Safe Spaces
Specialized summer camps offer hope, community, and freedom for LGBTQ+ youth
By Jefferey Spivey
Photos: Photos Courtesy Of Brave Trails
When it comes to summer camps, the experience is largely defined by what happens on-site—the range of activities, the friendships, the independence. But at camps designed for LGBTQ+ youth, the impacts last long after campers return home.
“I think that there’s a lot of stories, that we’ve saved kids’ lives. It’s really quite touching,” says Jessica Weissbuch, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Brave Trails, a national, non-profit organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth leadership.
Weissbuch recalled receiving a voicemail from a Tennessee family that had to travel out of state for their camper’s gender-affirming healthcare. They felt Brave Trails had empowered them, giving them the necessary knowledge and courage to advocate for the family’s needs. She also learned of several campers returning to their schools to create gender-sexuality alliances, which promote greater mental health among LGBTQ+ students.
“That’s the key,” Weissbuch says. “Taking what they learn and just going back into their communities and doing it.”
These positive aftereffects—the increased confidence and stronger sense of self—help differentiate LGBTQ+ camps from general camps in a major way. However, the camp experience itself is unique, too, offering campers an open and compassionate environment that’s hard to find elsewhere.
Summer Camp Reimagined
Traditional camps often orient programs around gender, with identity dictating everything from daily activities to housing. To encourage inclusivity and comfort, LGBTQ+ camps take a different approach.
“We don’t do anything by gender. We don’t even ask gender on the application because it doesn’t matter to us,” Weissbuch says. Instead, campers are bunked by age. Weissbuch shares that LGBTQ+ kids “have to be a little bit more vigilant” in most social settings. The elimination of gender categories gives them the space to simply be children without worrying about how to present themselves.
Camp Beacon, a Kentucky-based camp running its first session July 12-15, adheres to a similar ethos. Director Jess Bowman says the first cohort of 25 campers will live in a single bunkhouse, with tentative plans to separate them by age. Additionally, there will be private changing areas and gender-neutral bathrooms. Camp Beacon will also forego common, gender-based traditions like Sally Down the Alley, which typically involves girls asking boys to dance.
Too, LGBTQ+ camps serve as a place to explore and embrace one’s identity. Weissbuch says Brave Trails has daily pronoun- and name check-ins so campers are supported in all stages of their personal journey. The non-profit’s summer camps place great emphasis on leadership as well, with opportunities for mentorship, interactions with queer elders, and queer education.
Ensuring that Brave Trails would offer something truly unique and memorable was part of the original vision. In 2015, Weissbuch co-founded the non-profit with her wife Kayla, who had attended summer camp from ages 8 through 18 and discovered it was a place where “she was accepted as who she was.” The two met while working at a local LGBT center in California, and decided to recreate Kayla’s experience while incorporating Weissbuch’s clinical-psychology background.
Together, they brought Brave Trails to fruition while still working their respective, full-time jobs.
“We were like, if we get 15 campers, that’ll be enough,” Weissbuch says of the first year, which was only a single week. Enrollment exceeded expectations—43 campers participated. The next year, the directors offered two weeks and saw double the number of campers. The demand wouldn’t let up, and they soon realized expansion would require their full-time dedication. Soon after, they took the leap. Brave Trails now offers four 10-day sessions in Southern California and one 10-day session in Maryland, with each one hosting 80 campers. Weissbuch describes the sessions as a cross between a traditional summer camp—hiking, swimming, arts, and crafts—and a leadership institute, with instruction on topics like identity mindfulness, public speaking, career paths, LGBTQ+ rights, and campus organizing, among others.
Beyond summer camp, Brave Trails hosts a robust slate of year-round programming that includes family camps, meetup groups called Brave Spaces, recently piloted backpacking trips, and a comprehensive, yearlong mental-health program, which trains five California-based therapists per cohort on queer-youth therapy.
This full ecosystem of services ensures that Brave Trails addresses the spectrum of needs across the LGBTQ+ community. In fact, the non-profit’s name was created to ensure this level of inclusivity was always paramount, no matter where kids were in their process of self-discovery.
“We shied away from our logo being rainbow and the word rainbow in [our name] because we wanted to make sure that folks felt safe to come, even if you’re not completely out to your extended family and things like that,” Weissbuch says. “We wanted to put out there the essence of being brave and being able to be yourself. It was like being brave to be queer. In the U.S. right now, you have to have an element of being brave.”
As of March 2023, over 400 anti-LGBTQ+ bills had been proposed in various state legislatures, with several bills being signed into law, many of which have targeted the rights of transgender youth. One such bill, SB 150, recently passed in Kentucky, where Camp Beacon is set to open. While none of SB 150’s provisions will directly impact the camp, Bowman is still acting with caution—an unfortunate component of LGBTQ+ camps that also sets them apart from general camps.
