See Park’s story here for more on Pride activities this weekend and after.
On a sunny autumn day in 1995, I came upon a scene I thought I would never see in Chico. On the lawn behind the CARD Community Center, rainbow flags were flapping in the breeze. I saw a stage with a woman playing a guitar and singing, along with about a dozen information and vendor booths. Everyone I spoke with was so friendly and welcoming.
The event was the Stonewall Alliance Center’s Pride Festival and I was attending it as someone who grew up closeted in Chico before finally coming out in my early 30s as a lesbian. I felt so many emotions that day – gratitude, pride, the warmth of belonging. I did not expect to feel this way in my hometown, where I spent my youth hiding an important part of who I was.
I was visiting from my home in Oakland to explore the possibility of moving back to my hometown of Chico, after leaving in 1975 to attend UC Berkeley. As I left the festival, I realized for the first time that I was finally “home.” Three months later I moved back to Chico, where I still live.
Growing up in Chico, I didn’t even know what the word “lesbian” meant until I was in high school. I had crushes on other girls in junior high, high school and college. I sure didn’t want people to know or think I was — God forbid — a lesbian.
In Chico in the 1960s and 1970s you didn’t talk about gay people, let alone admit you were one. In fact, when I was a kid out playing baseball on the playground, the worst thing you could be called was a “queer.” We didn’t know exactly what it meant, but we knew it was bad. It took me many years before I was comfortable with using “queer” as just another word for “LGBT+.”
At Chico High School, I was an excellent student, a good athlete and a cellist in the school orchestra. I hung out with a great group of friends, all girls. Unlike many adolescents, sometimes I felt I was on top of the world. Underneath it all, I believed there was something very, very “wrong” with me.
I had undergone quite a journey during my 20 years in the Bay Area. I remained so closeted for the first 30-plus years of my life that I actually married a man. I loved him (and we are still friends), but we eventually divorced. Now I recognize a big reason I married him was so I could be seen as “normal.” I have since learned that some other LGBT+ people were once in a heterosexual marriage, partly as a way to hide who they were.
Finally, I reached a breaking point. Even after I had been married for several years, I still felt strongly attracted to women. I told no one about this. I felt as if I was playing a role, not actually living my life. Eventually, I found my true self, thanks largely to counseling and a support group at the Pacific Center for LGBT+ people in Berkeley.
Through a long and sometimes painful process, I came to understand – and celebrate – that I am attracted to women and I am a lesbian. I marched several times in the huge Pride Parade on Market Street in San Francisco. I had gay and lesbian friends. I dated women. I came out to my family.
I stayed in the Bay Area because it felt like a safe “cocoon” away from conservative Butte County. Even so, after a while I longed to live in a less urban setting. I started checking out towns like Eureka and San Luis Obispo. Until a friend brought it up, I didn’t really consider Chico, where I had lived a closeted life.
More than 30 years after that day at Chico’s Pride Festival, I still live here. I have learned that I can live as my authentic self in my hometown.
As Pride Month approaches in June and Chico’s Pride events take place, please know that Pride activities and organizations such as Stonewall Alliance Center can make a big difference in many lives. It made a difference in mine.
ChicoSol will have a booth at the June 6 downtown festival, so come by and say hello!
Nancy Park serves on the ChicoSol Advisory Board.