Summer Camp: Three Uneasy Pieces
Recent news made me revisit my kid’s time at the famous arts camp. I wouldn’t wish that culture on any family
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Going through the giveaway pile this week, I came across my kid’s old camp shirt, and few memories from that summer came back to me like little zips of electricity.
Flashback: Drop-off
A fellow mom and I had driven across several states to the famous arts camp with our kids, 14, who were good friends. Izzy and Holly were in orchestra; other campers did ballet, creative writing, theater, visual arts.
The six week program would be Izzy’s longest ever stretch away from home. She hadn’t come out yet as trans—still went by he/him—but had just had come out as bi, so it was a sweet, vulnerable first summer in that way. I checked that the camp had LGBTQ housing, and Izzy looked forward to “the gay cabin,” as she called it, laughing.
After the sign-in table, our friends left for a girls’ cabin, and Izzy and I pushed her cart of bedding, clothes, and music paraphernalia to the gay cabin, which seemed oddly deserted. We double-checked the cabin number and tried the door: locked. People streamed in and out of cabins around us, greeting each other warmly. Don’t knock again, Izzy seethed in her you’re-embarrassing-me whisper as I peered through the screen door.
A few minutes later a counselor came up behind us, unlocked the door, and rather stiffly said, “I’m Lew.” Izzy and I introduced ourselves and started to gather her things, but Lew stepped in front of me and said: “you can’t come in here.” I felt confused, as adults were everywhere hauling duffels into cabins, but I stayed outside and went for a souvenir snap of kid-paused-at-cabin-doorway. “NO PICTURES,” Lew shouted. Izzy disappeared inside.
It had started to rain. I found a covered pavilion and had a cry from the shock. I figured the no-parents-inside rule might be to protect LGBTQ camper privacy, but the cabin counselor hadn’t explained. The welcome was so unwelcoming. Why the shouting? It felt like I was assumed to be a bad actor—homophobic mom who distrusts The Queers—instead of myself, a person who accepts and trusts her kid. A camp director milling around asked if I was okay. I told him what happened, and he said the counselor was new and hadn’t been briefed on how to interact with parents.
After Izzy unpacked, we met up with our friends at the cabin where Holly was bunking. Squeals of delight came from inside. Holly’s mom emerged after taking pictures of Holly and her bunkmates, and Holly was eager to get back later. The cabin was decorated with fairy lights. They planned a Harry Potter read-aloud.
It felt like I was assumed to be a bad actor—homophobic mom who distrusts The Queers—instead of myself, a person who accepts and trusts her kid.
I had to laugh to myself at the absurd contrast between Izzy’s and Holly’s cabins, and the Harry Potter punchline. JK Rowling was already widely known by then for her anti-trans hate; meanwhile, loads of kids, and adults, adore what they find to be the queer-coded Potter world (although critics find Voldemort an allegory for Rowling’s anti-trans sentiment). But standing outside that fairy-tale girls’ cabin, all I could think was: how fucking easy to be Holly, to be Holly’s mom.
Counselor epilogue: Lew turned out to be a solid advocate for my kid, sending me an email several weeks later, with Izzy’s permission, sharing that Izzy had chosen to use both male and and female pronouns. In the note, Lew used mixed pronouns* to refer to Izzy, which they hoped I would find helpful by example, and encouraged me to reply with questions. Izzy liked this counselor. My experience of them wasn’t important. In retrospect, I welcome their protectiveness (see below re the news).
Flashback: The Famous Soloist
Other than quick I’m fine texts, I didn’t hear from Izzy over the six weeks. But when I arrived a day before the end of camp for a series of concerts, Izzy shared stories of her private music lessons with The Famous Soloist, who goaded and berated her. What’s wrong with you, don’t you want to pick up girls with your playing? he had said. And: You’re Asian, do you want to embarrass your parents by playing like shit?
We laughed together—pick up girls? Little did the dude know. You’re Asian? Uh, meet my White Mom... But Izzy confessed she faked being sick and skipped her last two lessons. I was glad she did, and, of course, I was alarmed and disgusted by Famous Soloist Dickhead, who was at a children’s summer camp, left alone with children—why?
I wrote to camp immediately, reporting what happened. They never responded. I went to our local summer camp open house the next spring specifically to talk to people who worked for the camp and promoted it, face to face, about what went on in my kid’s private lessons. They said nothing, just nodded blankly.
Flash forward: The news
News broke about that summer camp late last month. It has been the site of decades of sexual abuse, from the 1950s into the 2010s, committed against children by camp faculty, counselors, visiting artists, board members. An independent report released in July chronicled 70 sexual abuse allegations made by 50 people who were children at the time, including two who, as young teens there, were recruited by Jeffrey Epstein (an alumnus and benefactor) and Ghislaine Maxwell.
The report outlines the conditions that allowed such abuse culture to flourish for so long: adults were able to have one-on-one interactions with the children, who had limited communication with their families and were vulnerable due to age, sexual identity and lack of experience. Plus, of course, the kids being afraid to report what happened to them.
It’s not really easy to be anyone’s mom.
—N.R.
Noa Rabinow is a health care worker, an editor at Gender Defiant, and the mom of a trans teen.
*Using mixed (bigender) pronouns is a not uncommon step for kids and people who may be trans or gender expansive—a way to ease themselves and/or their families in. Some people later settle on a gender pronoun, others continue to use mixed pronouns.
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