Liz Achanta
One of our favorite things about the .gay community is seeing the beautiful websites that people create to celebrate their hobbies, passions, professions, and interests. Having your own piece of online .gay real estate is an empowering gift to yourself. Whenever anyone asserts their visibility and value as a member of LGBTQIA+ communities, it is a courageous act that helps make the world a safer and more inviting place for all.
Yasha.gay is a perfect example. Created by Yasha de la Luna to provide a digital home for her growing oeuvre of poetry and media commentary, the site is a wonderful window into her dreamy, poetic world. We got in touch with Yasha for a #DotGayQAndA to talk about the unique ways art and poetry can help LGBTQIA+ people love and validate themselves and each other.
Please introduce yourself: tell us who you are and what you do!
Howdy! My name’s Yasha (she/her), and I’m a trans lesbian poet, writer, artist, archivist, and all-around general enthusiast. I’m an English student over at Florida International University (FIU)!
Why is it important to you, as a poet, writer, and artist, to be a proudly OUT member of LGBTQIA+ communities? How does Yasha.gay help you in this regard?
In my own poetry, I am trying to approach myself and my own feelings with total earnestness, and I want to be able to celebrate myself as something that’s worth taking pride in. I’ve surrounded myself with people I love who value who I am, and my poetry at its core relies on the fact that I’m out, and it relies on the community, family, knowledge, and experience I’ve found being out. Having my own website, having a little space on the internet that’s totally my own, communicates that not only do I value my work and accomplishments, but I think you should value it too!
Why is support for the arts and culture so important for the well-being of LGBTQIA+ people?
There are so many potential answers to this one! Art can do a lot of things! When you create art, whatever variety of art it is, you are physicalizing yourself, your experiences, your feelings, and the things you value in a way that would be impossible otherwise. You are able to communicate the essentially incommunicable at total and full intensity, and you deserve to have yourself physicalized in that way. LGBTQIA+ people deserve to have themselves and their feelings physicalized in that way. Support for the arts and culture communicates that not only the person, but their experiences and feelings too, are to be valued.
I think with art, too, you have the very unique opportunity to be reflected. Coming face to face with art that’s been made by someone else, and it resonates with you, you are being reflected, in some way — the hyper-specific material feelings the art is invoking are potentially feelings you already know so well. The artist has held up a mirror to you to observe your own feelings outside of yourself, physicalized. When you make art, you are holding up your own mirror to yourself.
Even further, art can be fun! Gay & trans people should have fun! Their lives and their futures should be fun! Gay & trans people should be able to imagine a future for themselves, a future that has a place for them and where they can exist and, more than exist, have fun!
Why is it important to help create a safer internet for LGBTQIA+ people?
The internet is, generally speaking, a pretty unsafe place for LGBTQIA+ people, with social media sites full of homophobic and transphobic users who are able to send death threats and other threats of violence to LGBTQIA+ users without repercussion. A more recent resurgence of transphobia and transmisogyny has made social media sites a bit dicier for trans users, too. LGBTQIA+ people deserve not to be harassed on the internet!
Who are some of your LGBTQIA+ heroes and artistic influences?
I’ve had different heroes and influences at different times, but a big influence on me right now has been the work of Gillian Spraggs. She’s a lesbian poet and translator, and her translations, especially of Sappho, have had a huge influence on me, in my life and in my own work. The gay & trans people in my life who I love and hold so close have also been huge influences on me, too!
What's coming up for you? Any forthcoming drops to plug?
In the most exciting way, coming up in December, I have a really beautiful poem being published in Lavender Review, one I wrote for my lover! I’m graduating FIU in the coming spring, as well!
Elizabeth Achanta
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