What Pride Month means for some of Oregon’s rural communities

Pride Month is here and across the country, LGBTQ+ communities are celebrating. At the same time, The Human Rights Campaign, one of the largest gay rights organizations in the U.S., has issued a state of emergency because of anti-LGBTQ legislation passing in states across America. We talk to three LGBTQ organizers from around the state about why celebrating pride is important and what it means to celebrate these events in some of Oregon’s rural parts of the state. Nik Portela is the program manager for the Columbia Gorge Pride Alliance. Laura Erceg is the director of Southern Oregon Coast Pride. Juliet Rutter is the board secretary with Umpqua Valley Rainbow Collective.

This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Jenn Chávez: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Jenn Chavez. Pride Month is in full swing and Oregonians are celebrating. And Pride events aren’t just happening in the state’s biggest cities. In more rural areas throughout the state, LGBTQ+ folks are coming together to represent and celebrate in their own communities. And this time and space to gather for Pride is vital this year, as queer, people especially trans folks, are facing an increase in threats and attacks on their identities from anti-LGBTQ groups and legislation across the country. Joining me today to talk about what Pride means to them this year are three LGBTQ+ leaders in Oregon. Nik Portela is the program manager for Columbia Gorge Pride Alliance. Laura Erceg is the director of Southern Oregon Coast Pride. And Juliet Rutter is board secretary with Umpqua Valley Rainbow Collective. Welcome to all three of you to the show.

Juliet Rutter: Thank you.

Nik Portela: Yeah. Thanks for having us.

Chávez: Nik, let me begin with you. Can you start by telling me a little bit about the LGBTQ+ folks you’re in community with in the Columbia Gorge, and what you love about them?

Portela: Absolutely. So I actually come from a pretty big city. And when I moved out here, I thought I was gonna be hard up to find some of my queer and trans community that I was used to. But the Columbia River Gorge has amazing LGBTQ+ communities here, and we take really good care of each other. While we might not be as prevalent as you might see in the big city, we find each other. We have little secret Facebook groups, we have hangouts, and lately we’ve been really showing up more in the community unafraid of who might see us, and really making ourselves known in a way that we haven’t in the past, mostly because of those attacks that we’re seeing in our communities.

Chávez: So you are not just doing one Pride celebration in the Gorge this year, you have planned an entire month of events. Why has celebrating Pride Month very literally been important to you and your community this year?

Portela: Yeah, we’ve got our whole 30 Days of Gay as we’ve decided to call it. This year it’s especially important. We’ve had a huge expansion in programming at the Columbia Gorge Pride Alliance with our youth council, our gender affirming locker, just really seeing more people come through the door and wanting to engage in services and build community. And so we saw this year as an excellent opportunity to take advantage of folks wanting to connect, and making ample opportunity for that to happen. We’ve got everything from a clothing drive to a burlesque show to the actual Pride Celebration and Resource Fair on the 25th in the Dalles. You name it and it’s happening this month in the Columbia Gorge.

Chávez: We talked about this a little bit a minute ago, but I know the political landscape and moral panic around LGBTQ+ issues is really tough right now in a lot of places in the US. What are you seeing in the Gorge? Are you getting support from members of the wider community there?

Portela: Yeah. Actually, we had some folks come and protest one of our drag queen story hour events. And when we got wind of that the night before that that was going to happen, we called out to our community and we said “listen, some folks are planning to protest our event, and we would love if we could just provide a wall of love, to block those kids so that they know that what they want to do is totally okay, and we’re just here to protect them from this negativity and from this hate.” And when we made that ask, we weren’t expecting the more than 30 people that showed up to block those youth in so that they could get in safely. That was our most interacted-with post on social media ever. People were just so eager to show up and say that hate is not welcome in our community. Despite what people might think about rural Oregon and rural places in general, we are here, we’re here to accept everyone who lives here and hold them in love and celebrate them.

Chávez: Laura Erceg, I want to turn to you next. First, could you tell me a bit about what you celebrate about the LGBTQ+ communities in your area, the Southern Oregon coast?

Laura Erceg: We celebrate so much. Pride Month for us has just been the time where we all get to connect and have fun and play together in larger ways. We do a lot of really small things throughout the year, [but these are] the events that allow a lot more multigenerational conversations and interactions to happen. Otherwise, it’s our queer and ally youth group that meets every week that has the most consistent attendance.

