Molly Torinus and Queer Liberation
Stories Editor Rasa (’25) interviews fellow OHS student Molly Torinus (’27), the founder and a frequent contributor of the OHS Queer Liberation Society!
Pixel Journal: Can you provide a little background on yourself?
Molly Torinus: I’m a part-time eighth grader at OHS and the founder of the OHS Queer Liberation Society. Outside of school, I’m passionate about queer liberation. I am a genderqueer lesbian organizer with anarchist tendencies, a queer theory obsession, and an undying love for lesbian feminism. I advocate for queer lib with OHS QLS, as well as organizing with Trans Advocacy Madison and moderating local LGBTQ+ Discords. I also write for the Anarchist Review of Books about the intersection of anarchism and youth culture, volunteer for Madison Infoshop (i.e., relational organize my head off), copy edit for the Anarchist Library, organize with the Madison Socialist Feminist Collective, do data entry for End Rape On Campus, and am a Project HEAL Ambassador. In terms of political theory, I consider myself faithful to Goldman and Berkman and am also a big fan of Audre Lorde. When I’m not shouting about being a lesbian, I love performative poetry, classical theater, and hanging out with friends.
PJ: What is queer liberation?
MT: Queer liberationists believe in anti-assimilationism (celebrating what makes our community different rather than acting as if we’re not queer), building queer community through organizing and mutual aid, uplifting queer art, and taking an intersectional and anti-hierarchical stance toward queer social movements. For many queer people, including myself, anarchism is a necessary part of queer liberation; as long as violence and domination exist, they will repress queer people or force us into assimilation. Queer liberationsts’ goal is to build solidarity within the queer community and dismantle cisheteropatriarchy in the prefigurative sense rather than simply passing laws or changing minds.
PJ: What made you interested in queer liberation?
MT: Since coming out at age eleven, I’ve had a love affair with queerness and have never been into assimilation. When I discovered the Queercore movement, I finally had words for that. I read Queercore: How To Punk A Revolution, started listening to bands like Tribe 8 and Against Me!, and discovered that queerness could be revolutionary (and was about so much more than dealing with people’s anti-queer beliefs, state-sanctioned oppression, or anything else annoying). When I became an anarchist about a year later, the reasons for systemic anti-queerness began to make much more sense. I knew that prefiguring queer liberation through community organizing was my calling.
PJ: What is your favorite part of queer liberation?
MT: When I’ve organized for mainstream gay rights–working with political campaigns, all that good stuff–it’s felt fear-based. It’s all about ending or mitigating anti-queerness rather than building queer solidarity, which leads to feeling more like a political football than a queer human. Queer liberation, for me, is just the opposite. Queer liberationists lead with queer love and care for one another. This ethos helps us prefigure liberated queer futures–but it’s also more meaningful than eternal panic over anti-queerness ever could be. I still deal with a lot of hate, but it no longer makes me feel ashamed of being gay, and I’m so grateful for that.
PJ: What is the coolest thing that you’ve done that’s related to queer liberation?
MT: At Madison Infoshop, where I organize, almost everyone is gay–and even the straight people tend to quote Toward The Queerest Insurrection a lot. It’s hysterical but liberating; in addition to our mutual aid work and monthly Know Your Rights training, we distribute vintage queer liberationist zines by authors like Emma Goldman and Leslie Feinberg. A queer friend and I designed an updated version of Martha Shelley’s “Gay Is Good,” so that was a cool moment. As a whole, it’s been really meaningful getting to know other queer anarchists in my city, and that’s helped me feel so much less alone.
PJ: What inspired you to start the QLS?
MT: I wanted to make space for more radical queer organizing at OHS; within the mainstream gay rights movement and queer culture, I saw assimilationist and almost neoliberal tendencies that made me wonder where our love for our queerness had gone. I was desperate for a space where queer people could be unapologetically ourselves and organize for queer liberation, so I created one, and I’m so glad I did.
PJ: What’s been the best part of being a part of the QLS?
MT: Being the first collectively run student org at OHS has been amazing! Not only have we not had to deal with hierarchy (thank the queer gods), it’s led to our members diving in with both feet when it comes to the QLS–creating resources, hosting meetings, recruiting their friends, and much more. We’ve even had people start organizing beyond OHS, which I credit to our emphasis on autonomy. Once you feel like you can be a part of prefiguring your liberation and don’t have to outsource that to electoral politics, bureaucratic nonprofits, non-queer opinions, or the Leader Of The QLS (which I’m not, by the way!), you gain the confidence to start organizing and build a radically queer life.
PJ: What’s been the most difficult part of being a part of the QLS?
MT: As an intersectional queer liberationist collective, we occasionally have problems with anti-queer trolling, and lately, we’ve had an influx of trolling behavior. We’re lucky to have a lot of members with expertise in anti-bullying organizing; an anti-trolling affinity group even formed out of QLS, so it’s a strength of ours. However, it has led to us needing a digital security point person, so there’s a threat of centralization there that we’ve had to be vigilant about avoiding. It’s also stressful for all of our members to deal with so much trolling, and I worry about everyone’s mental health and the amount of emotional labor that’s been pushed onto us due to our queerness.
PJ: Is there anything else you want to add?
MT: I’d like the student body at OHS, and all of humanity, to know that no matter who you are, queer liberation is for you. Queer or not, nobody can live up to the standards of cisheteropatriarchy, and we’d all feel a lot freer if we stopped trying to. As queer people, our strength lies in our natural ability to live outside hierarchies and lift one another up–by virtue of our existence, we have no other option but to liberate one another. I think everyone could use a little more queerness in their lives.