Up until approximately, mmm, yesterday, there's been a enduring stereotype of "outdoorsy" people: They're white, cis, straight, and love granola and/or semi-automatic rifles.
Of course, there have always been people who love nature and don't fall into any of those categories. And over the past few years, opportunities for LGBTQ people who want to camp, hike, and otherwise spend time with *real plants in nature* — not aloe plants in apartments — have grown exponentially.
Between summer camps for adult trans folks and stripper-heels-wearing backpacking queens, there's a growing outdoors community on Instagram and even in real life.
It's a quiet change, but it's one that matters.
Perry Cohen is the founder and executive director of The Venture Out Project, which takes queer and trans people out into the wilderness for short day hikes and longer wilderness trips. Cohen, a trans man, grew up with friends who spent their summers with Outward Bound and other camps. His friends described camp as a "life-changing experience" where they could go and "be with people who didn't know them ... and have a new identity."
Cohen was intrigued. He knew he was queer and was excited to be in a space where he could explore a new identity. But when he arrived at camp, "the group was already divided between boys and girls. I thought, 'I don't think this is going to be any different. I probably shouldn't tell them I listen to the Indigo Girls.'"
Cohen learned plenty of outdoor skills at camp. He just didn't get to do it while being his true self.
Fast forward 20 years, though, and throw in two of the most powerful social movements of the 21st century. Cohen, together with a diverse group of LGBTQ activists and performers, is helping to reduce the "nature gap" and ensure that queer and trans youth have better experiences than he did.
Here's how the barriers are being broken.
LGBTQ activists are making rural America a safer, queerer place
Queer culture has always been concentrated in cities — on paper, at least. Even in 2018, most people who identify as queer continue to live in large metropolitan areas like San Francisco and New York City. Big and typically progressive, these urban areas have become home to bustling queer communities and their culture, often defined just by nightlife.
That doesn't mean queer culture is confined to cities, or that there aren't members of the community who want to venture into the great outdoors.
Pattie Gonia, "the world's first backpacking queen," knows this well. Artist and photographer Wyn Wiley, who lives in Nebraska, plays Pattie. Wiley grew up in the cornfields near Colorado, an area not exactly known for its queer community. Nonetheless, he's found a loving home in this part of the country and in nature. It's a home he loves to share on his Instagram as Pattie.
In her first month on Instagram, Pattie has already gained over 18,000 followers.
"I'm pretty vastly loved and accepted for who I am back home," Wiley says. "There's a really big queer queer community in the Midwest in its own little fissures."
Not all queer and trans people feel quite as comfortable as Wiley does in rural spaces.
Elyse Rylander is the Executive Director of Out There Adventures, which takes queer and trans youth and adults on wilderness adventures. Some of her clients experience real anxiety about rural areas and the people they might encounter there.
"There's a historical trauma of being out in rural spaces," Rylander says. She mentions Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in 1998 in Laramie, Wyoming, for being gay. "They want to know, "What am I going to experience out there in the back country?.. I'd much rather encounter a black or brown bear than somebody whose motives I don't know."
Rylander works hard to mitigate young people's anxiety in rural areas. And people are more accepting of queer and trans people in 2018 than they were in 1998, even in rural areas and even as violence persists. Young queer and trans people who want to safely explore nature now can, thanks to programs like Rylander's.
LGBTQ adults are making up for lost time at camp
For many queer and trans adults, summer camp remains a lost part of their childhood. Plenty of LGBTQ people went to camp, but they often weren't out there. It was supposed to be a refuge from school and a place to explore new identities; instead, it became a confining experience.
Cohen initially set out to create an Outward Bound for queer youth. Venture Out's earliest programming was dedicated exclusively to this population. Over time, Cohen began to field more and more requests from adults who wanted to make up for the experiences they never got in their youth.
"They'd tell me "I never got to do this as a kid. I never got to backpack in this identity. I want to do it as me."
A few years ago, Cohen started leading trips for adults. The trips sold out their very first season.
Nowadays, Venture Out offers multiple options for people in the queer community: youth trips, POC trips, adult trips, trans trips, and family trips, where at least one person in the family is queer or trans identified.
Some camps are a little more targeted. Rocco Kayiatos is a founder and camp director at Camp Lost Boys, which is exclusively for men who have had trans experiences. Rocco transitioned 20 years ago, during the "dark ages for trans representation." Having grown up with almost no trans male role models, he believes in the power of creating a space for men of trans experience to be with each other as men.
"We have people who identify as men in all stages of their transition, including those who visibly don't read as male. But no one is going to ask them what their PGP [personal gender pronoun] is here. They're fortified that weekend as their true male self."
The camp provides a unique opportunity, Kaviatos says. "As a trans people, the things offered to us are bars, nightclubs or academic causes and health conferences ... There's no real spaces to gather and have fun and ... not have these academic conversations or engage in this politicized way."
With Camp Lost Boys, Kaviatos hopes to provide an intergenerational camp where trans men "get to be men, and recapture and reclaim this piece of childhood they didn't get."
Camp Lost Boys exclusively serves men of trans experience but prioritizes men of color and older generations who are even less likely to have access to services like Lost Boys.
Both camps work hard to pull people away from their phones and toward nature and the people around them. In 2018, there are dozens of other operations just like them.
Even social media is breaking barriers
It's an awkward relationship. If if weren't for digital media, some of these camps that resist technology probably wouldn't exist.
As much as I hate giving the platforms credit for anything, it's hard to ignore the spike in representation of LGBTQ hikers on Instagram. A few years ago, Jenny Bruso started the Instagram account Unlikely Hikers, which features LGTBQ, POC, and people with disabilities out in nature. The account has since grown to 49 thousand followers. It's a beautiful thing.
Cohen credits Instagram for a spike of interest in his camp and LGBTQ outdoor recreation in general.
"There's been an explosion in social media of diverse representation of people in the outdoors, that's inspired lots of people to think, 'Oh, I can do this.' As our participant group has become more diverse, it's helped attract more and more people to our trips."
Pattie's account, which features her in heels downing Cheetos in the wilderness, has a quiet social mission as well.
"I am the worst at doing my own makeup and doing everything that a normal queen can do. So I decided to break the mold and do whatever I do ... I put on this pair of heels and took it up to the mountains."
Pattie knows that representation matters, and can even make a difference in the smallest of ways:
"I just think that comes from the lens of seeing a lot of my activist friends do incredible shit. [But] it's not engaging online so it's hard to get eyes on it. Pattie Gonia is my way of challenging people and creating a fun and open space online."
LGBTQ people have a long way to go when it comes to equal representation in just about ... anything. Still, they're slowly making their way up the mountain, one summer camp, Instagram post, and one viral music video at a time.
Topics Activism
