LGBTQ+ Healthcare Project

Season 3 of kin•dom campfire chats features campers from our partner camp at Zephyr Point on Lake Tahoe in Nevada. Our host, DJ, interviews campers about their experience at camp. Special thanks to our Season 3 producer, Josh Clapp, for putting each episode together.

Find out more about us by visiting our website, kindomcommunity.org. There you can find information about kin•dom camp and consider supporting our work with a one-time or recurring donation. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram @kindomcommunity to keep up with all the important information. 

Transcript

music  0:00  

[Andy strumming guitar & Baylee's voice singing: "Oh let's build, let's build a place we can go”]

Josh  0:09  

Thank you for tuning into kin•dom campfire chats, a podcast of kin•dom community. This podcast features the voices of LGBTQIA+ youth who attended kin•dom camp at Zephyr Point in the summer  of 2025. We asked the campers about their experience at camp and as queer youth navigating the world around them. I these short interviews, the campers tell their stories of the highs and lows of everyday life as an LGBTQIA+ youth. We invite you to listen with an open mind and an open heart. 

music  0:51  

[Andy strumming guitar & Baylee's voice singing: "This is the place”] 

DJ  0:53  

Hi everybody, I'm DJ Torres, and I'm very lucky to be here recording with some of the campers at kindom camp here in Zephyr Point in California, and I wanted to start with our first guest. How do you want to introduce yourself?

speaker 1  1:10  

Hi, everyone, I'm Basil.

DJ  1:12  

Hi, Basil.

speaker 1  1:13  

I'm a camper here at kindom camp. I started coming here when I heard about one of my mom's friends, who worked at the camp briefly, she told me about this camp, sounded interesting. I showed up, it was fun, and now I'm back for my second year.

DJ  1:36  

That's so awesome. Thank you, Basil. And just so everybody knows, Basil is not their real name, that is their fun camp name, as so we're not using any identifiable names, but I will be asking everyone to introduce themselves by how they want to be introduced. So this is Basil. Thank you, Basil. So tell us a little bit about how it's gone for you, maybe that the your first year last year and how it's starting off this year.

speaker 1  1:59  

My first year last year was very interesting. It's not like a camp I've done before, though it has similar traits to other sleepaways and whatnot that I've been to. There are a lot of fun activities, a lot of things I didn't expect, and a lot of things I really enjoyed. I got to meet a lot of new people, some of them have become my close friends that I'm still in contact with.

DJ  2:25  

Oh my gosh, like you talk to them throughout the year.

speaker 1  2:27  

Yes, I do.

DJ  2:28  

That's great.

speaker 1  2:29  

Collect a few people,

DJ  2:30  

that's really great. So it's going well.

speaker 1  2:33  

It is. Yeah,

DJ  2:34  

good. Tell me about how that's gone. Like, have you turned to these friendships over the year? Like, when have you decided to reach out to your kindom camp friends?

speaker 1  2:43  

Oh, I reach out for them from them to time to time, just to check in, see how they're doing, ask if they're coming back this year, which sadly not all of them work.

DJ  2:53  

Sure, but you did have some friends return.

speaker 1  2:56  

Yes, I did.

DJ  2:57  

Good. So you were able to look forward to hanging out with them?

speaker 1  3:00  

Yes, I was.

DJ  3:01  

That's good. So, you're talking about it not being like other camps you've been to, like, tell me about what other camps you have been to, and tell me why this one feels a little bit different.

speaker 1  3:09  

Well, the other sleep away camp I've gone to is a Girl Scout camp.

DJ  3:14  

Oh, cool,

speaker 1  3:14  

which is very fun. It's.. it can be strenuous at times, but we do. there are some similar activities, like both of the camps have archery, there's a lot of exploration, hiking, etc. This camp is new. I've first of all never been to a camp specifically centered around pride. Uh,

DJ  3:36  

that's cool. I mean, I don't.. I have my feelings about that. But tell me, how does that feel for you?

speaker 1  3:41  

It feels very nice,

DJ  3:43  

awesome.

speaker 1  3:43  

Yeah, because all the camps I've been to have been very accepting. It's just never been a central role in how certain things in the camp play out, which I very.. I like it a lot. It's very nice. Um,

