The idea was a simple one: Create a summer camp where transgender kids can go to feel safe, welcome and empowered.
The Bay Area Rainbow Day Camp has now wrapped up its third summer. The camp was the brainchild of Sandra Collins, who got the idea after her daughter, Scarlett, had a run-in at her previous camp. Scarlett's friend, in anger, had revealed to other kids that Scarlett had been born a biological boy.
Now, Rainbow Camp, run out of a school in El Cerrito, is a place "where gender-diverse youth can come together, have fun, and feel a sense of gender-identity pride and resilience, and feel safe and belonging in a community," Collins says.
“To be in this space where there are lots and lots of [transgender] kids is actually really unique,” says Sara Kaplan, whose son, James, attended the camp this summer. "Because most of the time they’re in experiences where they’re the only child who is transgender.”