We celebrate visibility first and foremost in June. We just did our first really big Pride in Brookings, and they had like 300+ people show up. And this was completely planned by that community. I live in Coos Bay, so we’ve been traveling down in supporting the volunteers there to envision what they want. And the messaging over and over is like “oh my God, I can’t believe we have this in Brookings. Thank you for doing this.” And just being able to turn and be like “These are the people who live here who planned this!”

Chávez: I want to go back to something that you just said talking about multigenerational connection. Why is that important in your community?

Erceg: It’s important because I want all ages- we usually say the young folks to see their elders thriving in this community. But similarly, for those of us who are no longer considered young, to get a chance to interact and talk with our younger folks who are breaking new barriers and exploring language in a different way than many of us ever got to, the community that can come from those dialogues, and the strength of that collective power.

Chávez: And you mentioned that you’re in Coos Bay and Southern Oregon Pride’s next event this month is happening there. I know there’s been some issues there around flying the Pride flag. Currently, there’s a moratorium on flags on city flag poles that aren’t officially nationally recognized flags like the United States or Oregon flag. But last year, the city council approved a Pride flag being flown during Pride Month, by the city, despite the backlash that ended up facing. What did that recognition, that symbol of this Pride flag flown by the city, mean for LGBTQ+ folks in your area?

Erceg: Again, I’m gonna say it was the visibility. It was like “oh my city sees me, my city values this and is celebrating my identity, something that nobody would have expected.” The number of folks, especially some of my friends who have moved away but came back for various reasons to see family are like “oh my God, there’s a Pride flag. What’s up with that?” It was a big deal. It was really painful as a result when this symbol was taken away or threatened. So that has been interesting navigating those conversations with the city council, who maybe didn’t anticipate the backlash they were going to get the following year.

But our history museum has stepped up and they’re in a similar area of the community, so they’re flying a Pride flag in honor of the fact that city council is still trying to figure out how to make it through this conversation.

Chávez: And you told me a little bit about Pride events that have already happened, and I looked at some of the events and resources that you are offering for folks in your area. One cool resource that you’re offering is de-escalation training. Why is this an important thing for you to be offering for folks right now?

Erceg: Because we all need it. The unfortunate reality is that safety is a conversation that all of us have at all of our events, whether it’s a big Pride in the park, or just something small. We had an event at our history museum that was a lecture on the history of drag. We know that people are out there who want to detract from people coming, who wanna scare folks into not showing up to events in person. And so some of the way that we address that is by educating our community and training folks on when you’re at an event, how can you help de-escalate folks, whether that’s people who are coming to protest that event, or people who are at the event feeling pretty frustrated by the folks who are protesting. Trying to keep it a safe space for everyone. And that focuses on typically the queer joy that we’re celebrating, rather than what’s happening out there.

Chávez: Juliet Rutter, I want to turn to you now. You and your peers in your area just formed. Umpqua Valley Rainbow Collective last year. First of all, congratulations on doing that. Why did you form this group?

Rutter: Thank you. Well, the group was formed because we really wanted to create more safe spaces for our community, and we really wanted to create a sense of gathering, and a sense of “we can do things together as a group of people.” So we started out with game nights, dinners, groups, potlucks. And now we’re graduating to putting together Pride events in Douglas County.

Chávez: And since your group is relatively new, you’re hosting your first Pride event this year. What are you most looking forward to?

Rutter: I’m looking forward to it being the first Pride Festival. That has not been something that we’ve had before. We’ve had parades in the past, and we actually just had one not too long ago. And with this, we’re going to be having this at the Douglas County Fairgrounds. And it can be a space that we can enclose, so people don’t need to be mulling about with protesters literally right behind them. The protesters get to be outside of the event. So it’s a much more exclusive thing that people can feel safer at, and less like they need to defend their existence every two seconds while also trying to celebrate themselves. We’re trying to help them to not have to do that.

Chávez: And you know, to speak to that, at some past Pride events in Douglas County celebrants have had to deal with counter protests from local anti-LGBTQ+ groups. One of them that’s shown up a lot is the Wellspring Bible Fellowship. How does it feel, and why is it important to you to celebrate Pride in yourselves and queer communities in your area in the face of anti-LGBTQ hate?

