{"id":62228,"date":"2019-06-17T13:52:40","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T20:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=62228"},"modified":"2019-06-20T12:13:51","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T19:13:51","slug":"i-went-to-an-lgbtq-camp-heres-what-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/camp\/i-went-to-an-lgbtq-camp-heres-what-happened","title":{"rendered":"I Went to an LGBTQ+ Camp. Here’s What Happened."},"content":{"rendered":"

My parents were the type of middle class people who wanted to give their one and only child the kind of childhood they couldn\u2019t have dreamt of when they were growing up. So they sent me to summer camp. Every summer, they followed their personal training clients from Manhattan to Martha\u2019s Vineyard, cheering them on as they did step aerobics. Meanwhile, I went to camps where I learned to scramble atop tiny capsized sailboats in the sound and watercolor pinkish-purple mountain ranges, fading into the distance.<\/span><\/p>\n

At ten I graduated from day camps to overnight camps. I went to horse camp, gymnastics camp and even farm camp, where I \u201charvested\u201d a chicken and adopted vegetarianism (a practice I stuck with for nearly a decade). But, other than plucking feathers out of flesh and, one day, discovering a single log of poop (not mine) in a pool where I was swimming, my experiences of sleepaway summer camp were overwhelmingly positive.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The homecoming dance was real queer. So was the camp. So many good memories. I love all these humans. #autostraddlecamp<\/a><\/p>\n

A post shared by Lau<\/a> (@laulauatlimi) on