On the Lansdowne campus, there’s a quiet room tucked in the lower floor of a house on the edge of campus. By zig-zagging down from the Young building, or climbing up and down from the western edge of campus’ “main street,” one can find their way to the Richmond House and its cozy little Pride Lounge.
The building hosts quite a few things, such as this newspaper’s office, but most dear to my heart is the Pride Lounge. With one right turn from the ground-floor entrance, you see the short passage into a colourfully decorated room; various pride flags and queer messages plaster three walls, even the ceiling, all reflected in the row of mirrors across the fourth.
I remember my time at Camosun pre-COVID, my first attempt at post-secondary learning. I spent my first few terms not knowing anywhere to study or meet people outside class, having never heard of the Pride Lounge. I was only just beginning to question my gender, and had made online connections that helped me explore my identity, but it’s a scary step to take in the real world.
One day, while in the middle of that questioning period, I found out about the lounge. I started visiting regularly, finding it peaceful and reflective. The room was usually empty, but it wasn’t always. Sometimes my visits would line up with someone else’s; we’d usually sit in the awkward silence of anxiety, but sometimes we’d introduce one another and talk a while.
I found that the more I did this and got to know people, the more often I ended up seeing people there. I got to know when people would visit, and would get to study with them side by side in between classes or chat for hours after my school day finished. Suddenly I had peers, and even told a few others I met about the lounge, surrounding myself with queer people that I could relate to and feel seen by.
That’s when I finally started experimenting with gender expression. I had been on the fence about being transgender and felt unable to try the things that I was curious about: first they/them pronouns, then feminine haircuts, then wearing dresses out, then she/her pronouns. These things helped me find who I was by trying out what I thought might make me feel more myself, with the support of people I saw day to day.
I remember the first time I wore a dress out of the house. I left for school that day in early fall 2019 in a red and black dress, and I expected to be terrified all day. Despite that, I found that the moment I made it to campus, I stopped being afraid. Lansdowne campus had become a place where it didn’t feel like I was breaking the image people assumed of me; instead, it felt like affirming what I’d already gotten to be.
Now that I’m back at Camosun again, taking a second shot at post-secondary, I feel a little bit of that familiarity still. The comfort I felt that day is still here, even though my old friends have moved on, the lounge has new furniture, and I’m such a different person now that I’ve been out for several years. Things change, but the Pride Lounge is still there, and if you could use a queer friend, I hope to see you there.