Leadership Training Institute is an LGBTQ summer camp for teens in Wisconsin

For many students, summer camp for LGBTQ teens is the first place they felt comfortable enough to use their pronouns, call people by their chosen names, and identify with themselves.

“It’s a community of people who will support each other with love and acceptance, and those who don’t get that at home, at school or both have the opportunity to be themselves for four days and three nights,” said Tyrone Creech Jr., executive director of GSAFE, which has hosted the four-day camp for 24 years.

“Students describe this place as paradise,” Creech said.

This year’s camp, known as the Leadership Training Institute, was held in late July in a dorm at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A Journal Sentinel reporter visited the camp midway through to experience the safe space firsthand.

Safer spaces for youth

Since the early 1990s, GSAFE, a Madison-based organization that advocates for the rights, safety, and acceptance of LGBTQ students, has provided support to GSAs in schools across Wisconsin.

GSAs — an acronym for Gay-Straight Alliances or Gender and Sexuality Alliances — are typically student-run clubs with a faculty advisor where students can talk about being queer in an accepting environment and where they organize activities to encourage a more inclusive climate in their schools. GSAs are often referred to as safe spaces for queer students.

In the past few years, LGBTQ expression among students has been under attack through book bans, laws restricting gender-affirming care and “don’t say gay” policies that limit LGBTQ-inclusive sex education. Even the concept of safe spaces has faced backlash, with school districts in Wisconsin removing “safe space” stickers and Pride flags from classrooms.

Katie Rickert, director of youth leadership and advocacy at GSAFE, said the group’s senior director of education and policy, Brian Juchems, often talks about the “chilling effect” of such policies, that “people are afraid of resistance and, to prevent further resistance, they think the solution is to be quiet about LGBTQ issues.”

“But the reality is that this silence is doing more harm,” Rickert said. “It’s important to focus on proactive work that creates safer spaces for LGBTQ youth to speak openly about their identities without fear of being outed or hearing hurtful rhetoric.

“They need these spaces both inside and outside of school.”

Hence the annual summer camp, which Rickert says includes leadership-building activities, workshops, discussion groups and “fun camp elements like campfires and talent shows.” The groups of campers—called rainbow teams—are led by both adults and peer mentors.

“LTI is kind of like one big, four-day, 24/7 GSA,” said GSAFE Executive Director Creech.

Focus on who the person is

Walking down the dorm hallway, peer counselor Carter Mandel pointed to the posters taped to every door — colorful, with the name and pronouns of the person sharing the room, surrounded by affirmations, drawings, social media accounts, and signatures from other campers.

Mandel and their fellow mentor Kyanna Kramer said campers are encouraged to write messages that “steer clear of appearance-related words” and instead focus on “something about who the person is.”

While it’s not uncommon at camps, retreats, and in schools to encourage students to sign other students’ posters, T-shirts, and yearbooks with kind words about the other person, posters at LTI mean something more.

“These posters are such an important part of a lot of campers’ experiences,” said mentor Avi Mack. “Sometimes it’s the first time they’ve written their chosen name, and it’s so important for people to see it. I’ve had a lot of campers tell me, ‘That was so cool that you did that; you made me feel so seen.’”

“It’s life-changing for everyone involved, and it’s hard not to walk away from it feeling all those good, good feelings knowing that these students finally feel safe,” said Creech, who attended LTI as an adult mentor before starting his full-time career at GSAFE. “Being in that space, caring for each other, watching people build this big, chosen family, and watching the quietest student in the corner become the loudest.”

One of the dorm hallways was filled with students who were “getting the loudest” by shouting out songs from the musical.

“Yeah, hallway musicals,” Rickert noted with a laugh. “That’s not uncommon.”

The kids in the hall musical were part of one of six rainbow teams, and that hour of the schedule was one of several over the long weekend when the students simply hung out with their teams. In addition to singing, the groups made friendship bracelets, created LEGO characters for a game of “queer D&D,” talked, laughed, and built community. Noel Pabillo Mariano, the adult mentor of the orange team, was busy handing out orange leis to everyone, explaining that “everyone is welcome to be an honorary member of the orange team.”

Breaking the Ice with Teenagers

After the rainbow teams finished competing, campers gathered in the main part of the dormitory for a 90-minute panel discussion and question-and-answer session with adult mentors.

“This is an opportunity for you to get to know us adults, to hear about queer joy and the beauty of adult life as a queer person,” Rickert told the teens.

