Story and Photos by Dillon Pilorget
Maure was less than pleased when her girlfriend flipped off the driver who had cut off their little truck; even less so when a car chase ensued and she found herself pulled over in The Copper Mill Restaurant’s back parking lot, watching her partner taunt the other driver. When a woman got out of the other car, Maure went from less than pleased, to terrified. “You effing dykes, I don’t know who the hell you think you are!” the woman yelled as she pulled out a gun and pointed it at the couple.
Today, Maure Smith-Benanti is more than pleased to act as the assistant director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Education and Support Services Program at the University of Oregon. Drawing from her experience as a Mormon-raised lesbian in conservative Utah, Maure fights for LGBT students who are discriminated against or underrepresented, and educates those who wish to understand the differences they see in others. Like most everything, she now gives an infectious laugh to that woman with the gun, but she knows the seriousness of the issues surrounding her.
Chicora Martin, director of the LGBTESSP and Smith-Benanti’s direct supervisor, compares her to an M&M, saying that she has a hard shell of realism, but a core of smooth optimism. Martin says this optimism is key in dealing with students who face discrimination, and that Smith-Benanti’s experience in the political climate of Utah has left her well equipped for helping students in Eugene’s political atmosphere as well.
Those who meet Smith-Benanti know that her optimistic personality is not easily forgotten. In her first-floor office in Oregon Hall, she sits surrounded by flamboyantly colored feather boas, pictures of her wife, Sarah, with whom she says she makes the ultimate team, and a framed comic of Ray Gun Girl, whose spiked red hair is notably reminiscent of Smith-Benanti’s. Her spunk is undeniable, and her authenticity is unrivaled. She drips with honesty and self-pride.
“A lot of people have asked me, ‘How can you be out? You come from this Mormon family, and you’re not worried about saying who you are,’” Smith-Benanti says. “I have the right and privilege to be out, so I have to do it for all the people who can’t.”
She attributes her self-honesty to her Mormon background and the lessons it ingrained in her. “My parents always said to me, ‘Smiths never lie’,” says Smith-Benanti. “I think what they were really trying to convey is that Smiths are honest and true about who they are…it’s a core value of being my authentic self.”
The authentic self, an unfiltered and honest version of one’s personality, is something that she tries to help her students to be. “I think the fact that I am out and my authentic self is an example, for good or ill, of how it can be…Being your authentic self publicly lets other people know they can be their authentic selves privately, and that’s really maybe the most important thing, I think, that I do.”
Making connections with students and building a sense of community are Smith-Benanti’s primary goals for her work at the University of Oregon. Alex Sylvester is the Education and Advocacy Coordinator for the LGBT Queer Alliance and a student who has worked closely with Smith-Benanti. He calls her, in a word, respectful, and says that she is approachable and always willing to help. Sylvester counts himself among those who love Smith-Benanti, and he says he sees her as a co-worker and friend. He also says he has noticed LGBT events becoming much more inclusive in the short time since Smith-Benanti has been here.
Though her work is centered around supporting LGBT students on queer issues, her inclusivity helps her value the opportunities to direct someone to the Admissions office, or to talk to people who struggle to understand what it is to be queer. “I have no problem talking to people who come from really bigoted backgrounds…who seriously don’t get it, and explaining where I come from, and that is as important and as powerful to me to let them improve their authentic self,” says Smith-Benanti.
This all relates to her ideal scenario, her own personal utopia. She says, “I think my ideal scenario is a world where people genuinely try to understand each other. Not a world where conflict doesn’t exist, but really one where we…truly try to value diversity.” She references MLK’s “Beloved Community,” and says that she identifies with his notion that we should love everyone as if they were our friend. She goes on to add, “Realistically, not everyone has to get it, but everybody has to want to, in my world.”
How will she reach this ideal scenario? She says that starting small is the key to reaching any big goal, and drops Margaret Mead’s famous quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” She has selected higher education as a platform so that she can catch people while they are still learning and developing, so that they may go on to educate others.
“[Maure] authentically cares about how students feel about being here,” says Martin. She cares because it is part of who she is, and she wants everyone’s authentic self to have the opportunity to shine like hers. It is an astounding thing that a lesbian girl can grow up in Utah and come out with such vibrance, such passion and optimism. There were plenty of chances for her to be “Sorry Maure,” from the sixth-grade arch nemesis who told her that women were proved inferior to men, to the times people have invalidated her negative experiences as a lesbian. But she is not sorry. She is fast, she is strong, she is powerful. She is “Maure Ferrari.” There is a rebel that has lived inside of her since the days she would stay up past her bedtime and read by the light of her electric blanket. Despite the adversity she and her students have endured, she loads her gun each day and points it in the face of discrimination. The difference between Smith-Benanti and the woman who once pointed a gun at her is that she loads her gun with love, acceptance, inclusion, understanding, and most of all, with authenticity.