Tag: LGBTQ

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Questioning

Senlin Means and Ellie Picard opened The Beautiful Idea, a trans-owned, anti-facist bookstore and queer market on the Downtown Mall in September 2023. Photo by Tristan Williams.

Dozens of Charlottesville residents braved the rain on March 31 to attend the first-ever trans Q&A at The Beautiful Idea. While the weather outside was gloomy, the atmosphere inside the trans-owned, anti-fascist bookstore was cozy, with chairs set up under string lights, and pride flags draped across the ceiling.

The event was the brainchild of store co-owner Senlin Means, a local trans woman and C-VILLE contributor.

“The inspiration was something that happens all the time here in our shop … this woman came in … and very nervously asked us if she could talk to us about something,” said Means ahead of the event. “We get a lot of people in here who have questions to ask, and they’re often nervous about it, or think they’re gonna get in trouble, or something like that. And it made me think, ‘Hey, why don’t we offer people a way to ask these questions?’”

After months of consideration, Means decided to host the panel on International Trans Day of Visibility—held annually on March 31. Attendees were encouraged to bring questions and an open mind, with a reminder that “You don’t have to be an ally, just don’t be an asshole!”

“Normally, you shouldn’t do this. I’m not trying to say, ‘Hey, it’s okay to ask trans people random questions all the time,’” said Means. “I’m hoping this comes across more as, ‘Look, you might have these questions, and you might rightfully not feel like it’s appropriate to ask them. This is a time when you can.’”

Joining Means on the panel were Professor Veró Dávila Ellis and student Marco Seaberg, both from James Madison University.

Kicking off the Q&A, Means emphasized that “trans people are not a monolith” and panelists’ answers should not be interpreted as wholly representative of the entire community, before moving on to audience questions.

Event attendees were initially hesitant, but soon asked about the experience of being transgender, the process of transitioning, pronouns, allyship, and how to talk to and support trans family and friends.
One topic that came up repeatedly was how to talk to trans and questioning youth.

“Gender has nothing to do with sexuality or with sex. And our body parts aren’t inherently sexual or sexualized. That is something that society has put on us,” said Dávila Ellis. “Allowing a child to transition in whatever way, or allowing a child to know what are the options as they grow up for becoming the person or the gender they want to be has nothing to do with sex, and does not sexualize someone.”

Seaberg, who started transitioning as a teenager, shared his personal experience and the realities of the transitioning process—breaking it into social, medical, and legal categories.

While medical and legal steps, like taking hormones or changing the gender marker on a driver’s license, are most frequently in the news, Seaberg emphasized that most trans people start transitioning socially first. “It can be a haircut, it can be what you’re wearing—it’s how people are referring to you,” he said. “When youth are transitioning, or when anyone’s transitioning, social [transition] is usually the first thing they do or explore.”

“I was too old for puberty blockers, but I did hormones later in life. And that was something that I had to go through gender therapy for, and have many medical professionals sign off that I was ‘trans enough’ or that I was of mental state to be deciding that as a minor,” said Seaberg. “Young children who do have a strong sense of identity [are] not getting irreversible surgery at 12 in almost every case.”

Panelists also spoke about pronouns. Originally from the Caribbean, Dávila Ellis shared their unique experience of being trans nonbinary and Latinx. Following one audience member’s question about using traditionally plural they/them pronouns to refer to one person, Dávila Ellis said the discussion was specific to English, and did not necessarily apply to other languages.

Reflecting on the Q&A, Means said “that it gave me some idea of the kinds of questions that people are going to have, the kind of things we need to focus on: parenting questions, we certainly need to talk to people of color—BIPOC folks, explore nonbinary-ness more.”

Several audience members stayed after the Q&A to talk to participants, find resources, and ask more personal questions.

“I came here with my parents because I feel like it’s just something that a lot of people just don’t know about,” said Adeline Sokolowski. “It’s really nice to hear in person from people who have their own personal experiences.”

For Chad Sokolowski, the panel was “just another day” as the parent of a nonbinary teenager. “I thought it was a wonderful icebreaker,” he said. “I learned so much here tonight, you can easily write a thesis on all the information that was here. … I’m really looking forward to learning more and meeting some really great people.”

“There’s this vulnerability that all the people talking had,” said parent and event attendee Helgi Townsend. “The questions being asked were so helpful … we’re all having questions and we’re all trying to figure out being human.”

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Coronavirus News

Stay connected: Local LGBTQ groups continue to support youth from home

Amy-Sarah Marshall and her child, Phin Green, are both actively involved in Charlottesville Pride Community Network’s weekly Zoom hangouts, during which local kids and teens talk and play games. PC: Eze Amos

While the LGBTQ community in the U.S. has made significant strides in recent years, there is still a lot of work to be done, especially for youth. According to The Trevor Project, LGBTQ teens are almost five times as likely to attempt suicide as their heterosexual peers. They also face disproportionately higher rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and PTSD.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has “exacerbated” these issues, says Amy-Sarah Marshall, president of the Charlottesville Pride Community Network. Some LGBTQ youth are stuck at home with families who are not supportive or accepting. Others have not come out to their families, so they cannot be their authentic selves at home, causing intense feelings of isolation and loneliness.

