SETTING: A room filed with thirty people not native to Portland.

"Where ya'll from?" one of them speaks up in the silence.

"Arkansas."

"Mississippi."

"Montana."

"Tennessee."

"California, but my family is from Utah and we left the church."

Outcasts. All of them. They've all fled the places they're from because they feel unwelcome. The feeling is different among each of them, but the commonality of it is the same – they're queer.

The common wisdom among bigots is that they don't create queer kids because they expose them to god. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Their queer kids flee the instant they can to places that don't treat them terribly. The West Coast is a popular destination, but queer southern kids are happy to flee anywhere outside of the Bible Belt. Finally to discover what it means to be free to explore themselves – rather than withering under the scrutiny of hate from those they love.

To be queer is to be different all of your life, not quite sure why. The very word queer is shameful, in many of the small towns in the places these people are from. But now they embrace it. They reclaim it. To be queer is not to be shameful. It is a place of pride for them.

Plenty Queer.