This article is Part 2 of a blog series called We Belong Everywhere: Queer Community & Resilience in the Outdoors. Read Part 1 & stay tuned for Part 3!
An Old Friend, A New Fear: Navigating Queer Identity in Nature
My family and I had just arrived at Cape Blanco State Park, located at the western-most point of the Oregon coast. My younger sibling and I (13 and 15 years old) were the first to jump out of the car and scope out the surrounding area: there were no other campers there but us that day. Intrigued by the prospect of exploring the Cape Blanco Lighthouse just a short hike from our campsite, we followed a damp path through the dense, mossy woods that led to a clearing.
As soon as we stepped outside the protection of the forest, the swirling wind knocked us back. We breathed in the cool, salty mist and fought to keep our hair from whipping into our eyes as we strolled along the ridge overlooking the coastline. From above, we admired the waves fighting against the shore before they returned to their home in the ocean and left behind a silhouette of foam.
As we continued along the path, we began to make out the Cape Blanco Lighthouse in the distance. A man emerged from around the bend with a dog, a black lab. The man appeared middle-aged and burly—probably double the size of me and my sister—and wore dark clothing. He didn’t speak to us, only roamed in our general vicinity, observed us, and allowed his black lab to explore the scents lingering on the surrounding landscape. I recalled the emptiness of our campsite and wondered where this man and his dog had emerged from. My sibling and I shared concerned glances, but chose to fight our feelings of discomfort and continue our journey to the lighthouse after passing the man on the trail.
Although gone from our sight, the man didn’t fade from our minds. We remained on high alert as we stood in awe of the lighthouse towering above us. We explored the exterior of the lighthouse: despite its weathered appearance and exposure to the elements atop the highest point on the coast, the structural integrity of the lighthouse remained intact. After wandering around the area surrounding the lighthouse and peering through its windows, we retraced our steps back to our campsite. Still, the man we encountered earlier remained in the back of our minds as we crossed the threshold back into the forest providing us the much-needed feelings of shelter and safety—or so we thought.
I jolted awake in the middle of the night to a thump outside my tent. I rubbed my eyes to adjust my focus, relying solely on the pale moonlight filtering through the tent. I heard the thump again, closer to the tent this time. My heart dropped and my body filled for the first time with a fear, a fear I still grapple with today stemming from my identity as a woman and, although I didn’t know it at the time, a queer person. I prayed that whatever was outside my tent was not that man from the trail, but an animal. An animal wouldn’t have any qualms with my identity. That man would. Whatever was outside the tent didn’t present itself, but I left the Oregon coast with a newfound sense of who I am—what others see me as—in places of vulnerability.
As a young kid raised in Anchorage, Alaska and later raised in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve called nature my second home my entire life. I was that weird kid at school filling my pockets with acorns and leaves and watching rollie pollies extend and contract in the palm of my hand at recess. Or, back at home, I’d be sheltered under the fronds of the grand Western Red Cedar tree in the backyard of my family’s home in Washington creating makeshift homes for my fairy friend, Mira.
As I grew older, returning to my roots in the great outdoors has never failed to mend my disheartened spirit or jumbled emotional state. Learning how to live with chronic illness has been made more approachable after spending a few moments immersing my senses in the scent of crisp air, the sounds of nature, and the feeling of my feet planted into the earth. Even as I grew into my queer identity later in my teenage years, nature never failed to welcome me with outstretched arms, particularly when other environments didn’t.
For my entire education until I graduated high school, I was enrolled in extremely conservative, Christian schools. The ideologies at these schools—and the people perpetuating them—forced me to deny and suppress my queerness. As per the Bible verse quoted in an “opinion” paper I had to write for a Biblical Worldview course in high school, being queer was an “abomination.” It was already enough that I had no plans of adhering to the God-ordained role of a woman to marry a good Christian man, have good Christian children, and live a good Christian life. I felt ashamed, for I was the exact “abomination” I wrote about in that paper. I also felt betrayed by the community advocating for the love of all and their refusal to extend that love to me, simply for being a queer woman. So I turned to nature. It didn’t have hostile feelings towards my identity like they did. Nature welcomed me as I was.