“The youth who have less supportive home environments are just really struggling a lot more,” says Rowan Johnson, Charlottesville youth program coordinator for Side by Side, which provides programming and resources for young LGBTQ people in Virginia. “Someone whose family doesn’t want them to talk about their identity. Or families who might also be under a lot of stress, and who don’t really want to deal with the queer-specific struggles that their kids are going through.”

Due to stay-at-home orders, LGBTQ youth have also lost access to the support systems they have at school, and other potential safe spaces. Even if they have a good relationship with family, they may still feel like they have nobody to talk to.

“Finding found family is a tried-and-true tradition in the LGBT community,” says Johnson. “Even those with supportive families are really missing their found family, and not being able to see each other and be together.”

To help, Side by Side offers Zoom support groups every week: one for ages 11-13, the other for ages 14-20. CPCN also has a weekly Zoom hangout for local kids and teens to talk and play games, says Marshall.

Marshall’s own child, Phin Green, an eighth grader at Buford Middle School who uses gender-neutral pronouns, says CPCN’s support group allows them to chat with people their own age.

“It’s nice to talk about stuff without fear of being judged,” they add. “Most of us can talk about stuff and not feel like we are going to be outed or hurt by other people on the call.”

Now that the support groups are online and not in person, some people who were not able to attend before the pandemic, due to issues like transportation and distance, have been able to participate, Marshall says.

But at Side by Side, Johnson says poor internet access has occasionally made it difficult for kids to join the meetings. Those who live in rural areas, or who come from unstable households, are the least likely to show up.

“We have a group of regulars who try to make it every single week,” he says. “But [attendance] is obviously much lower than it was in person.”

When the pandemic finally ends, LGBTQ youth will need even more support, as they recover from the additional trauma they may have endured at home. The people they rely on for support—including teachers, counselors, mentors, and LGBTQ organizations—are “going to need to be there for these kids, and allow them space to talk about [the pandemic] whenever this is brought up,” says Johnson.

“Sweeping this whole COVID time under the rug and trying to move on isn’t going to be helpful…The youth that we serve, they’re going to remember this time, and what it was like for the rest of their lives,” he adds. “We are really going to have to leave space to unpack it, and for youth to work through this.”

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Arts

Local artist leads storytelling workshop for LGBTQ youth

Photographer and illustrator Guillermo Ubilla leads a zine-making class at the Bridge for LGBTQ youth and allies on June 11. Photo by Eze Amos

For local photographer and illustrator Guillermo Ubilla, making art feels natural. He thinks it sounds cheesy, but he says it’s what he was meant to do.

“My art is a combination of skills and experiences I’ve had,” says Ubilla. “It’s a way of expressing myself. I’m privileged to do art, so I want to do something good with it.”

In celebration of Pride Month, Ubilla joined fellow Charlottesville area photographers Jacob RG Canon, Eze Amos, Christian DeBaun, Sarah Cramer Shields and Jeff Cornejo for a group show at the Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative. Hosted in collaboration with Cville Pride, the exhibition depicts the experiences of LGBTQ people in Charlottesville using images that challenge traditional stereotypes of who and what historically constituted a family.

With these photos as a backdrop, Ubilla will lead a visual storytelling workshop for LGBTQ youth at the Bridge on June 11. Participants will create a zine by folding pieces of paper to make a booklet, and filling their creation with words, images or collages.

“It’s something they can do with their hands, and do it over and over again. It creates this unique physical storytelling device that they can walk away with,” says Ubilla.

As a McGuffey Art Center resident artist and instructor, the importance of education and activism through art resonates deeply with Ubilla. One of his favorite recent projects is a series of political illustrations he created—using a Twitter-like palette, sans-serif typography and iconography like stars, check marks and boxes, Ubilla breaks down what he calls the “overwhelming” aspects of local and regional government into “bite-sized” pieces.

Cville Pride President Amy Sarah Marshall wants Ubilla’s workshop and the photography show to give LGBTQ youth a sense of community—to provide them with “a sense of home.” She refers to Ubilla and his art as dynamic, engaging and thoughtful. Also joining the workshop will be representatives from Side by Side, a Richmond-based LGBTQ youth group with a strong Charlottesville presence.

“We’re passing the baton down and empowering youth to tell their own stories when they can feel like life is so on the margins,” Marshall says. “They don’t see their lives portrayed in mass media. They don’t hear their situations in podcasts. We’re empowering all youth to live their truth.”

Marshall remembers that while her father was welcoming when she came out, he told her that she couldn’t be a lesbian because “of what [she] looked like.”

