When freshman Kieran Leonard came to this university, they wanted to meet more people like themself.
The biology major, who identifies as bisexual and non-binary and prefers the pronouns “they” and “them,” attended Queer Camp from Friday to Sunday — along with 21 other University of Maryland students — to integrate themself into the LGBT community.
“I got to know a lot of people, and know a lot about their stories and what their lives have been like,” Leonard said. “And after that, I did learn a little bit about myself, seeing how my story related to other people’s.”
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Queer Camp is an annual retreat hosted by this university’s LGBT Equity Center at the Pearlstone Conference & Retreat Center in Reisterstown, said Calvin Sweeney, the center’s coordinator. Eight undergraduate and graduate student leaders and four professional staff members attended the retreat as well.
Some of the activities and workshops throughout the weekend centered around identity development, community building and wellness, Sweeney said.
Nick Sakurai, the center’s director of leadership initiatives, said the retreat aims to create “a supportive community for folks,” especially first-year students, transfer students and students who are newer to the LGBT community on the campus and might need help getting involved and finding a friend network.
“I feel like it was a really cohort-building experience,” Sweeney said. “They got to learn about a lot of resources on campus they can use, and they got to meet a very diverse group of LGBTQ students who they can create lasting relationships with … in a very authentic and meaningful way.”
On the retreat there was also “a wellness workshop on gratitude, and we had some folks from the health center and the counseling center come and talk about ways to take care of themselves on campus since LGBTQ folks are marginalized,” Sweeney said.
Junior Will Soergel, who identifies as bisexual, was a student leader on the retreat and even held his own discussion.
“My specific role was to lead a discussion that basically consisted of lived experiences that students had before they came to Queer Camp,” the classical languages and literatures and history major said. “So we discussed a lot of topics, including relationships with parents, things like coming out and discrimination.”
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There were also discussions about various identities — not just sexual- and gender-based, but also identities and their relation to economics, race, religion and ethnicity, Soergel said.
“The thing I got most out of it is actually a better understanding of inclusive spaces and that they can actually exist, and that diversity is actually something that can be attained because we achieved it with a relatively large group of people and we made an inclusive space for students at the University of Maryland,” he said.
Sakurai said the hope is that those who attended the retreat developed a sense of a tight-knit community and can come back to the campus and connect with the various opportunities and resources available to them.
“I would do it again in a heartbeat,” Leonard said. “It was fantastic.”