DJ  3:58  

do you feel like.. like, say more about that. Like, tell me about why Pride at this camp feels different. Feels nice, as you say

speaker 1  4:06  

it. It feels different and nice because there's more opportunities to learn about queer history. You can trust that everyone is supportive, and you're with like-minded people who are very friendly, kind, lovely people to be around. Yeah,

DJ  4:26  

yeah, that's good. Tell me, how I mean, to what degree, and feel free to, like, I don't know what your kind of comfort level is. So, if you're here to kind of celebrate your pride identity, I'm going to make some assumptions that maybe you're looking to have more pride in your life, like, is this an identity that you share when you're not at camp? Like, maybe share a little bit about that.

speaker 1  4:47  

This is something I share when I'm not at camp. I don't often go to pride events, because if I were to go to one, I would want to go. With a friend, and let's just say a lot of my friends have busy schedules, so it can be hard to coordinate meetups. Um, I do. There was a Pride club at my old school, and I'm hoping there will also be one at the school I'm going into.

DJ  5:16  

Oh, cool.

speaker 1  5:18  

So I went to that. I try to attend Pride events and such, learn about the LGBTQ community. Me and my friend actually did a recent project on LGBTQ healthcare rights.

DJ  5:37  

Oh, cool.

speaker 1  5:38  

And a proposition to make healthcare rights more accessible for people of the LGBTQ community.

DJ  5:46  

Wow, that's very cool.

speaker 1  5:47  

Um, so yeah, I just.. I try to support when I can try to be a part of that. 

DJ  5:55  

For your.. I mean, can you say a little bit more about that project? That sounds really interesting. 

speaker 1  5:59  

So, um, as many people might know, the LGBTQ community does not always have the most accessible health care rights. It can even be illegal to get certain things done in certain states. So, me and my friend, we did a whole lot of research on this, and then we made, if we were to actually take this to courts of law, and so on. We made a proposition for what we would want future health care rights to look like, and this is just going off what I can remember at this moment.

DJ  6:35  

Oh, that's great. This is really exciting.

speaker 1  6:37  

It's just stuff like talking to healthcare workers, making sure they understand how to respect and support people who are queer, how to go about treating them if need be, etc. How to make it, how to make hospitals a more supportive and inclusive space, so that way people don't have people are able to trust healthcare workers more with their past health history. It would also include stuff like getting more people in the queer community insurance that would accommodate their current incomes, and would, how do I phrase this, it would help, it would help calculate around the daily expenses to find a health care plan that would work for them, and so it's understandable that if you had a little bit more money, you might have a little more benefits, and so on, and so on, but it would still hopefully include health care insurance for most, hopefully all LGBTQ people on some level,

DJ  8:04  

I'm really listening to you, and so struck by how, how engaged you are with LGBTQ health and access, like, and as I'm looking at you, you seem so young. So, tell us about how young people like yourself can get involved and stay passionate about issues like this, like, and maybe talk, talk to us a little bit about how you got inspired to not just explore pride, which you said you're doing, but it's almost like you're taking pride a step further and turning it into action. So maybe if you want to share a little bit about how you got to this place as a young person where you're so fired up about these issues,

speaker 1  8:42  

uh, my family always tried to keep me somewhat up to date on the standings of politics in our world, especially as I got older, and as I learned more and more about the world's current issues, I got more and more involved, and it definitely helped that this project, this project was assigned to us in school, because that gave us the perfect opportunity to learn more, research more, put together pieces, essentially to make what could eventually be a proposition,

DJ  9:23  

cool.

speaker 1  9:23  

Um, so I, me and my friends were some of us are very interesting in the interested in the current standings of politics in the world right now, and um, the majority of my friends are queer or queer supporting. Well, all of them are queer supporting.

DJ  9:48  

That's very lucky. I feel like maybe not a lot of people could say that about their friends. That's great.

speaker 1  9:53  

So we started to learn more and more, people would gather bits of information, we'd all do re. Search on our own time as wanted, and felt like it. We would bring together news. I started learning more, trying to keep up with political standings, to because to me it feels very important to know where our world is headed and what we can do to fix that. So, um, I would say, if you, if you want to learn more, go online, find a few articles, find some trustworthy websites. Britannica is a trustworthy database. I'll tell you that it has quite a few articles on the LGBTQ community that I've used for projects. It's very helpful.

