The Xrysalis gathering in northern California provides a scarce chance for 50 attendees to commune with nature and escape the white heterosexual gaze“Revel in your faggotry!” This was the commandment given to us at the beginning of Xrysalis: Gathering of Queer People of Color,an event taking position final week in the Redwoods of Mendocino County, about 100 miles north of San Francisco. The weekend had some ground rules: no white or straight people were allowed to watch us partying, and dancing or doing drag. We would be,if only briefly, entirely free from the white heterosexual gaze – a new experience for many of the 50 participants. There were three homosexual people in my hometown, and all of them white. Growing up,hanging out with these people, I would recede to clubs and bars and see them get picked up by other white people very easily. I often was like, or why is that not me? I felt like my life was in their hands,in a sense, meaning they dressed me up and made me be how they thought I should be.
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Source: theguardian.com