After moving away from Washington to attend college in Idaho—finally free from the confines of ideologies conflicting with my identity—I began to feel comfortable expressing my queerness. Knowing nature has always been a refuge, I sought spaces in the Idaho outdoors just as I had in Washington. But instead of being welcomed, I encountered a strange, unfamiliar barrier: feeling unsafe presenting as my true self in nature, a place I had always been met with outstretched arms. It was devastating to taste the freedom of representing a side of myself I suppressed for so long, only for it to expose my vulnerability in a state with active legislation against queer identities. My access to nature was now restricted by the fear of putting my safety at risk.
For the next two years, I stopped going to outdoor spaces almost entirely. Nature became an old friend I rarely spoke to besides a quick text to check-in on occasion. But after a difficult spring semester and a much needed emotional and spiritual reset, I decided it was time to pay my old friend a visit. I had the Hull’s Gulch Trail in my sights for a while, but talked myself down every time I considered hiking it alone. Not this time. I got off work in the afternoon, then gathered the resolve to slip on my hiking boots and drive up the foothills a couple short hours before sunset.
Atop the foothills, I admired the sprawling skyline and landscape below before beginning my 6.5 mile trek. Not a single soul did I see on the entire trail. Sure, it was a Thursday evening and maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea to go on a hike just before dark, but I enjoy solitude—just not a forced solitude that prompts a fear of being caught alone in a remote location without service.
As I descended into the gulch, the bushes a few yards away from me rustled. I froze dead in my tracks. My mind began whirling with thoughts of the unthinkable. How could I have been so stupid, coming out here alone? I stood there, eyes glued to the bushes, gripping my bag just in case I needed to whip out my expired pepper spray. I watched as out of the bushes, a rabbit emerged. I exhaled and my hands relaxed around my bag. But as the sun descended on the horizon and the air began to cool, I only let down my guard once: when I ascended out of the gulch and watched the sun dip down closer to the horizon as it shaded the clouds with pastels. But I still had 3 miles to go.
My muscles twitched and my eyes darted in the direction of every noise that wasn’t my own. And by the time I made it back to the trailhead, it was almost completely pitch black. I was lucky to have the legs capable enough to hasten my pace, and I was also lucky enough to have encountered a rabbit, and not a person, while hiking alone without service. It was after that hike that my fears were confirmed: I needed to value my safety over my love for nature, a devastating shift in priorities a person should never feel the need to do.
That’s the reality for LGBTQ+ folks. The threat of safety is one of the many barriers queer folks face in wanting to access outdoor spaces in Idaho, and it’s been a barrier for me, too. But this barrier can be chipped away at through the formation of a community intended specifically for LGBTQ+ folks—a community that advocates for our safety and comfort in nature. That’s exactly what the OUTdoors program at Idaho Sierra Club does.
Idaho Sierra Club’s OUTdoors program is a queer-only Outings group that aims to cultivate a safe space and provide resources for the LGBTQ+ community to come together in nature. Shared identity groups like the OUTdoors program can have significant benefits on a person’s wellbeing, especially in easing feelings of isolation many queer folks face.
Knowing I have a place in outdoor spaces as a queer woman is beyond affirming—it’s empowering. Having never experienced the sense of community a LGBTQ+ specific outing creates, I didn’t know it was possible to feel welcomed and loved for my identity, not in spite of it. Learning about the OUTdoors Idaho program has shown me there is a way for queer folks like me to feel safe and comfortable outdoors.
Through the OUTdoors Idaho program, I and other LGBTQ+ folks can experience an environment where our safety in outdoor spaces is prioritized, a rare opportunity not often afforded the LGBTQ+ community. The OUTdoors Idaho program has, and will continue, to minimize the barriers for accessing outdoor spaces in Idaho. And I for one, can’t wait to reconnect with my old friend, nature, and meet new friends along the way at a future Outing.
About the Author
Keira Gere (she/they) is an undergraduate student at Boise State studying Professional and Public Writing. Outside her academic life, she can either be found somewhere in the wilderness, searching for clothing and trinkets in local thrift stores, or cozying up to her cats with a gaming console in hand.