Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Bohland
Hi Stephanie, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I suppose that depends on what you consider my story. I’ve really had a wonderful life and am very grateful for the extraordinary amount of experiences I’ve enjoyed. I have lived, worked, and studied in fourteen countries. I’ve had a delightful range of occupations that have included a chocolatier for Godiva, a Disney cast member working in Epcot, an autism therapist, an English teacher abroad, an au pair, a yoga teacher, and my current work as a massage therapist by day and editor and writer by literally anytime I can find. My passion project, Let’s Say Gay, is a queer youth literary journal that I’m here to talk about today and the idea for this publication popped, fully formed, into my head as I stewed angrily in the bathtub. This was the very beginning of 2023 when Ron Desantis was on his rampage and sweeping the nation with Florida House Bill 1557, more commonly known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill. A Florida native myself and, at the time, a graduate student studying creative writing, I couldn’t abide by how small minded and foolish this overly broad policy was.
Please let me reiterate that I completely understand religion, and how difficult it is to negotiate honoring one’s faith with a culture that doesn’t align with sincerely held beliefs. I actually was raised Catholic and have respect for how strongly many religious people feel about tenets of their faith. However, I also understand that religion must have boundaries. The existence of LGBTQ+ people can not, and will not, be dictated by the beliefs of religions we are not a part of. Telling me I can’t be gay because your god forbids it is a lot like me saying you can’t have cake because I’m on a diet. No one, no one, has the right to mandate their faith onto the lives of others, but unfortunately our government is willingly and actively participating in this inappropriate blurring of personal beliefs and public policies.
To gain control of the LGBTQ+ population, parties against our equality have written a new narrative; of child abuse, grooming, and exploitation, and they have begun this at the elementary school level. Forbidding teachers to mention same s*x spouses, or children to mention same s*x parents, stigmatizing the very existence of nonheteronormative people as something inappropriate to talk about in the classroom. They are creating an “us” and a “them,” and that is very harmful for a young person labeled as the “them,” the “other.” It’s isolating, and perpetuates the idea that queerness is extremely rare. Some bizarre disorder not to be spoken of in polite society.
And so, Let’s Say Gay was born. As discriminatory censorship shrinks safe queer spaces, I hope to open up more. Is it a solution? Not even in the slightest—this tiny journal is like a band aid on a severed limb. But I really, really believe in this first little baby step and so did the three other amazing women who started LSG with me. We started with the website, and our extraordinarily talented artist whipped us up some flyers and off we went.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Certainly not. Working for queer youth is always an uphill battle, and with our journal being a small and not-for-profit endeavor with a staff that basically includes me, my older sister, and my devoted partner, I think you could say we have battled.
One of our first big struggles was even deciding to keep the journal open. The first issue was a service project for the queer community made in partnership with three other amazing students, but after graduation they all left LSG. Now a staff of one, and with no printer willing to work with me, I faced a crossroads. I either let it go and say “Ok, I made this thing, and it’s great, and it’s up online and isn’t that a nice memory?” pat myself on the back and just move on, or, and you may guess where this is going, I double down and push through. I couldn’t let the journal go. I really believed in what we were doing, and loved the work so I decided to try and create an online presence and started going to pride events and anime conventions to table and spread the word. Bit by bit, conversation by conversation, I made connections and grew the journal. We’re still tiny, but going strong with submissions now open for our third volume.
Another funny struggle, for me at least personally, has been getting to the right audience. I am genuinely terrible with social media and had previously tried to avoid it in my life. However, like it or not, social media is an important part of success today and especially with the journal being an anti-censorship endeavor—we have to have an online presence and be available to teens in need of a safe space. That’s our biggest growth goal going into 2025, try to become competent with social media and grow our following so that more queer artists can share their stories.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Let’s Say Gay is a queer youth literary journal designed to create safe space for young people impacted by the culture war that has been chipping away at their safety and most certainly their mental health. Growing up a bis*xual in a religious, military household, I know a thing or two about hiding, and how healing and exciting representation can be. We don’t have the page space to address all of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation sweeping the country, but specifically LSG was my pushback against the stigmatization of queerness in schools. I understand the desire to keep classroom topics appropriate, but discriminatory policies and book bans are continuing to fuel anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and othering non-heteronormative people during developmental periods in their lives.
We believe that our identities are ours alone, and that young people should have a safe space to express themselves. We invite queer-identifying artists between the ages of 13 and 18 to submit to our free journal, and currently accept short fiction, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry and visual art. Previous editions are always available free online as PDFs in our website archive and we hope that they will remain a reminder to all young people that they are not alone.
What am I most proud of with LSG is the young people who submit to it. I wasn’t a very talented kid–I don’t mean that in a self abasing way, I just wrote really cringey fanfiction. Trust me on this, I could not write until college. My favorite part of the whole process is when submissions start coming and I can marvel at all the amazing works these young people are capable of.
How do you think about luck?
Well, I think that I am a very lucky woman in general. I am certainly grateful for my life and consider myself fortunate. I don’t know that I consider my artistic goals a stroke of luck really, it’s mostly been an obscene amount of unpaid labor but I think you could still consider me lucky in as much as I am able to afford to do what I love. I am the founder and head editor of Let’s Say Gay, yes, but I am also the owner of Mara Suna Massage and Yoga Studio, a business I run out of Greenwood, SC. I’m a very good therapist and have built a practice I’m proud of and so the funds from that allow me to pour endless amounts of time and money into the journal, which is not-for-profit and always operates in the red.
I also consider myself lucky to be surrounded by wonderful and loving friends and family who support my endeavor. Is it luck that my older sister loves me and is an awesome programmer who can keep my website functioning? Or that my wonderful girlfriend commits countless hours to sitting at tables and helping with LSG management? Maybe, who knows? What is luck even? But I’m pretty damn grateful for my support system.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lsglitjournal.com/
- Instagram: letssaygaylitjournal
