An Illinois YMCA is hosting an LGBT-themed camp for second graders alongside an activist organization that hands out so-called “gender-affirming” clothing items like “tucking underwear” and chest binders to anyone regardless of age.
The Stephens Family YMCA in Champaign will host “Camp Kaleidoscope,” a program designed for “LGBTQ+ youth or youth who are part of LGBTQ+ families.” The camp is offered at a “privately rented residential space” in partnership with Uniting Pride of Champaign County, an activist organization that distributes clothing items meant to alter the physical appearance of people who identify as transgender.
Two sessions will be offered: one for children in second through fifth grades in June, and another for kids in sixth through ninth grade in July. According to its summer camp guide, the program is run “in collaboration” with Uniting Pride, an LGBT “resource center” for Eastern Illinois that leases office space from the University YMCA in Champaign.
Gift Dad an All Access Membership. Use code DAD40 at checkout to save 40%!
“Camp provides children with daily summer adventures that promote a healthy spirit, mind and body in a safe space where campers can meet new friends, learn team building, and experience character growth and development. This camp is a full day camp, which will take place at an offsite location for 5 days,” a description of the camp reads. “The goal of our camp is to experience joy in recreation, while creating a safe environment for youth who are part of the LGBTQ+ community to be authentically themselves.”
Stephens Family YMCA
The camp is held at a “privately rented residential space and includes woods, trails, a pond, indoor meeting space, indoor recreation, and more.”
The Daily Wire reached out to the Stephens Family YMCA for further clarification on what role Uniting Pride would have in the camp.
The American Parents Coalition, which has been leading an awareness campaign against the YMCA’s embrace of gender ideology and policies encouraging male access to female spaces, said the partnership should trouble parents.
“Summer camps are designed for kids to have fun, make new friends, or learn new skills — not as opportunities for the YMCA to push gender ideology on young kids who are away from their parents,” American Parents Coalition Executive Director Alleigh Marré told The Daily Wire. “The YMCA’s ‘Camp Kaleidoscope’ — which partners with a radical LGBTQ+ organization that offers chest binders and other clothes to gender-confused individuals, including youth – ought to deeply concern parents.”
On its website, Uniting Pride makes clear that it believes that young people have the “right to privacy and autonomy over their gender or sexual identity” and the “right to express their gender identity in school and utilize all facilities that match their gender identity.”
Uniting Pride offers “free binders and waist cinchers for residents of Illinois who want them but are not able to afford them or who are not able to safely purchase them on their own.” They also state that they have “a small amount of tucking underwear available.”
Binders are used to compress the breasts of females to appear more masculine. Tucking underwear is used to obscure male genitalia, and waist cinchers are used to make body shapes appear more masculine or feminine. Uniting Pride notes that its distribution program has no age restrictions.
“Anyone of any age is welcome to apply,” the organization says on its website, which has a “quick exit” feature, an option that critics have said enables kids to hide access from parents.
In a form provided to request the binders, Uniting Pride asks if an applicant is “able to afford or safely purchase a binder on your own” and offers to send new binder users information “about how to properly wear and care for your binder.”
The organization notes that it accepts “used gender-affirming items” as long as they are “generally good condition and be free of stains and scents of any kind.”
The organization also holds a stash of transgender-themed books aimed at young people such as “A Kids Book about Being Transgender,” “A Kids Book about Being Non-Binary,” “A Tale of Two Mommies,” “Being Jazz,” “Drag Teen,” and the sexually explicit “Gender Queer.”
The Stephens Family YMCA, which claims it has a mission of “putting Christian principles into practice,” says in its handbook that its access to private facilities is determined by gender identity.
“All members will have access to restroom and locker room facilities that correspond to their self-identified, self-reported gender identity to the extent permitted by applicable law,” the handbook says.
The YMCA has recently come under fire from conservative groups over its endorsement of its affiliates allowing access to showers, locker rooms, and overnight facilities on the basis of gender identity. The YMCA scrubbed or hid a plethora of transgender-themed resources from its website last week after the American Parents Coalition launched its campaign.
“Camp Kaleidoscope’s partnership with these activist organizations is yet another indictment of the YMCA’s unacceptable prioritization of gender ideology over children’s safety,” Marré told The Daily Wire.