In a previous interview with the Journal Sentinel, Bella DiCarlantonio, who has served as a peer mentor at LTI in recent years, noted that it can sometimes be difficult to break the ice in a group of teenagers.

“One of our jobs as mentors is to be the first to express our thoughts in the workshops, sharing something about ourselves,” DiCarlantonio said, adding that this strategy is a good way to make children feel more comfortable participating in the conversation.

Indeed, as the seven adult mentors shared their personal stories, the campers were engaged, paying attention, smiling frequently, laughing, applauding, and making supportive comments.

When one student asked adults how motivated they felt to simply get up each morning, the adults understood the underlying mental health context of the question and agreed with the student that motivation can be a difficult task. They said that sometimes they are motivated by anger at injustice, often it is simply the need to go to work to pay the bills, and that they rely on the people around them, the people they love, to help them when it seems too hard.

Adult mentor Tiffany Lee, who admitted to sometimes having a hard time getting out of bed, explained that queer love goes beyond romantic relationships and is about chosen family, which is a big part of the LGBTQ experience: “Queer love is all my friendships, the people who support me,” Lee said. “Queer love is what keeps me going in the world, what lifts me up when I’d rather sit and watch TV.”

They also discussed romantic relationships, the importance of consent, and queer-inclusive sex education. When Rickert mentioned that she had recently gotten married, the teens applauded.

Rickert smiled and told them, “The person you are in a relationship with should be adding something positive to your life, not draining you.

“And you should also be able to celebrate doing mundane things together. Like everyone’s like, ‘Hooray, we got married!’ But it should also be, ‘Hooray! We went grocery shopping together!'”

The teenagers laughed and applauded Rickert again.

The conversation then returned to the importance of chosen family and that love is and should be defined as more than just romantic relationships.

Adult mentor Yante Turner shared his perspective with the teens while laughing and crying.

“I love my sister as much as I love my mailman,” he said, then stopped his explanation as multiple teenagers burst out laughing and shouted, “What!”

“I KNOW,” Turner said, laughing. “But for me, it takes a really deep understanding of how we define love in this space.

“We don’t need labels, we need to really value the people that we’re in community with. The way that we value people is queer love. And you don’t have to be in a romantic relationship or be in community with your friends forever to have queer love.”

Making physical security a priority

The concept of a safe space often refers to people’s ability to feel emotionally safe enough to open up about who they are and what they’re feeling. But as the afternoon wore on and adult mentors welcomed questions from campers, it became clear that the teens felt comfortable enough to bring up physical safety.

One teenager turned to his adult mentors for advice on how to best combat bullying.

“I know I should report everything, but I’m the type of person who ignores things and I know I can’t change their minds, but I at least want to teach them that their bullying is wrong,” the camper said. “I mean, it would be great if that person said, ‘I totally get your point,’ that would be great. But I’d rather just feel comfortable and safe at my school.”

“My mom wanted me to ask that question too,” the camper added, drawing smiles and laughter from the room.

The panelists agreed that changing minds is a great goal in general, but that students’ first priority must be their physical safety. Lee began the conversation by explaining the five Ds of intervention: Direct, Distract, Document, Delegate, Delay.

Although the five Ds strategy was developed for bystanders who want to support a victim of bullying, Lee noted that from her own experience, the concept is helpful for the person who is being bullied, too.

“I often freeze or ignore these situations, so they help me think through things really quickly,” Lee said, adding that students need to choose strategies that work best for their personality and situation. “I’m not a ‘direct’ girl,” Lee said. “I’m more of a ‘documenter,’ ‘distractor,’ and ‘delegator.’”

The teen nodded as the other panelists added their own comments, and when one of his friends said, “This is what you should write down in your notes to mom,” they quickly agreed, jotting down a few points.

Rickert shared her experience, noting that documenting incidents of bullying to follow the school’s reporting protocol can be frustrating, especially when “nothing seems to come of it”; still, she said, “you should follow the protocol, it’s so important to have that trace because even if nothing happens, you have it on record and you never know, it could help someone else in the future.”

Mariano told the teen he would contact him after the session to put him in touch with someone in the area who taught self-defense, and suggested another coping mechanism for dealing with hurtful words.

“I carry a handheld, miniature paper shredder with me, and when I hear a microaggression, I write it down and run it through the shredder,” Mariano said, drawing laughter, applause and a comment from one camper: “That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard!”

After asking the teen if he answered the question to his satisfaction, one panelist said, “I hope this helps.”

“I’m sorry you have to do all this work,” another panel member added.

At the end, when all the adults nodded, one more panelist said, “But you are not alone.”