I don’t know how Becca Schillizzi has time to brush her teeth--between presiding over the College of Charleston’s Gay-Straight Alliance, attending We Are Family SafeSpace meetings, organizing independent activist projects such as QueerFest, completing two majors, and attending the occasional vegetarian potluck, she’s got to be one of the busiest bees in the hive! But, I somehow managed to get an interview with this fleeting anomaly of smarts, charisma and dapper style, for the recreation and education of you, our soon-to-be-faithful readers. I am confident that you will divine, as I did in our interview, the warm, quirky personality which shines through the future-law-school-student exterior of this accomplished young member of our Charleston community. So without further ado...
JL: First, tell me a little bit about yourself...what landed you in Charleston?
BS: I am twenty years old, and I’m from Greenville, South Carolina. I am a student; I am double majoring in Religious Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies, but what I’m mostly concentrating on is Gender Studies, specifically abnormal genders, so I’m really interested in Queer Theory, stuff like that. What landed me in Charleston was that I wanted to go to school, and didn’t want to pay out the ears for it, and also, at the time I was applying, I actually wanted to be a pastor, and CofC has a really good Religious Studies program. So then I got here and everything changed...for the better!
JL: And how would you describe how you are situated in the Charleston community? What is your specific place in your community?
BS: I’m kind of at a crossroads of the gay and queer communities. For instance, I’m definitely part of the specifically gay community on campus, which is loosely focused around Gay-Straight Alliance. GSA is really awesome, but they’re also people who are more gay-identified than queer-identified. Because I’m president of GSA, I’m near the center of that community. I’d also say I’m part of the greater queer community in Charleston, but the queer community is more egalitarian, and so I’m not really necessarily at the center, I’m just a part. And I’d also say that I’m part of a bigger radical community, in which I’m also not the center, just a part--say, the vegetarian community, with all the potlucks and stuff like that.
JL: If you could pick three things that you would want to see happen in Charleston in the next year, what would they be?
BS: I would definitely like to see Critical Mass become a real critical mass--really taking over the streets, I think that’d be really awesome. I would love it if the gay community was able to form into one, bigger unity, maybe identifying with “queer”--I would love it if that happened! I don’t know if that would ever happen. But the whole gay community of Charleston taking on the word “queer” would be an awesome thing to see.
JL: Well, let me stop you for a second and ask you what your definition of “queer” is?
BS: My definition of queer is that it’s more of an approach to sexuality than a sexual orientation. It’s being aware of options, and choosing the options that you know are legitimate to your being, and not necessarily what society expects from you, although it could be what society expects from you if that is legitimate for you. It also involves having a community in which everyone is supportive of you defining yourself.
JL: Great, so what’s the third thing?
BS: I would really like it if either an organization was created or if an organization took on the cause of trying to get rid of fat shaming. If you really think about it, one group that gets the worst as far as prejudice goes is obese and fat people, and even in our communities, especially in vegan/vegetarian communities, it is really easy to be fat-shaming, it is really easy in gay communities to be that way, and it is something that is largely ignored. I think it would be awesome if we took that on.
JL: What is your definition of feminism?
BS: My definition, what my feminism is--and I’m not trying too define anyone else’s feminism--is basically taking the power away from society and giving it to individuals in regards to identity especially, and also in regards to who has the right to do what (although I do feel that my rights stop where someone else’s rights begin). So my kind of feminism is also borderline socialist. I feel like everyone should be given an equal opportunity to not only create their own identity, but to create themselves in the world.
JL: What would a day in the world of Becca Schillizzi’s utopia look like?
BS: There’d be a lot of education, there’d be a lot of consensual sex! There’d be a lot of legitimized asexual people too though! Basically it would be super egalitarian, everyone would be proclaiming their own identities and creating their own identities. And it would definitely be vegan. There’d be more communal child rearing, rather than the idea that you own your children. There wouldn’t be marriage, there wouldn’t be ideas of ownership. That doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be monogamous relationships. But no one would feel owned by anyone else or feel the need to own anyone else.
JL: Tell me about your identity.
BS: I identify as a queer genderqueer, which I might as well just say queer, and everything falls under that...As for my gender identity I kind of identify as both a boy and a girl and not either a man or a woman. I don’t identify in an adult kind of sense, I feel like my gender is more playful, that’s why I think of myself as a girl and a boy, but not a man or a woman. I’m also female-identified.