Bravery, Safety, And Security
As Bowman gears up for Camp Beacon’s first four-day, three-night session, she has taken extra care to avoid attracting any negative attention, including keeping the campsite location confidential. Along with her all-volunteer team (counselors will be paid a stipend), she’s overseeing an intake process designed to confirm applicants’ true intentions.
“We figure that people probably won’t go through all the effort of having to actually do a face-to-face interview with us if they’re not who they say they are,” Bowman says. Once campers are selected, they’ll then be told the location, but still with the stipulation that they keep it under wraps.
Even in the camp’s outreach, Bowman has relied heavily on word of mouth, looking to spaces like public libraries to connect with potential campers.
It’s a delicate balance. With so much negative national attention on issues like trans rights, Bowman wants to ensure campers are safe at every step of the process. Yet, she also wants LGBTQ+ youth to know about resources like Camp Beacon because the demand is there. After just two weeks, she had received 30 applications for 25 spots, suggesting there would be plenty more applications as the process continued.
Weissbuch has seen the same degree of demand since the onset of Brave Trails. The organization’s year-round programs are meant to bridge a gap.
“Our capacity does not match the desire at all,” she says. Brave Trails has hosted campers from all 50 states and 19 countries and has a lengthy waitlist each summer.
The lack of options for LGBTQ+ campers is what motivated Bowman to start Camp Beacon. She had been involved with several local LGBTQ+ organizations and frequently directed friends to relevant resources. When one friend asked for a camp recommendation, Bowman realized those camps were only in California and New England. “I went back to her and was like, ‘But what if we made one?’”
In planning to serve 25 campers during this first session, she’s aware the need is larger, but she wants to create a well-oiled machine first, and then expand to welcome more participants. She plans to manage the early demand with a focus on equity. She’s making space for rural applicants, who don’t have existing resources; kids in more progressive cities like Lexington have Pride centers, college-run LGBTQ+ organizations, and other ways to receive support. She’s also instituting a lottery system organized by age.
“We just want to make sure that we are serving a diverse population,” Bowman says.
Once campers arrive, Bowman will utilize a three-dimensional view of safety. She has arranged for on-site security as well as full mental-health support. She realizes that campers will be at different stages of their journeys, so letting their guard down in a safe space may introduce emotions campers may not know how to handle .
“Anytime you have human beings gathered together, it can be good just to have somebody there to work through that,” she says.
The broad mental-health support is yet another way LGBTQ+ camps differ from general camps in meaningful ways. However, with demand so high, there’s also an opportunity for general camps to evolve in their approaches, too.
The Next Step For All Camps
Though LGBTQ+ camps are filling a void, not all campers can attend.
“Already, the majority of LGBTQ+ kids are at mainstream camps,” says Nick M. Teich, PhD, LCSW, owner of Fairwinds Camp Consulting. Teich has worked with thousands of transgender youth in a camp setting for the past 14 years.
He says many LGBTQ+ youth choose camps based on their interests, like science, watersports, or gymnastics, or based on good reviews from friends or family members; those factors may outrank gender identity or sexual orientation. Thus, Teich says that general camps need to adapt more quickly to accommodate these campers.
“Not every kid with diabetes wants to go to a diabetes camp. That’s not the only option that should be available to them,” Teich says, using an analogy.
The solution, he says, is for camp directors to start making accommodations. Those who don’t may end up fostering negative experiences for LGBTQ+ campers and getting left behind. Those who do can seamlessly evolve to meet campers where they are. Teich stresses that these accommodations aren’t difficult. Solutions are as simple as questioning every aspect of camp where gender divisions are prevalent.
“We’re not talking about building new buildings or changing traditions or changing huge parts about camp,” he says. It’s ultimately a mindset shift, and one that can happen regardless of what individual counselors or staffers believe. He uses the example of alcohol policies on campgrounds. Even if you like to drink alcohol, there’s likely a policy that says you can’t while on duty. When it comes to creating an inclusive environment at camp, you may not fully understand certain aspects of gender identity or sexuality, but when you’re working, you must be respectful and tolerant of all campers.
“If that’s where you have to start, that’s fine,” Teich says.
His believes general camps will evolve to become more inclusive. But in the meantime, existing LGBTQ+ camps are working hard to welcome more campers. Brave Trails, which has rented campsites since its inception, purchased property a few years ago and is currently raising capital to renovate the buildings. The end result will be a camp space solely dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community.
Once Camp Beacon is up and running, Bowman hopes to continue a year-round outreach and to support campers’ community efforts when they return home. She’s even exploring the possibility of a one-day summer camp fundraiser for LGBTQ+ adults. Ultimately, she hopes the existence of the camp will counter negative news about Kentucky and show that LGBTQ+ people can build community anywhere.
“People don’t understand how many wonderful people are here,” Bowman says. “I know that our politics look really bad, but those things don’t represent the people that I know.”
Jefferey Spivey is a writer based in Urbandale, Iowa. Reach him at jeffereyspivey@gmail.com.