“I felt I was diminished by someone who cared about me,” says Marshall. “He thought he was doing me a service.” Marshall tells a story of coming out to her grandparents, too, and confronting the doubt they expressed about her sexuality—how she was so young and too naïve to be sure about her sexuality.

“It’s really important to feel that adults are asking and encouraging youth to own their story,” Marshall says.

With a variety of Pride Month events open to the public throughout June, Marshall wants this month to be about celebrating pride more than ever.

“With it being summer, I feel like people’s anxieties are starting to turn back on,” she says. “I want people to see these pictures and be reminded of how brave they are to be themselves, or to come out and support others. Showing up for each other in visible and concrete ways is a powerful reminder of what good is in people’s hearts and actions.”

Categories
Arts

More fabulous: Trudie Styler’s Freak Show champions LGBTQ youth

Billy Bloom is the vibrant protagonist at the heart of Freak Show, which tackles the realities of high school bullying and addresses the violence and bigotry aimed at LGBTQ communities today. Courtesy Virginia Film Festival

In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde writes: “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” It’s one of many mantras employed by self-prescribed “trans-visionary gender obliviator” Billy Bloom, the vibrant protagonist at the heart of Freak Show, an adaptation of James St. James’ 2007 YA novel of the same name, and the directorial debut of longtime actress and producer Trudie Styler. Freak Show tackles the realities of high school bullying and addresses the violence and bigotry aimed at LGBTQ communities today.

“The themes of this film speak to a very imperfect world that we live in where bullying exists and [where] people from all creeds, colors, genders are not allowed to live the lives that they were born to express and be themselves,” says Styler.

When 17-year-old Bloom (Alex Lawther) is plucked from the world of “grace, glamor and Gucci” that he enjoys with his mother (Bette Midler) in Connecticut and forced to live with his estranged father in the South, he is tormented by peers in his new high school. His father (Larry Pine) is hardly understanding, advising him that “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down,” and his unlikely friend, popular football star Flip Kelly, echoes the same sentiment. Bloom heeds this advice, but is still met with disdain at school.

“Even though he’s complied with his costuming for school à la Flip, you know, ‘Less fabulous, a little more Wrangler,’ of course that doesn’t work because Billy is fabulous on the inside as well as the out and what does that mean? He’s just Billy and he longs to be Billy and accepted to be Billy Bloom—and he’s not,” explains Styler. “So the bullying continues irrespective of the apparel as it does in our world. When you’re targeted, it doesn’t matter what you say if you try to comply. When you’re out, you’re out: You’re a loser. You’re branded and life can become intolerable. And we’ve seen in real life some terrible situations of our teenagers being driven to despair and suicide. And this is a real thing.”

But the more Bloom is ridiculed, the more he is driven to live his truth. His quest for the truth within himself and others culminates in his decision to run against the scripture-quoting Lynette (Abigail Breslin) for homecoming queen. Although Freak Show the novel was written a decade ago, its topics are more relevant than ever. Styler placed the film’s narrative squarely in the present day as Lynette touts a familiar slogan on her campaign trail: Make America Great Again.

“Trump was not president when we shot the movie. He was running as a Republican candidate and nobody thought that he stood a chance because his rhetoric was an abomination and he can barely get to the end of a sentence. But this mantra, when he ran out of steam, that he came up with constantly and still does, ‘Let’s Make America Great Again,’ we were talking and saying, ‘You know, it’s such a good line for the mean, Bible-thumping, short-on-ideas-but-big-on-rhetoric Lynette. Let’s have her say that,’” Styler says. “When we screened the movie…at NewFest in New York and that line [came] up, there was this groan coming from the audience. And we thought it was going to sort of like be imbued with some humor, but it wasn’t. It was imbued with a lot of sadness, actually. It was sort of like it was the groan of the collective going like, ‘What a situation we’re in.’ It went quite dark.”

While Freak Show does a lot of heavy lifting, it has no shortage of comedy, and its focus on inclusivity is a welcome and necessary addition to the canon of coming-of-age teen flicks. In order to appropriately relay the message of the film, Styler recruited LGBTQ artists and activists to contribute. Boy George and Perfume Genius provide the soundtrack to the movie’s most prominent scenes, and Midler and Laverne Cox round out the cast.

“I did a knowing wink to the audience that these are not only great actresses—Bette and Laverne—but they’re great activists as well, and these themes really resonate in human life in 2017, and these women have helped redress some of these issues in a very meaningful way,” Styler says. “I’d like to think that it’s some kind of call to action in a non-preachy way, this little movie that I hope can engage high schoolers to have dialogue and provoke discussion about how things are at schools. And I hope that we can start to, as Billy says, start a new tradition in school right now. Let it be about tolerance and inclusivity and create a community of supporting each other. I know that might sound idealistic, but…the age that I am, I’d really love to see before I die, a world that is just much more tolerant.”