read our experiences.
From their two-week observations written to express life in San Francisco to their reflections both pre and post-immersion, student programmers noted their experience throughout the entire journey. Each student’s reflective, personable, and immersive narrative highlights the experience of traveling to San Francisco, exploring the Castro District, and learning about themselves and their identity. These blogs express how being in a larger, brighter, queer community helped students shape and re-shape who they are.
We Leave Tomorrow
We leave tomorrow. Tonight is my last night sleeping in the loft of this AMAZING condo with truly some of the best people.
Building Community For Now and Beyond
Something that has surprised me that I did not expect to happen on this trip while in San Francisco is building as strong of relationships as I have. Although I had good relationships with everyone prior to boarding our flight, I did not feel as close to many of the folks on this trip as I do now- and I certainly did not expect it to be my favorite aspect of this trip.
Last Morning in San Fransisco
I woke up this morning at 7 am and made the trek up to Twin Peaks to see the big pink triangle on the hillside. It’s been on my list of things to do this entire trip, and I decided last night that I was finally going to do it on our last morning here, as a sort of last hurrah.
A Sense of Belonging
It has been two weeks of so much growth, interpersonal discovery and an overall transformative experience. These few weeks I’ve learned so much about myself, and where in the very near future, I hope I end up.
The Day They Overturned Roe
There are moments in life that mark a dramatic change in its trajectory. The beginning of the covid COVID lockdown, the economic crash of 2009, death of a loved one. The times that, beyond our control, for better or worse, our lives will never be the same.
Rainbow Capitalism? But Mostly I Just Hate Amazon
Frameline’s new grand sponsor this year is Amazon. When I first saw that Amazon was a grand sponsor, I was a little shocked. I know that Amazon is giant, and Jeff Bezos is a bajillionaire, so sponsoring the film festival was likely not a big deal on Amazon’s end, but it felt a little weird to know that Frameline would be willing to accept them as a sponsor, given how cartoonishly evil the Amazon corporation is.
The Forgotten Feminine Queer/ The Presence and Toll of Biphobia/ The Invalidation of Queer Identities in the Queer Community
Some argue that there is pressure in the queer community to make yourself appear “gay” so that other queer people might recognize you as part of the community. Of course, this pressure oftentimes occurs at the beginning of one’s queer identity journey, similar to conformity in middle and secondary school. This conformity tells us that we must “look gay enough” for other queer individuals to notice us. And if we don't, we could be overlooked as heterosexual or cisgender.
Second Journal Blurbs
For those of you who have read my previous blogs, please understand that this is just the way my brain works! I am neurodivergent, and my brain often feels like a library that sorts its books by color, not by any helpful system of organization.
Man Adjacent
Getting perceived as a woman and subsequently harassed for the first time in my life is a very strange experience. Getting harassed twice within a mere couple of days is even stranger.
When Men Were Men and Trans Representation
When Men Were Men hit me hard. Though it wasn’t my first time seeing a transmasculine high schooler on screen, it was the first one I saw that felt authentic to my own experience.
BURN SCOTUS
I’m going to point out the obvious before I begin:
As much as I personally identify outside the gender binary as a non-binary person, the way I look and was born will always come first. And I’m okay with that.
The Missing Letters in LGBTQIA+ Media
With the dawn of increasing queer representation in today’s modern and popular media, there has been a cause for celebration for the newfound visibility of the queer community. Unfortunately, this visibility does not expand equally across the queer community in media.
San Francisco Deyne Wears Dresses
Packing for the trip to San Francisco was a bitch of an ordeal, for many reasons.
First Journal Blurbs
I spilled tea on this notebook before I left. The last time I was writing in it, I was drinking a hot glass of chamomile tea with honey. It was sitting on the edge of my desk, in my favorite mug.
June 16th, 2022 10:16 PM PST
I feel out of place here. This city is so big and so wide and so loud that my attention wants to be everywhere from here to there but also nowhere at once.
Just a Few Thoughts and Thangs
We have been in San Francisco for about 10 days now, and I have had a lot of fun.
Reflections on the Appearance of Gender
There is an assumed default setting for everything. People ask when I will finally shave my body hair or when I will grow out my hair. I think that it is strange that within the binary structure of gender, women are meant to have long hair on their heads, but their bodies should be hairless.
Rise Up, Fight Back
I’m hot, I’m sweaty, my thighs have been chafing all day, and for all intents and purposes I’m tired. We’ve been walking for 10 minutes, and I have no idea where we are - neither does anyone around me.
The Day of Departure
There are so many thoughts that are bursting through my mind. I feel so many feelings varying from anxiety, happiness and excitement. This is the first time in a very long time that I’ve been away from my real world responsibilities for two weeks.
The Week Leading to San Francisco
San Francisco is only one week away!! There is so much to do before departure, and I saved it all till the week before. So, what follows will be a chronological blog narrating my adventures and struggles before we meet at Davies on June 14th.