It was the first couple of days of ninth grade. Lydia Deetz and Wednesday Adams were — and still are — my fashion icons and influences. I was wearing my Doc Martens, and that was what we overlapped on. Her name was Elaine and she was this beautiful pasty-face goth queen who floated up the top of the stairs and asked me something about my boots. And then, out of nowhere, she asked “Are you gay or bisexual?”

I had never been asked that. And I was like, “Yes, yes I am.” No one ever asked me if I was straight, but just assumed I was. The language of it matters, too. I had inherited negative connotations around the word “dyke” and “gay.” But in this case, I knew that her question was promising. I was like, “Oh, I can feel the heartbeat in my crotch.”

I had crushes on boys in the past but it was just that: a crush. It was not deeply sexual. But she injected something into me and I could say, “Yes, I’m queer.” I’ve had similar experiences or moments where I’m like, “Yes, I’m Muslim.” It feels like an affirmation.

How did you decide to become a sex educator?

I had questions and wanted to answer them for myself. I never intended to offer the answers to other people. When I went to school as an undergrad, my dream was to do international health work for the UN. In college, I started getting involved with Planned Parenthood and doing sexual health stuff on campus. Then I ran street outreach with high school students, who were peer educators trained to hand out condoms and safer sex packets. I loved it. I loved being able to bring young queer Wazina into it and ask “How can we talk about sex ed in a way that doesn’t tokenize, dismiss, or desexualize? In a way that doesn’t make it over-the-top or super titillating or put too much attention on one or two communities? How do I talk about queerness in an almost nonchalant way?”

Yes. Can you talk about how learning to trust our desires can be a salve to the homophobic and transphobic world that surrounds us?

When I think about the different parts of sexuality, I think about a pizza. There’s anatomy, sexual orientation, all of that. But then pleasure is that little topper. It goes across the entire circle and it straddles everything. Understanding what makes you feel good provides access to your desires. “What is it that I want? What is it I want to be? Who is it that I like?” After that comes the language. As an English language learner, it took me a while to know what word works for different feelings. In Farsi, I sometimes didn’t have words for a lot of things, but I had a feeling. In English, I might learn that word, but it still doesn’t capture that deep feeling inside.