Polish President Karol Nawrocki on July 17 vetoed bills that would have extended rights to same-sex couples.

Reuters reported Nawrocki rejected two measures that would have allowed same-sex couples who live together to enter into “cohabitation contracts.” Reuters noted the bills would have allowed same-sex couples to make decisions on issues that include access to medical information, property rights, and burial.

The country’s coalition government backed the bills that MPs approved. Nawrocki, a socially conservative Catholic, in a statement said they “create a new, formalized institution of family law, ​equipped with a broad catalogue of rights similar to those of marriage.”

“As the guardian of the Constitution, I cannot accept a solution that would lead to the loss of the ‌special ⁠status of marriage, defined in Article 18 of the Constitution as a union of a man and a woman under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland,” said Nawrocki, as Reuters noted.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk sharply criticized Nawrocki.

Miko Czerwiński of the Campaign Against Homophobia, a Polish LGBTQ advocacy group, in a statement noted nearly 80 percent of Poles “believe that the status of same-sex couples should be protected.”

“Once again, the voice of society has proven irrelevant to those in power,” said Czerwiński. “We are not willing to accept this. We will continue working towards full marriage equality.”

The EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg last November ruled in favor of a same-sex couple who challenged Poland’s refusal to recognize their German marriage. Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court in March reaffirmed the decision.

The couple, who lives in Poland, brought their case to Polish courts in 2019. The Supreme Administrative Court referred it to the EU Court of Justice.

The Polish government in May announced it will recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other EU countries. Tusk, for his part, apologized to same-sex couples for the “years of rejection and humiliation” they suffered because Poland did not recognize their relationships.

“We will continue working towards full marriage equality,” said Czerwiński in response to Nawrocki’s vetoes. “We will not allow years of work by non-governmental organizations, activists, and our entire community to be wasted.”

Uncloseted Media published this article on July 18.

By SAM DONNDELINGER | On a June night in rural North Carolina, dozens of campers sat around the fire as a counselor asked them to close their eyes.

“Picture a place where you feel completely safe,” they were told. “Think about what it looks like and how it feels, what you can hear, smell, and taste.”

When they were invited to share what they had imagined, one camper described sitting in a circle with other trans people. It was dark. Trees surrounded them. Mosquitoes buzzed.

“‘That place is here, and this is the place where I feel safe,’” Jacob Hofheimer, one of the camp’s founders, recalled the camper saying. “It got all of us.”

For many of the 8- to 17-year-olds who attend Transcending Adolescence, the weeklong summer camp offers a reprieve from the calculations they have to make in their day-to-day lives: Who knows they are trans? Who can be trusted? Which bathroom can they legally use?

At a time when 40 percent of transgender and nonbinary youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, and 90 percent of LGBTQ youth reported that recent anti-LGBTQ laws, policies, and debates cause them stress or anxiety, those questions never disappear. But at this camp, young people are given space to ask them openly and to a community that understands why they need to.

“It really made me smile knowing that there’s a lot of people out there like me,” Ruby, a 12-year-old camper, told Uncloseted Media. “I’m putting myself out there, I’m being myself and no one judges me.”

Origins

Transcending Adolescence was founded in 2019 by Jacob and his wife Chrissy Hofheimer. The trans married couple wanted to create a camp for queer kids in America’s South, where affirming resources can be difficult to find.

Surrounded by thick woods and the backdrop of the Appalachian Mountains, campers swim, tie-dye shirts, complete ropes courses, roast marshmallows and perform in shows. They also gather for conversations about healthy relationships, medical care, legal rights, bathroom anxiety, coming out, misgendering, depression, substance use, and self-esteem.

“A huge part of it is that every single person there is trans or gender diverse, including the staff,” says Rory Sowers, a 19-year-old junior counselor from Florida. “That’s just something that you don’t get to experience a lot, especially as a young trans person.”

Sowers first attended Transcending Adolescence as a camper during its inaugural year in 2021. He returned three times before becoming a junior counselor.

“There’s so much that trans folks have to worry about just going about their day-to-day lives, especially living in the South,” Sowers says. “I was able to come into myself a lot more when I didn’t have all of those anxieties on my back.”

A place to be ‘just Ruby’

For 12-year-old Ruby, pre-camp anxiety was intense.

When she attended camp in June of last year, it was the first time traveling to another state without her parents.

“I was nervous about having someone there not really understanding me … and not really accepting me,” says Ruby, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy.

Outside camp, Ruby worries about how other people perceive her, according to her mom, Kate, whose name has also been changed. She says her daughter has to consider a litany of questions cis kids don’t have to worry about: “‘What if someone finds out? Are they looking at me? Do I look the part?’ … All these thoughts go through her head every single day.”

Before camp, Ruby had been struggling so intensely that her family had questioned whether it might feel easier for her “not to be who she was,” Kate says. Ruby had faced bullying in school, prompting her family to withdraw her and homeschool her for the remainder of fifth grade.

“I couldn’t really go anywhere without picking [at] myself because I was anxious,” Ruby says.

But when she arrived at camp, a lot of Ruby’s anxiety subsided. She didn’t have to introduce herself through the lens of being trans. She could just be herself: a funny, theatrical, outgoing 12-year-old who likes Beyoncé, improvises rap battles, and wants to be in the center of dance shows.

“She can just go there and just be [Ruby],” Kate says. “[Being trans] is only a little piece of her. There’s so much more to her, and she’s able to do that for the whole week. … It was completely life-changing for her.”

Research suggests that spaces like Transcending Adolescence can have powerful mental health effects.

Young people tend to fare better when they feel they belong and have access to peers and adults who understand them. In one small study from 2021, participants of a six-day LGBTQ summer camp reported increased resilience, self-esteem and quality of life. Focus groups indicated that transgender and nonbinary campers found an affirming environment that offered social opportunities they had been unable to find elsewhere.