DJ  10:40  

That's great.

speaker 1  10:41  

So, yeah, just do your research, stay up to date. A lot of different sources on the web will be there to help you,

DJ  10:51  

you know. As you're talking, I'm thinking also about, like, you know, it's.. I won't say that it's rare to meet young people who are inspired by things that impact their life, I find that young people really do want to change the world for the better, for the world that they're about to grow into. Can you say more about not necessarily politics? I mean, you're welcome to talk as much as you want about that, but I am curious about, like, how does a place like kindom help pull together all these interests? Like, you talked about learning a lot from the folks who are here. You talked about being inspired and taking that back to your school and your kind of home community. Are there any connections you've made to this like passion inside of you and what you're experiencing here at kindom?

speaker 1  11:33  

There definitely are. I know there are at least a few people here who are also interested in the world standings, like I am, and there's also there have been a few opportunities here for me to learn more about queer history, and that it, that is able to help me piece together kind of what's happening in the present, like it kind of ties together, so it's definitely helpful to have a space where people can come together and safely discuss what they feel like discussing, whether that's politics, home life experiences, just stuff like that,

DJ  12:21  

even like, as you're talking, even like interests, right? Like you talk about history as something you're interested, right? But I also know that there's like outdoor events and arts and crafts, and I, what I like about kindom, and I would like to hear more about what you say, is all the different kinds of opportunities to engage in different areas of interest, so that if you are a history buff like yourself, you have opportunities to explore that. If you're maybe more arts and crafts, see, you can explore that as well. Can you share a little bit about, like, I love what you've shared so far, and can you say a little bit more about, like, what else has you have you been interested in, or have you explored that maybe you wouldn't have explored at home, or if you wouldn't have come to this camp.

speaker 1  13:03  

Yeah, kindom definitely has a lot of opportunities. I've been able to explore archery, which I have experienced, to add some previous camps, which is nice. Uh, here it's also nice there are a few days where they offer activities like paddle boarding or kayaking, because kindom is next to a massive Tahoe Lake, so perfect for that.

DJ  13:24  

As we're sitting here, listeners, we are overlooking beautiful Lake Tahoe, and we have it shining in our eyes, and you may hear a little bit of the breeze blowing in the background. So, for those of you who might not know, that's the really beautiful scenery that we get to have right now.

speaker 1  13:39  

It definitely is beautiful, uh, yeah. So, there's quite a few outdoors activities for those who are more interested in that. This, um, this afternoon I'm actually participating in ax throwing with relaxes.

DJ  13:53  

How do you feel about that?

speaker 1  13:54  

Very exciting. I've always wanted to try out.

DJ  13:57  

It is very fun. I hope you like it. So, what about the other adults, like, well, and we'll talk more about fellow campers in a minute, too. But, like, have you been able to strike up any conversations with some of the adults, either the staff or the volunteers? Like, how have your interactions with the adults here been for you?

speaker 1  14:15  

Yeah, the volunteers and the staff are very helpful. I find them, I find some of them relatable to my interests. So we're able to talk about that.

DJ  14:25  

You find your fellow history buffs. I don't want to say history nerd, that's what I would call myself. So if you ever want to talk about history, I'm happy to be one of the many, but you have found your fellow history buffs. You say,

speaker 1  14:36  

oh, that hasn't come up quite yet, but I also do love to read, so I've been able to talk about books. Oh, good. Some of the staff also very kind, supportive. They're willing to hear you out on topics they either don't know about, or maybe they do. They're just happy to listen.

DJ  14:53  

That's great. Okay, great. So, tell us about, like, more in your personal life, like, as you reflect on this week, and I know. Over here, and I don't want to focus on the end, even for those of you who may not know, we're just getting started today, but I am thinking about, like, what do you hope to take from this year, too, that maybe is a little different and an extension of your year one experience.

speaker 1  15:16  

Uhm,

DJ  15:16  

like, at the end of the time together, what will you look back and say, I'm really glad I did this. I'm really glad I learned that. Like, what? What do you hope to sort of take from this experience this week?

speaker 1  15:27  

Personally, the main thing is new experiences. Whenever I go to a camp, I always try to put myself out there, join in activities that sound really interesting, like take, for example, this year I'm planning to try paddle boarding instead of kayaking, which is what I did last year.