JL: What pronouns do you prefer?
BS: Any. Whatever anyone wants to use. I like it when people pronoun me masculinely, just because people don’t tend to do that. I especially like the male pronouns when I’m working at the cupcake shop, just because I find it more amusing. That’s where I work--Cupcake. I make icing and ice the cupcakes, and then I sell them to people. I think it’s really funny when people--they’ll often be talking to their kids when they pronoun me--they’ll be like “Give the money to the nice man!” or “You need to make your decision so you can tell the nice man!” It’s always, “the nice man”, and I love being the nice man in the cupcake shop!
JL: Do you think that sexual orientation is a choice?
BS: I wish it was a choice. I don’t feel like it’s a choice, personally. All of the research I’ve ever seen has shown that it’s not a choice. But I don’t like it when people will say “Give us rights because we don’t choose the way we are, if we could choose to not be gay we wouldn’t be gay.” I feel like thats really not a good way of going about it. If I could choose--I mean, I do choose to be queer--but if I could choose to mainly like females, then I would still choose it. I don’t see whats wrong with having that choice. I kind of wish I wasn’t so biologically programmed-I don’t like the idea of that, but I think most studies show that it isn’t a choice.
JL: What would you say one of the most positive experiences you’ve had as a result of being out and being queer was?
BS: I think that one of my most positive experiences of being out has been how my mom and my older brother reacted to it. My mom was never openly homophobic, but she’d say things like “all the lesbians I’ve ever known were molested when they were little.” and stuff like that, she’s always kind of made the case that all gay people have psychological problems. But when I came out to her, she was like, I love you and I know there’s nothing wrong with you, and if there’s nothing wrong with you, there must not be anything wrong with any other gays. So she basically 180ed, and was really supportive, and she’s been really great throughout the whole process. And my older brother kind of asked me in a roundabout way if I was gay, and when I told him that I was--he goes to Clemson--he said that if anyone messed with I needed to call him and he’d be there four hours later no matter what time it was, and that he’d beat people up for me. Which is him showing how much he cares about me!
JL: If you could pick one person to elevate to the fame level of Lady Gaga, who would it be? Someone you could put instantly in the spotlight.
BS: My first reaction is JD Samson, but that’s cause I’m thinking about music. Hmm...I wanna say Judith Butler, but she’s just so complex that it wouldn’t make any sense for her to be so popular! Maybe a really good person would be Kate Bornstein.
JL: Okay, is she like, the real Lady Gaga? She’s the real Lady Gaga!
BS: Yeah, she is the real Lady Gaga! I think Kate Bornstein would be my girl!
JL: If you had to ask yourself an interview question what would it be? And then answer it!
BS: That’s a hard one! How about if I could teach a course, what course would it be? I would create a whole major actually, in Gender-Bending, and start with Gender/Sex 101, explain all the myths that sociobiology created and then talk about the difference between gender and sex and why it’s stupid to put things into dichotomies, like saying that one thing is gender and one thing is sex, basically tearing down everyones gendered world. And then we’d have stagecraft kind of classes where you dress in drag and stuff like that! Oh man, and maybe even creating your own clothes, like really creating your own gender from a hands-on way as far as clothes go.
JL: So I see you have a big connection between gender and fashion. Can you tell me more about that?
BS: I feel like an internal gender identity doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with fashion, cause I definitely know people who look very cis-gendered but are also very genderqueer and that’s awesome. But also one of my forms of activism within gender identity is really messing with peoples heads on a daily basis, and so I like to dress in a way that’s more androgynous, but I want to dress in a way that’s legitimate to me. And so doing that can be kind of hard because I basically just want to dress like a gay boy and that often ends up with dressing like a girl! And so I have to find a happy medium between wanting to mess with people’s heads and being legitimate to myself and not feeling like I have to dress a certain way. I’m totally into creating your own identity and creating your own sense of fashion, which is why I’m down with the whole thrifting thing.
JL: So where do you see yourself in the future?
BS: Well, I have a tendency to change plans every few months, but right now, I want to go to law school and do public interest law, and take a lot of classes in family law, just in case I wanna switch it up later. It’d be really cool if I could maybe work with Lambda Legal, or the ACLU, or some other organization that is trying to fight for equality. and not be stuck with normal lawyer-type things, while still making enough money to pay off the huge debt that law school will incur!
JL: Thanks so much Becca!
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