If you stand on the shores of Chá7elkwnech (Gambier Island), you may be lucky enough to see a pod of orcas that have made the waters of Átl’ka7tsem (Howe Sound) their temporary home. Each pod is intergenerational, typically consisting of an older female and her offspring. Even when the children start their own families, they often linger close to their mother’s pod as they travel through the sea.
The organizers of CampOUT! think Queer people and the whales may have something in common when it comes to creating a community.
Since 2009, CampOUT! has welcomed Queer, Trans, Two-Spirit, questioning and allied youth aged 14–21 from across BC and The Yukon to bring “campiness to camp.” During the five-day-long retreat at Camp Fircom on Gambier Island, they participate in activities aimed at building leadership skills, finding their people and increasing their understanding of Queerness.
CampOUT! originally began as a day camp hosted at UBC and was inspired by a similar program at the University of Alberta, Camp fYrefly. It has since expanded with the support of UBC’s Faculty of Education, SOGI UBC and the Equity & Inclusion Office, as well as funding from community partners like Foundry — an inclusive care network based in Vancouver.
The theme of this year’s camp season is “Find Your Pod: 16 Years of Queer Joy.” In light of continued anti-Trans sentiments and many 2SLGBTQIA+ organizations having no choice but to close their doors, camp organizers wanted to highlight joy as an act of resistance and explore how members of the Queer community work to keep each other safe. Like the orcas, campers are also making themselves a home — even if only for a few days — and building their own pod of intergenerational Queer solidarity.
“Sometimes the word ‘community’ can be a bit overused or more aspirational, and many times, even when you’re part of a Queer community, you don’t necessarily have the support of the entire community,” said Camp Director Daniel Gallardo in an interview with The Ubyssey. “Finding your pod [means] you have supports that are reciprocal ... We want to create those relations when camp happens.”
There’s a wide range of camp activities for people to explore — painting, cross-stitch and drag; workshops on sexual health, disability justice and anti-fascism; or traditional outdoorsy camp activities and “gay sports,” as Gallardo put it.
Campers build their own schedule at the start of the week to match their interests, but regardless of what they choose, they can expect to learn more about anti-racism and Indigenous resurgence, which are woven throughout all of the programming.
For some of these lessons, white and BIPOC campers are separated into different “affinity groups,” in which they’ll attend sessions specifically tailored to their own identity and experiences.
“Specifically for white folks, it’s more understanding ... how can they be in radical solidarity with BIPOC folks. I think for BIPOC folks, it creates a place for connection and sharing of strength and resistance and experiences and stories,” said Gallardo.
Even the logo for this year’s theme draws on these values. Gallardo commissioned xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and Ts’msyen artist Chase Gray to draw a pod of orcas breaking a yacht in half, a representation of how embracing Queerness goes hand in hand with breaking down capitalism, colonialism and other systems of oppression — or, in Gallardo’s words, “crashing the cis-tem.”
Queer youth don’t typically have many older role models to turn to for guidance on questions concerning identity, but CampOUT! aims to change that. In addition to camp leaders, there are community mentors running the programming and people providing mental and physical health support.
“We’ve been able to build a community of more than 1,000 Queer youth. Many of them become part of camp in an intergenerational way. A lot of our campers become cabin leaders, who then become community mentors ... One of our campers last year became one of our co-directors of camp,” said Gallardo.
Before becoming camp director, Gallardo was the drag mentor, running workshops that gave campers the chance to develop a drag persona, dress up and play with makeup. Gallardo talks about their ‘drag children’ — all 50 of them — with pride. One of their first drag children eventually became a cabin leader, and as a skilled seamstress, they’re now creating an outfit for Gallardo based on the season’s “Find Your Pod” theme.
Gallardo’s favourite moments of camp always happen right before the showcase on the last day, where campers show off their paintings, writing, crafts and, in this case, drag. With both Gallardo and the kids getting into full glam, it gets chaotic backstage — makeup strewn across the room, Gallardo screaming at the top of their lungs trying to track down their missing silver glitter and campers laughing.
“It’s one of the most rewarding and also heartfelt sharings because of how — even in so little time — how transformative it is to have 100 Queer people in the same space, and being able to in an intergenerational way.”
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