Hannah Hafter - 2000 Scholarship Recipient
South Burlington High School, South Burlington

For Hannah Hafter, "queer" is an all-encompassing term for her life. A self-described Harry Potter look-alike, she explains, "I like to identify as strange. It reflects who I am as well as my politics, which are radical." Her powerful energy and proud individuality have taken her from coming out after eighth grade through South Burlington High School to Mount Holyoke College this fall. There, she will major in Critical Social Thought, which she defines as "an applied activism major."

Hannah is clearly centered in doing and being, so she lists her accomplishments with difficulty, preferring to share anecdotes of the events that happened along the way. Most recently, Hannah linked her affiliation with Outright Vermont and her work on the program committee of 242 Main to create Queer Band Night. A center for her activism, 242 Main is the downtown Burlington youth space located below Memorial Auditorium. Queer Band Night began with a phone call from Hannah to the band The Need in Olympia, Washington. She enjoys what she calls their "circus/Frankenstein music" and chose to call them and lesbian group Le Tigre for their women- and queer-positive themes. Although they regularly book for over a thousand dollars a night, The Need accepted $100 for the performance, telling Hannah, "These are the shows we love to do: in a small community that doesn't get this kind of scene." Hannah expected a dozen or so kids from 242 and Outright; she was stunned when the show drew over a hundred youth.

Hannah's other love and talent is writing. She is art editor for Secrets Between Girls, a literary ezine for writing and artwork by young queer women. She also publishes short stories and essays on her own in Caught in the Act and Wallflower Rebellion. She describes one piece she wrote on falling in love with a book: "I could read it over and over for hours. I would look at the words like some people would look at pictures of someone they liked." Hannah also explains her inspiration for Wallflower Rebellion: "I wrote a piece in which I said I wanted all of the people who are kind of shy to come out and show themselves." Coming from Hannah, this is a perfect description of the path she started on four years ago.

Hannah explains that she only found her own confidence when she began coming out the summer before high school. At the time, her parents told her they would "accept whatever you do as long as you are true to yourself and are coming from a place of love." From there, Hannah found her own voice and began making real friends as she realized, "I didn't need to fit in or mold myself to the mainstream. I make a space that fits who I am." For Hannah Hafter, coming out has made all the difference.

Interviewer Matt Webb teaches 11th and 12th grade English. He lives in Barre. This interview series originally appeared in Out in the Mountains.