Though this environment can be transformative, it’s intimidating at first for some. Jacob remembers asking one camper from Texas his pronouns during medical check-in, and the boy responding that he used “guy pronouns” because he “was a guy.”

Jacob recalled him being closed off and leery of the “hippie-dippy nonsense.”

But on the second-to-last night, Jacob overheard him speaking with a fellow camper.

“‘When I first came here, I thought that I was a disgusting, mutilated pig and an alien, and nobody would ever love me because I’m trans,’” Jacob recalls the camper saying. “‘And now I know that being trans doesn’t make me disgusting. It’s actually a beautiful thing.’”

He later texted Jacob to say the camp had given him confidence during the school year.

“‘Half the time, I forget that I’m trans,’” Jacob remembers him writing. “‘I’m just a guy. I’m just me.’”

“Finding places where you literally see yourself and can be seen by others for who you are is important during adolescence. It’s a human need,” Stephen Russell, professor of social and family dynamics at Arizona State University, told Uncloseted Media. “For trans youth, especially those who may not feel fully accepted at school, at home or in their faith communities, a camp where their identity isn’t something they have to navigate or defend, but is simply centered as part of who they are, can be transformative.”

Filling the gaps

The Hofheimers know that these spaces can transform the mental health of trans youth because they experienced it firsthand when they met while working as lifeguards at a summer camp for young queer people in New Hampshire.

The camp was doing important work, Jacob says, but many of its attendees came from privileged families in New England and other parts of the country where affirming programs were more accessible. Far fewer came from places such as Florida, Georgia, and Texas.

That’s why, for the location of the camp, they intentionally chose North Carolina, a state that has laws on the books that exclude trans girls from participating in sports, restrict the instruction of LGBTQ topics in schools and ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.

“Access is really, really important,” Chrissy says, adding that while the camp costs $1,975 for the week, they offer robust financial aid, including a $1,500 “no questions asked” subsidized rate for families who can’t afford it.

At the camp, the staff educates campers about anti-trans laws, coming out, and how to have conversations with their doctors about gender-affirming care.

“The kids want to talk about this stuff,” Jacob says. “That was the gap that we identified.”

For Chrissy, baking education into the camp’s programming is personal: When she was transitioning as a young adult, accessing informed medical care was difficult. During consultations, doctors either quoted prices she could not afford or refused to treat her. One told her that they did not “put boobs on men.”

Desperate to change her chest, Chrissy turned to a friend who had undergone illegal silicone injections without an apparent complication. She received what she believed were similar injections in Florida.

But the substance wasn’t silicone, she says, and it hardened and became intertwined with her breast tissue. Seventeen years later, Chrissy underwent a double mastectomy to fix the damage.

This experience became one of the driving forces behind the camp’s educational work.

“Accurate information might have changed the course of my life,” Chrissy says.

To provide information that breaks out of the TikTok and Reddit misinformation bubble many campers exist in at home, Chrissy and Jacob bring in experts and host nightly fireside chats.

Each night, campers gather around for structured conversations about the nuances of being trans. They talk about coping with misgendering, managing bathroom anxiety, identifying red and green flags in relationships, asking for help, and caring for their mental health.

Jacob, who is a certified nurse practitioner, helps answer questions about gender-affirming care. A trans attorney explains policies affecting campers in different states and separates the practical effects of those laws from incomplete information and political fearmongering.

“It made me think about the people who I tell I am trans to and what I have to do to make sure I feel comfortable telling them,” Ruby says. “It let me think about all these questions I had but didn’t really know how to ask.”

Building what comes next

Chrissy hopes the results from the camp’s program will eventually be replicated across the country.

For now, roughly 30 campers come together for one week each summer. Some arrive unhappy about being sent to camp. But by the final day, Sowers says, those same campers are often crying because they do not want to leave.

They return home to the same schools, states, and political climates where they have to decide when it is safe to disclose their identities and how to respond when someone does not understand them.

But at camp, Ruby, among the other campers, found a weeklong respite and saw trans adults who were not merely surviving but building careers, relationships, and communities.

“After the camp, I really haven’t been talking about how I feel insecure that I’m trans,” Ruby says. “I can’t wait to go back and see the people I met and [meet] new friends.”

Acclaimed chef Patrick O’Connell is preparing to publish his new memoir, “Main, Middle & Gay” in September and he’s launching the book with an event on Sept. 18 at 6 p.m. at Lisner Auditorium featuring Chef José Andrés and former Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema.

Tickets for the event go on sale Tuesday, July 21 at Ticketmaster; prices start at $55.

 O’Connell, who’s gay, is the pioneering Michelin-starred chef and longtime proprietor of the Inn at Little Washington. He spoke with the Blade about the September event and the launch of his first memoir.

 “I’ve known [Andrés and Sietsema] for more than 25 years and I have great respect for them,” O’Connell said. “I felt that it would allow us to add a different dimension rather than just have an interviewer. The chemistry will be fun and lively and unpredictable and exciting. I think we’re all different personalities and we’ll compliment each other.”

O’Connell has published cookbooks but this is his first memoir. The event will feature a short film that will highlight his work and the Inn.

“What I hope to do with the event is bring the book to life visually,” he said. “So we’re producing a short film that will be part of it. Most of the audience will not have read the book so it’ll give them a visual flavor of the book. It parallels the evolution of American cuisine over 50 years. It’s a rare perspective to be in the trenches for that long.”

The book’s title refers to the location of the garage on the corner of Main, Middle, and Gay streets in Washington, Va., where he launched his restaurant that became an international culinary destination. 

The Blade will publish the rest of its wide-ranging interview with O’Connell in September in conjunction with the book’s release.