For the first time since the terrible incident in which Oakland teenager Sasha Fleishman had his clothing burned at the hands of another teenager in what appears, by all accounts, to be a homophobic hate crime Sasha spoke publicly to CBS 5 over the holiday weekend.
As CBS reporter Da Lin reports, Sasha was happy to be home for Thanksgiving and seems to be doing okay, despite having their legs (Sasha prefers the neutral pronoun) fully bandaged and having some trouble walking. Sasha came home Wednesday after being treated at a burn unit at in San Francisco.
Sasha says that when 16-year-old Richard Thomas allegedly lit their skirt on fire aboard that AC Transit bus on November 4, Sasha wasn't sure what to do.
"My first instinct was kind of dumb, start waving around, trying to put it out with air, but it just fans the flames and makes it bigger,” Fleischman said. “My second reaction, which is probably what saved my life, is something I went back to my kindergarten class, stop, drop and roll.”
18-year-old Sasha identifies as agender, claiming neither a female or male gender identity, and has been wearing skirts to school for a couple of years.
Sasha's father, a kindergarten teacher, earlier wrote an open letter to members of his school community, declined to want to blame Thomas for a hate crime, wanting to let the court decide. Sasha now says that though forgiving Thomas will be hard, the county's push to try Thomas as an adult seems wrong. That is still going to be decided at a December 20 hearing.
Previously: Classmates Wear Skirts In Solidarity For 'Agender' Oakland Teen Lit On Fire On City Bus