DJ  15:45  

Awesome,

speaker 1  15:45  

there are some new activities that I signed up for that I've never done before. I'm doing it with some friends that I've also met some new people that are very friendly and I consider friends. Yeah,

DJ  15:57  

yeah, that's really fun. Okay, let's talk more about that's sort of like your personal take, like let's have a big question, like joy, like what brings you joy in your life, and are you able to experience some of that joy here at Zephyr?

speaker 1  16:13  

I think a lot of things bring me joy, but one of the things I really like is outdoors or outdoorsy activities, and I'm definitely able to experience that here. It's helpful for me that I have some experience in some of the activities that we're doing, and that allows me to expand on certain things, and it also allows me to be able to able myself to try new things or things I've never really done before, so yeah, when I look back, I just hope to see good memories, that's

DJ  16:53  

fun, and then maybe is there anything that you hope to challenge yourself with, like maybe something that you'd wish to challenge yourself a little more with last year, or maybe you're looking at the calendar for the week ahead, and, and think, ooh, that, that scares me a little. I kind of want to try that. Anything like that on your agenda this week?

speaker 1  17:12  

Yeah, I definitely hope to, as I've said multiple times, put myself out there more like ax throwing, that's kind of a leap of faith, right now, but once again, it does sound fun. Yeah, I've seen people ax throw. It's always looked interesting. There's a drag show that happens at the end of the week. I definitely want to participate in that again.

DJ  17:36  

Yeah, for maybe a listener who's who hasn't experienced that, tell us a little bit about maybe your experience last year, or what you hope the drag show will be like this year.

speaker 1  17:45  

Yeah, so the drag show, it isn't just a show, you, you're able to participate in it. So there are a few drag queens and kings that come and they set up makeup stations, and so they help you put on some drag makeup,

DJ  18:01  

fun,

speaker 1  18:01  

and you can get a creative outfit that you may have brought with you on, and so during the show they'll each perform, of course, and there's lights and there's music, and it's very exciting, very fun, and then eventually one of the drag queens calls us all up. We all line up, we take our turns dancing down a row of audience members, one at a time, just having fun. Then we line back up. And last year the prize was rather interesting for who did the best. It was a pine cone covered in glitter, which is the oddest prize I've ever seen,

DJ  18:45  

but so, but so, Tahoe, right?

speaker 1  18:47  

Yeah,

DJ  18:50  

you plan to participate again this year?

speaker 1  18:52  

I do. Yeah,

DJ  18:53  

good fun. Do you have a drag character or some kind of what do you hope to show off in your drag persona?

speaker 1  19:00  

I'm not sure yet. I'm still figuring that out.

DJ  19:03  

Cool. Well, you sounds like you have a lot of time to figure it out this week.

speaker 1  19:05  

I do.

DJ  19:07  

Well, I guess any kind of final thoughts. Again, I don't.. this is not necessarily intended to be an advertisement for kindom, or even for here in California, Zephyr Point, but like, if you.. if maybe a kiddo who's listening to this might be thinking about participating in kindom or a camp like it. Like, what would you say to them?

speaker 1  19:28  

I'd say, come, maybe bring a friend if you're nervous about going by yourself, but definitely know the people's great, the food's great, even if you're a picky eater. I promise you'll find something you'll like. Believe me, I am too. The activities are great, the staff's great, just everything is wonderful.

DJ  19:48  

That's so good. Well, I'm glad you're having such a good experience. I'm glad you're back. Thank you for being willing to speak with me. This has been a fun time. Thank you.

speaker 1  19:57  

Yeah

DJ  19:58  

All right,

speaker 1  19:58  

All right.

music  19:58  

[Andy strumming guitar & Baylee's voice singing: "I know a place”] 

Baylee  20:06  

Hi y'all, it's Baylee. I'm the Creative Director of kin•dom community. I’d like to talk a little bit more about kin•dom camp and how you can get involved. kin•dom camp is an opportunity for LGBTQIA+ youth ages 12 to 17 to feel safe and free to show up as their full selves. Campers will have the chance to experience traditional camp activities and recreation, plus some specialized programming to incorporate LGBTQIA+ history and culture. More information can be found on our website kindomcommunity.org/camp. If you have any questions you can't find the answers to, you can email us at kindomcamp@gmail.com. Thanks for listening to kin•dom campfire chats. We are proud to be a safe space for these campers, and we are even more proud of them for sharing their stories. We hope you'll keep gathering around the campfire with us as we celebrate all of the stories that make us this kin•dom community

music  21:11  

[Andy strumming guitar & Baylee's voice singing: "This is the place”]