I met Lauren a little over a year ago when we were both hired to do voter empowerment work for Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. Lauren and I are like-minded in so many ways, so we’ve naturally stayed friends since. Lauren is passionate about social justice and puts her energy towards making the world a better place. I’m honored to consider her a friend and am excited to see where life takes her.
Name: Lauren Gabbard
Age: 24
Location: Northern Kentucky
Occupation: AmeriCorps Vista Member at Kentucky Campus Compact
Describe to me where you are in life right now?
Well I just graduated (from Northern Kentucky University) with a degree in political science and economics. It was a really fun time. I got involved in a lot groups like Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (a grassroots social justice organization based in Kentucky), Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center, environmental initiatives and things like that. I really kind of found myself as someone who cares about justice, activism and community organizing.
What are the things that prompted you to seek those organizations out?
So I guess from a young age, I noticed that things that have motivated me in my life have been injustice. When I see a situation that’s not fair or people being oppressed for certain reasons, it gets me really worked up. I’m like “We need to do something about it! That’s not fair! It shouldn’t be happening.” So when I was younger it was more about poverty issues and then as I got older it was more about issues of race, gender, class and sexual orientation. I really like to stand up for people’s rights when they’re being violated. I also focus a lot on international issues of poverty. For now I really want to get involved in activism, community organizing and national issues. Eventually I want to maybe be doing policy research on the international political economy. Like learning about the legacy of colonization and how it forms that global economy today. Or learning about the global food system and different exploitations that are happening for our benefit.
So was there one particular thing that prompted you to look into issues of poverty?
I was motivated when I learned that places were really poor compared to us. Like people don’t have a bed, they don’t have food, things like that. So I was really just motivated when I found out about the rest of the world as a child.
How do you feel like you’ve grown as a person through college and your involvement in activism?
I really went from someone who always felt on the defense on political and social issues, to someone who feels confident and assertive about myself, my identity and standing up for issues. Before it was like if the entire class is against gay people and I’m over here like “I have gay dads and I’m bisexual and my brother’s asexual, you’re hurting my feelings.” I’ve had the whole entire class argue with me many times through high school and a little bit in college. Instead of getting really worked up about that and going home and crying, I now for one don’t feel like it’s my job to educate every person who I come across. There are some people in the world who are always going to be against you. That’s fine. You can’t convince them all. But also I feel like I’ve gained support from people who feel the same way as me and I’ve gained confidence just to be able to talk about these things more. I guess I’ve just really gained confidence to stick up for what I believe in and knowledge to kind of put that in the right outlets. Me getting in arguments in class and getting worked up does nothing, but me going and volunteering with KFTC or IJPC can do a lot. Me directing my career goals to policy research that I hope will help people will also do a lot.
What was it like in those moments in high school? How did it feel when you felt like everyone was against you?
Not good. You don’t have support from your classmates, you don’t have support from the teacher and the debate is framed against you. You being so young and not having all your thoughts or facts in order, you can’t really lay out your argument. It feels awful for instance if you know something is very homophobic but I can’t conceptualize or verbalize why, and then someone is trying to argue around you with semantics. You’re just sitting there like “I know how I feel is right and you’re just making me feel so wrong.”
Honestly I don’t like to dwell on that because I’ve come such a long way from feeling like that. I haven’t felt like that in years and that feels great. It’s such a relief. Now I do have the knowledge to lay out an argument. I’ve read a lot, so I’ve weighed in on a bunch of different opinions on a bunch of different issues. So I’ve learned to communicate different opinions. And I’m able to take in and accept other people’s arguments even if if I don’t agree. I’m able to go “I see what you’re saying, but if you think about it this way, it might frame it differently for you or the both of us.
So you have what some consider a “modern family.” Your parents are split up, and your dad is openly homosexual with a husband. What’s that been like? How old were you when your dad came out and what’s that been like?
I was in the eighth grade when my dad came out of the closet as gay. It was weird because we didn’t know any gay people before that but it wasn’t like we were grossed out or thought it was wrong. We were just like “oh, that’s different.” He started dating Roger and now they’re married. They got married in 2010. So we have our step dad and our dad. So I have my gay dads who live in DC and then we live with our mom since they moved to DC.
And they seem to get along.
Yeah so my parents definitely get along. I think the first few years after the divorce, they didn’t like each other. But they had to keep seeing each other because of us. My parents get along really well now. When my dads come to visit, they stay at my mom’s with us. We’ve even gone on one or two vacations all together as well.
You also identify as bisexual. What was the process of coming to that realization like?
Everything is so heteronormative, for a long time I thought my attraction to women was just aesthetic. I thought women were beautiful and I talked about how I thought they were beautiful all the time. I could feel myself being drawn towards women but I did not realize it was romantic or sexual until I was like 20. And then I was just on Tumblr one day scrolling through and I just stopped on this image of a woman and thought “oh my gosh, I’m attracted to her!” It just felt natural. It just made sense. Like “oh, I’m bisexual. That just feels right.” It wasn’t like some huge revelation or anything like that.
I think too bisexualism is something that is so hard for people to understand. Everything in society is so one or the other gender. So to be someone who is attracted to both, people just don’t get that. People think “oh, are you just this until you come out as gay?” What do you say to that?
I’ve had people say like “can’t you just pick one?” That’s really heteronormative. You have to either be the girl or the guy, or just straight. In the bisexual community, we define it as being attracted to the same gender and at least one other. So there’s more than two genders. A lot of people transcend the gender binary or fall somewhere in between. Really it’s like “no, I don’t have to pick one.” I can be attracted to women and other genders.
So you’ve got a lot of good stuff going on right now. Where do you see yourself in the next 5-10 years?
Right so I’m doing an AmeriCorps Vista term right now and that’s been really great so far. Within five years, I’ll probably go back to graduate school, maybe in DC, maybe in Europe … who knows. I could go anywhere in the country. I’m hoping to do a program with the international political economy that really focuses on politics and economics in an international context. I really would like to target exploitation of land, labor and resources. I just feel like our American and Western multi-national corporations have the ability to around the world and set the price. They have the ability to exploit people for resources and labor. I feel like a popular movement of equality is great, but targeting the policies and the rules that they play by is also really essential. I feel like that gets skipped over by a lot of activism.
What does being a woman mean to you?
Being a woman to me shows that I have a support structure for things that were making me uncomfortable throughout my life that I didn’t know about before. For instance, being made fun of for certain things in elementary school or issues of violence. I’ve had some violent experiences in my life at the hands of men and just knowing that were all in this together. Women have not always been oppressed and it means that we don’t always need to be. It’s a good part of my identity. I will hang out with pretty much any woman. You don’t have to be on your guard. But a man, you don’t know if they’re going to say something really sexist or try to hit on you inappropriately.
Being a queer woman or a bisexual woman makes me feel like I belong to this legacy of awesome women throughout history that I can always band together with.
You’re right. Women are incredibly relational, so it makes sense that we all band together.
So, how do you feel when you put on a dress?
Cute (laughs). It makes you feel good, it makes you feel confident. Dressing your best is great. Either your really fashionable and your vilified for that, or you’re really not fashionable and you’re vilified for that. It’s like you can’t win either way as a woman, so you might as well do what makes you feel good. So dressing business casual makes me feel good.
