Gay at Gauley Fest

Within minutes of getting out of the car at Gauley Fest on Thursday night, I heard “gay” being thrown around as a joke and an insult.

Not once. Enough that I noticed it.

And then I noticed myself.

I started trying to change the way I acted. Trying to make myself bigger, harder to mess with and honestly an asshole.

I don’t do that very often anymore.

I’m pretty damn comfortable being gay. I’ve spent years finding my place in the outdoor community, and whitewater has become a huge part of my life. I work in it. I travel for it. A ridiculous number of the people I love are in it.

So realizing that I was changing myself because I didn’t feel completely safe being myself caught me off guard.

Friday on the Gauley

Friday was incredible.

I got on the Gauley in a big raft with good humans and spent the day getting absolutely tossed around, laughing my ass off and remembering exactly why I love this sport so much.

Whitewater has given me a community in a way very few things ever have.

The day I didn’t paddle

Which made Saturday harder.

I’d already dealt with some shitty comments that morning when we loaded into the truck to head toward the river. Then one of the women going with us shouted across the backseat that I was a fatass, that my ass was so fat I couldn’t even fit my wallet in my pocket. I’d left it at camp.

I’d had enough. I asked the driver to take me back.

I crawled into my tent and slept for three or four hours. When I woke up, I lay there reminding myself of the mantras that got me through my early twenties and coming out of the closet.

Then I walked my fat ass up to the festival booths, because I had work to do.

I had a few genuinely good conversations there and met paddlers I wanted to know better. For a while, I felt like I had a place again. I needed that.

Saturday night

I ended up watching the Jell-O wrestling.

There were hundreds of people around it. At one point the crowd started chanting “kiss, kiss, kiss” at two women until they kissed. I don’t know how either of them felt about it. I do know a crowd chanting at you makes it harder to say no.

A man wearing fake breasts pushed a woman’s face into them. People were climbing into the rafters and dropping into the raft below. At some point I stopped watching it as a silly river festival thing and started wondering if somebody was going to get hurt.

I left with a couple of friends.

Outside, people were passing around a flamethrower. Fireworks were going off among the crowd; one exploded at somebody’s feet. We tried to get the guy throwing them to stop, then backed away. I saw people using drugs on and off the river that weekend, too. Taken together, it all felt reckless.

And yeah, I know. Gauley Fest is Gauley Fest.

I’m not offended by people partying. I don’t want whitewater to become sanitized. I like weird people. I like dirtbags. I like some chaos.

But when did “this is just how it is” become the answer to somebody saying they felt unsafe?

Later that night, back at camp, a woman I’d been planning to paddle with asked if I had a girlfriend. I told her, “No, I’m gay.”

She immediately started making homophobic comments.

We ask a lot of trust from the people we paddle with. I’d been planning to get on a river with her, and by then I couldn’t imagine feeling good about putting my safety in her hands.

Mostly, I was tired. Not devastated. Not shocked. Just fucking tired.

What I keep coming back to

I’ve had a little time to sit with the weekend, and I keep coming back to Thursday night. I walked into one of the biggest gatherings in whitewater and within minutes started changing the way I moved through the world because I was gay. By Saturday I was exhausted enough by little comments and jokes and interactions that I crawled into my tent in the middle of the day and went to sleep.

I can handle somebody saying something shitty to me. But none of those moments happened in isolation. They added up to a weekend where I was bracing for the next one.

Whitewater talks a lot about wanting more people here. I hear it constantly: more women, more queer people, more young people discovering rivers. I want that too.

But inviting somebody into a community isn’t the same thing as making space for them once they get here.

I know Gauley Fest matters to people. It mattered to me, too. Some people there were incredible to me, and I know a lot of work goes into bringing everyone together. I’m speaking about what I heard and saw, and about how I reacted to it. I can’t speak for everyone who attended or for the people who put the event on.

What I want from whitewater

This is bigger than one festival anyway. It’s about what we tolerate in whitewater because somebody is funny or talented or has been around forever. It’s about the joke your buddy tells when he thinks nobody in the group is gay. It’s about what happens when someone tells us they felt unwelcome and we rush to explain why it wasn’t actually that bad.

Maybe listen first.

And if it’s your friend throwing “gay” around as an insult or a joke, tell him to cut it out. The gay guy standing there shouldn’t always have to be the one who says, “Hey, that’s fucked up.” The woman being made uncomfortable shouldn’t always have to shut it down herself.

For the events and organizations that say they want a more welcoming paddling community: make it obvious who somebody can go to when harassment happens. Set clear expectations about harassment and consent. Have people ready to respond during the evening events, when so much of what I saw happened. Give someone a reason to believe they’ll be taken seriously before they need to ask for help.

For the brands saying the same thing: support queer paddlers who are already doing the work. Help pay for courses and gatherings where LGBTQ+ paddlers can find each other. Tell their stories when it isn’t Pride Month. Groups like the Armida Huerta Adventure Fund and Pride Day on the River are already building these spaces.

I work in whitewater, too. I have to ask myself what I’m willing to say in the moment, and what I can do with the relationships I have.

I love whitewater enough to expect more from it. I want queer people to find this sport because it has given me some of the best people and experiences of my life. I want them to get the river days and weird campfires and stupid jokes and friendships that happen incredibly fast when you spend enough time getting scared together.

I just don’t want them to have to become a slightly different version of themselves first.

And god daaaamnit do I need a break from that bullshit.

If you’re looking for people to get outside with, I’m collecting LGBTQ+ outdoor groups and clubs and queer outdoor events here on TheGayCamper.