Camp Aranu'tiq Enrolls Transgender Youth for Summer Season

Summer camp is a rite of passage for many children, but for those who identify as transgender, it can be a harrowing ordeal. Many camps won't even allow them to register, not knowing how to handle bunk assignments and gender-segregated bathrooms. But now, transgender and gender-variant kids have a summer camp just for them: Camp Aranu'tiq.

"I started the camp in 2009, and had the first actual summer program in 2010," said Nick Teich, a transman who attended a girls camp in Maine for many years before becoming a counselor. "I wasn't able to really articulate my gender identity back then; there wasn't an Internet or any info. But I was looking for a place that I could be myself, a refuge for me."

In his 20s, he started volunteering at a different camp. He was close to the people who ran it, and when he announced he'd be transitioning, they were initially fine with it. Later, he said, they called back with their lawyer and told him that he couldn't come back -- for the good of the children.

"It was a huge surprise to me that this group of people would do that," said Teich, camp founder and CEO. "I thought about how much I loved camp, and how much I knew about running a camp, and about where transgender kids could go to sleepaway camp. That combination really prompted me to start a camp."

At the time, Teich was at Boston College, and assumed that camp would just be a one-week event on the side. But in 2010, his camp event drew 40 campers. And this year, he will have more than 400 kids over the course of the summer.

"It has increased tenfold and is my fulltime job," he said. "I do a lot of fundraising, and run everything from behind the scenes."

After renting various campgrounds in New England, in September, Teich finally bought their own property in New Hampshire. He named it Camp Aran-utiq, a term for two-spirit individuals of the Chugach Tribe in Alaska.

"They transcended gender boundaries and were revered for that, and thought to have special powers," said Teich. "I thought that was a very positive message to give to these kids."

Aranutiq has grown into the overarching organization Harbor Camps, as Teich wants to branch out in the future to serve other populations. He is starting this year to work with LGBT parents and their kids, doing a family camp. He also wants to work with two other populations: kids who have dwarfism, and kids with facial differences.

They still have a capital campaign going on for renovations, and after that, said Teich, he will found an endowment to keep it running. Teich also began a camp in California in 2012, and will continue to run that, but in rented campgrounds for a one-week program on August 2-8.

Currently, Teich is accepting applications for summer at Camp Aranu'tiq. He is welcoming transgender and gender-variant children in New Hampshire with a two-week program on July 12-25 for kids aged 8-15, and another two-week program on June 21-July 3 for kids aged 16-18. The family camp will be a long weekend for all aged kids and trans kids as young as four years old.

Tuition is between $600-700 per week. Most of the funds come from donations, but Teich said they do have a couple of grants, and have raised a little over 60 percent in what is a five-year capital campaign: about 2.2 million of a 3.6 million goal.

The camp is just like any other summer camp; the only difference is that the kids are trans or gender variant.

"Other than that, it's a typical camp, with canoeing, sports and arts and crafts," said Teich. "We are focused on living in cabins with others, eating in the dining hall and going to different activities. There is no therapy, no group where we're talking about gender, and that's done very purposefully - the kids we serve are often only talking about their gender at home and school, and at camp they get to relax and be themselves with others like themselves. They don't even have to talk about their gender if they don't want to."

At the beginning of camp, kids get a name tag and lanyard to wear around their neck. It has their name and preferred pronoun on it, but Teich said that they see a lot of changes in names and pronouns midweek, when kids get comfortable. Campers all stay in cabins with kids who are of the same gender identity and around the same age. There are transfeminine and transmasculine bunks for each age group.

Highlights of the summer include a talent show at the end for younger campers, and a closing campfire where older campers talk about what camp's meant to them. At the leadership camp, they work on a leadership project they're able to take back to their home community.

"One kid is from a rural area in a Southern state, and he did an assembly before his high school to raise awareness around trans issues," said Teich. "Another kid had been volunteering at an animal shelter in Texas, and has done work to get the building fit with air conditioning, because the dogs were hot."

Because it's their first year on their new land, they will use it for four-plus weeks of programming, plus two family weekends toward the end of summer. Then, they will rent it out to another private camp for three weeks. By 2017, they will probably using it full time for their purposes. Although it's important that they keep the land and build the endowment, Teich said that they will never turn down a family for financial reasons.

"That's what we do fundraising for," he said. "A quarter of the kids are on financial aid, from free scholarships and airfare to other help. In terms of parental permission, we need that for anyone under 18. We have kids whose parents are not quite sure if it's what they want their kid to do, but they give the okay. Then the kid has great experience. They're not all PFLAG parents: some apply hoping it might be a phase. I wish we could get kids in here whose parents would say 'absolutely not,' but there's no way to do that. We did have a camper for the first time last year who the state was their guardian, and their social worker dropped them off."

If you're an transgender or gender-variant teen and are interested in attending Camp Aranu'tiq in New Hampshire this summer, have your parents or guardian visit the website and find out how you can be a part of something unique!