Rutter: Well, if you look at LGBTQIA+ history, that is really where we shine. We come up against opposition. We shine when we need to shine. I don’t wanna say that we shine because of that. That’s not the same thing. But we feel the need to be louder when people are trying to hurt us. So I would say that it is extra especially important since we have these people who don’t want us to be who we are, they want us to be what they are. And we can’t be, we’re born this way. So yeah, I think that that is at least partly why it’s important to be us, as loud as we can be.

And also, to be us for the people who can’t be themselves right now, who it isn’t safe for them to be themselves right now. If they need to be in the closet for their safety, we need to tell them that we are here too so that they know that they’re not alone, even if they can’t come out there and be there with us.

Chávez: And I want to ask you the same question that I asked Nik and Laura, what do you love most about the queer communities you serve and work with in Douglas County?

Rutter: I love how they’re themselves. We are some of the most introspective people, because we have to be. We had to really look into ourselves to be able to break through the heteronormative cisnormative world that we live in. And we had to do research. We had to talk to other people who we thought were different from us at the time. We had to reach out in some way in order to find ourselves. And the butterflies that people in the queer community are is beautiful. We have to go through that struggle in order to find ourselves. And while I don’t think that we should have to do that, I think that it is still something that should be revered and respected and loved.

Chávez: I want to end with a question for all three of you. Nik you first, what is bringing you joy this Pride Month?

Portela: This Pride Month, what’s bringing me the most joy I think is some combination of all the youth that I’ve gotten to meet that are volunteering and involved and participating in their first Pride event ever. And getting to witness that unraveling of “oh my gosh, there’s a whole celebration for me.” That look on their face is just like my favorite thing in the world.

And I think my most favorite thing is that this year, I get to do it with two people who are on my team. It’s the first time we’ve ever gotten to have actual staff for our program. And having these two folks, shoutout to Naomi and Kit, to help and put these events together with me and make this all come to fruition has been such a joy. I can’t say enough good things about how much of a difference it makes when you have a team of people putting events like this together and watching it unfold the day of. Just super stoked for our last event on the 25th at the park, and can’t wait to see the fruits of their labor.

Chávez: Awesome. What about you, Laura? What’s bringing you joy this Pride Month?

Erceg: Similar to Nik, it’s the young people. You ask that question, and this image of all the younger kids at the Brookings Pride bouncing this gigantic beach ball and laughing and smiling, interacting with each other and just feeling safe to be who they are and going and getting their makeup done, that brings me queer joy. And also, some of our older folks coming up when we were at Azalea Festival, and just looking at us really closely and saying, “thank you for being here,” and the young people behind our table watching those interactions, that’s bringing me a lot of joy.

Chávez: Yeah. And Juliet lastly, what about you, what’s bringing you joy this month?

Rutter: Well, I really love actually how much more visibility is on rural spaces. This isn’t the only place that I’ve heard of where rural areas are starting to get more attention. And that really gives me hope because, talking about intersectionality, people who are in rural places, people aren’t watching. And that in and of itself allows for things that aren’t so great to continue to happen. So that visibility that rural areas exist, that we are diverse and we are here, having that kind of recognition is really, really important. Seeing that, it gives me hope and it gives me strength, in addition to the people feeling empowered, and really, really coming up against all of the hate that we’re seeing.

House Bill 2002 passed the Senate the other day. And if you don’t know what that is, please feel free to look it up. But it is something that will help with affirming transgender care. And that helps to pave the way for future legislation like it to make sure that our rights are being protected by the government. So even though there’s all of these awful things, all of these bills, all of these people who feel the need to be awful to queer people, there is hope. And the love out there, it’s more powerful than the hate out there. And I can really, really feel it in the face of all the hate. And that gives me queer joy.

Chávez: Nik, Laura and Juliet, thank you all so much for joining me today, and happy Pride!

All: Happy Pride!

Chávez: I’ve been speaking with Nik Portela of Columbia Gorge Pride Alliance, Laura Erceg of Southern Oregon Coast Pride, and Juliet Rutter of Umpqua Valley Rainbow Collective.

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