dolls, stuffed animals, makeup, jewelry, posters featuring the Grateful Dead, Slayer, Kurt Cobain, Angelina Jolie, Queen and "Brokeback Mountain."
Half the time, she dresses like a high school kid, circa 1982. One day she wears black-and-red tights, Pat Benatar mascara and a Judas Priest T-shirt.
At the coffeehouse, she's got a camo cap cocked sideways, a pair of purple Chuck Taylor high-tops, striped knickers and a black T-shirt featuring a pink outline of a plump mud-flap model.
She jiggles her leg, fiddles with her hair and hangs back while the grown-ups run through the nitty-gritty for next year's convention.
But the advisers draw her out, asking questions, trying to find out what young people want for entertainment, dancing, etc. And she delivers, providing a much-needed teen-centric perspective.
Like, don't invite so many adult chaperones to the dance this time. It makes the kids uncomfortable.
And how about a smaller room? More kids will dance if they're not standing in the middle of a cavernous dance floor.
OK, what about the music?
"In general," she says, "techno is the queer beat for kids."
In the past year, Sasha has grown more comfortable speaking to groups and communicating her ideas about activism, says Austin Lea, one of the adult advisers for the Oregon Gay-Straight Alliance.
Planning events and working with other kids, he says, "has really been empowering for her."
In addition to conferences, Sasha also is planning for her future. She hopes to study criminology at Southern Oregon University next year and wants to continue her advocacy for queer youth.
All of which makes her mother proud.
"She's turning out to be a very smart, powerful and beautiful woman," Hansen says.
But for now, Sasha's got homework to do, conferences to plan, college applications to finish.
Then there's her extended family. They love her but still think homosexuality is a sin.
Which is all right with Sasha. She understands how difficult it is to overcome church teachings. And she realizes the teasing and the questions might continue. She's willing to take it. Up to a point.
"I'm OK," Sasha says, "as long as they don't call me a fag."
Stephen Beaven: 503-294-7663; stevebeaven@news.oregonian.com
About the same time, Sasha began questioning her own sexuality.
Whaddasupprise.
As it should be.
"One lesbian couple...was especially close to the family, coming over for barbecues..."
Gave them a chance to handle some real meat.
Good for you, I learned that God doesn't care too much for those folks who have sex with their own gender. I also am learning that the word of God is pretty much cut and dry and that if you choose to do your own interpretation of His word, you're going to have a big problem..........It's gonna suck being you
(Not being judgmental mind you, just stating the facts)
I think "fag" is a perfectly good synonym for homosexual, as is "queer". I also think that the negative connotation of "fag", "queer", "lesbo", and "homo" are appropriate to the abominable acts and actors to which they refer.
To refer to these words and word abstracts as "name calling" is nothing more than an attempt to change the subject.
yitbos
Hey, if she wants to go through life looking like the bottom of a dumpster, let her. These are miserable mutants who will never be happy until invade your private space.
Very Very True!!! The vague "I do not judge" copout is pure leftist drivel!
Well, you certainly proved my point that name-calling is a substitute for no line of reasoning - or reason, for that matter.
Words have meaning. The meaning of fag, homo, queer, lesbo, are perfectly understood. In fact, they carry much more meaning than their one or two syllables might appear. Everyone here knows their meaning. Their pejorative connotation is intentional and reasoned, not mindless.
yitbos
Beautiful analogy.
You have summed this up perfectly. After reading the whole thing, there is no doubt in my mind that the liberal, promiscuous mother with her lesbo girlfriends influenced Sasha to try out "new things."
Whatever.
You apparently just want to name-call, so go for it. Apparently FR is the place for that now.
I'm not your friend. Degeneracy should be called just what it is. We are all sinners, some saved by the Grace of God; degeneracy is sin but not all sin is degeneracy. When you grow up, you will understand these things, we hope.
Was a time around the turn of the 20th century when Marxists content to be called "communists". When the label "communist" became pejorative, they slid behind the moniker "socialist". "Socialist" became a bad "name" so they started calling themselves "progressives". When that didnt work, they took over the democrat party under Roosevelt and became "liberals". Now there are few who like the name "liberal". They are back to "progressive". We still call them "socialists" or "communists". Attempts to euphemize pejoratives usually come from those who for years, or centuries, refuse to see the wrongs of their ways. They want to hide, not be identified, not be called a "name". It doesn't work.
Homosexuals were "queers" and "fags". Those who would control language and thus morality and politics and thus lives and minds would have none of it. They wanted to be called "homosexuals". There was supposed to be less of a pejorative attached to the word, a euphemism. It did not work. They wanted to be called "gay". It did not work.
Deviates, whether in the political or cultural arena will never be able to find a euphemism to hide behind that will not be recognized for what it is, a pejorative.
Some of us are simply content with the originals.
yitbos
Apparently you don't know the difference between vicious and accurate, invective and concise.
Sure I do. Sodomy is vicious. Fag is accurate.
yitbos
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