My weekend at Camp Lost Boys with 100 other transgender guys
RANDI STROLLS AROUND the dining hall on the first day of camp wearing a worn leather holster on his belt, but no gun. Instead, he’s packing an stp (“stand to pee”) device that helps men without penises urinate standing up. It’s made of deep-blue plastic, and its butt pokes out of the holster like a real pistol.
He walks up to Rocco. “Is this all right?” Rocco is distracted and harried in the way of all camp directors. “Is what all right?”
Randi lifts his shirt, indicating the holster. “I just want to make sure it’s obvious it’s not a gun.”
Rocco stops flipping through paperwork. “Dude, it’s obvious that’s not a gun.”
Rocco Kayiatos, 38, is one of three founders of Camp Lost Boys, a weekend retreat for transgender men. He is compact, bearded, and tattooed, with a soothingly deep voice. His friend and cofounder Justin Chow, 37, is the tall, cool cucumber to Rocco’s nerveball of energy. The third partner is “stealth”—he keeps his trans life private. Together, they came up with the idea of hosting a summer camp-type experience that trans guys “didn’t get to have as kids, or didn’t get to experience as boys,” Justin explains.
“All the trans spaces I have ever been in are either drunken dance parties or academic and health conferences,” Rocco adds. “We never just got to have dedicated space for good old clean fun.” To that end, Camp Lost Boys offers archery, ropes courses, hiking, swimming, zip lines, horses, biking, campfires—all the usual fare. “There are spaces for transmasculine people or people masculine of center,” Rocco points out, “but no other event that caters to men who want to be seen as, read as, and live their lives solely as men.”
This story is from the July/August 2018 edition of Mother Jones.
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This story is from the July/August 2018 edition of Mother Jones.
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