IN-DEPTH: Summer Camps for Children Identifying as Transgender Open Across US

Psychologist says attending may create lasting gender dysphoria in children who would otherwise leave that phase behind

The annual New York City Pride March in New York City on June 25, 2023. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

Across the United States, there’s a growing number of summer camps specifically for children who don’t identify with their sex.

These overnight camps connect hundreds of children who identify as transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming.

Attending such camps is likely to create lasting gender dysphoria in children who would otherwise probably leave that phase behind, psychologist Nicholas Kardaras told The Epoch Times.

Most children will grow out of gender dysphoria if not encouraged in it, he said. But when adults encourage a “social contagion,” it will spread rapidly, he said.

“If you put a very developmentally fragile young person in any social group that is very dominant, they’re going to inevitably mimic the behaviors and the identity of that social group that they get dropped in,” Dr. Kardaras, who runs Omega Recovery, a mental health clinic in Austin, Texas, told The Epoch Times.

‘Gender-Liberated’ Facilities

Unlike traditional summer camps that require separate bathrooms and sleeping areas for boys and girls, some transgender camps don’t segregate children by sex, The Epoch Times learned.

In West Central Ohio’s Camp Lilac, restrooms and shower facilities “are split by age group, not gender,” the camp website reads. “Showers are in private stalls with locking doors.”

Vermont’s Camp Outright advertises on its website that “all the bathrooms at camp are gender-liberated.” And campers and counselors self-select which cabin they will stay in, based on their gender identity, according to the website.

Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, executive director of The Dunes addiction recovery center, at The Dunes mansion in East Hampton, N.Y., on March 23, 2017. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

The Naming Project camp in Deerwood, Minnesota, advertises that separation between men and women isn’t encouraged. The group describes itself as a Christian ministry, and its website, in response to a frequently asked question about its camp for adults, reads: “At other church camps, you might have heard the phrase, ‘Boys are blue. Girls are pink. Don’t make purple.’ Well, we won’t be saying that, because that phrase erases the reality of LGBTQ people, our lives, and our relationships.”

The American Camp Association (ACA) stands behind the emergence of camps especially for transgender-identifying children, according to camp director Andy Pritikin.

“I think that mixed gender is likely going to be the wave of the future,” he said. “I have so many kids that are transgender, so many staff that are transgender, at this point. To have mixed-gender groups makes life a heck of a lot easier for these folks.”

Transgenderism has dramatically changed summer camps, even those not specifically designed to cater only to campers and counselors who identify as transgender, Mr. Pritikin said.

While public schools must abide by government rules on transgender issues, directors of privately run camps decide on their own how to handle those situations, he said.

American Camp Association director Andy Pritikin leads Liberty Lake Day Camp in Bordentown, N.J. Courtesy of the American Camp Association

It can be complicated when counselors suddenly announce they’ve “changed genders,” he said.

“I’m hiring staff in, let’s say, March, and then we do our first training [for summer camp], and they’ve changed genders,” he said.

It happens with campers, too, requiring last-minute reorganization, he said.

“We’re enrolling campers as boys. Then, a week before camp starts, the parent calls and says, ‘They want to be in a girls’ group,’” he said.

The fact that his day camp has male and female bathrooms is less than ideal, he said, because the camp should have gender-neutral facilities.

And same-sex changing rooms should be replaced with gender-neutral facilities, Mr. Pritikin said.

At the camp he operates, children go home at the end of the day. The logistical problems of overnight camps are bigger, he said.

Risky Sleeping Arrangements

At sleepaway camps, girls may find themselves in a cabin with a boy who identifies as female, Mr. Pritikin said.

“They would not be changing in front of each other,” he said. “They would have changing stalls.

“They’re not fornicating with each other in the same room,” he added. “They’re sleeping in the same room.”

But Mr. Kardaras is skeptical of sudden cases of gender dysphoria that cause last-minute logistical problems for camps.

In genuine cases of gender dysphoria, adults and children don’t suddenly identify as transgender, he said.

“Gender dysphoria doesn’t work like that,” he said. “It’s not authentic gender dysphoria. It would be what I’m calling ‘pseudo-gender dysphoria.’”

He said that this pseudo-gender dysphoria results from online exposure that persuades adults and children that they are transgender.

If camp directors allow children and adults to change accommodations based on these categories, it will cause problems, Mr. Kardaras said.

Mixing genders at camps creates the potential for underage sex, he warned.

Research shows that gender identity is often more changeable than sexual attraction, he said. The girl in the boy’s cabin might still feel attracted to boys, even if she now identifies as male.

“The young person actually may think that they are authentically gender dysphoric, but they’re not. And then when they wind up landing in the girls’ cabin, their sexual orientation unfolds,” he said.

Adolescent boys also might want to sleep in girls’ cabins in search of sex, he said.

Although camps have always had to tackle problems such as these, creating sleeping arrangements to accommodate transgender-identifying campers is “exacerbating the issue,” Mr. Kardaras said.

Children at Camp Liberty Lake in Bordentown, N.J., play while wearing Star Wars masks on June 27, 2018. Courtesy of Andy Pritikin

Some people have expressed opposition to the ACA’s “new thinking” about transgenderism, Mr. Pritikin said. But, he added, the media often inflate concerns over transgender “predators in the bathrooms.”

“The concern that I hear from my colleagues is from the parents,” Mr. Pritikin said.

Camp directors have mixed responses to a politically divided public, he said.

Some directors don’t let transgender-identifying campers enroll. Others don’t let in children who won’t sleep in the same room with transgender-identifying campers.

Some shuffle camp arrangements to ensure everyone feels comfortable, he said.

“Half the country voted for Donald Trump, right?” Mr. Pritikin asked. “So I mean, 30 to 40 percent of Americans would have a problem with [accommodating transgender-identifying children and counselors]. So you run the risk of losing some of those people.”

Both overnight and daytime summer camps must be careful to protect children from sexual abuse, he said.

“If any situation comes up where you [as an adult] could theoretically find yourself alone with a camper, you need to invoke the Rule of Three, which is you need to get another staff person or another camper to be with you,” Mr. Pritikin said.

Most sleepaway camps fire anyone who breaks this rule for any reason, he said.

Because predators go wherever children go, Mr. Pritikin said he encourages camp officials to stay on high alert.

“Everybody is suspect,” he said. “You’re choosing to work your summer with kids, and that’s great. That’s noble. That’s amazing.

“But at the same time, our whole staff has to keep the radar up on everybody.”

Dangerous Policies?

It’s shocking and dangerous that sex-based boundaries that have kept children safe have been removed at some camps, Kimberly Fletcher, president and founder of Moms for America, told The Epoch Times.

“When you open Pandora’s box, you don’t get to decide what comes out,” Ms. Fletcher said.

She said that she experienced sexual abuse as a young girl and that spaces that allow men and women to sleep in the same cabin or use the same bathrooms feel unsafe and threatening to her.

Mixed-gender camp arrangements create openings for sexual abuse, discomfort, and legal trouble, she said.

“I don’t want my daughters being put in a position where they feel uncomfortable as girls,” Ms. Fletcher said. “And as a mother of sons, that puts them in a position to have all kinds of legal action and problems that could come out after them.

“There are sex offender laws out there that go after young boys for doing things that [camps are] encouraging them to do.”

Camps that encourage children in transgenderism would likely fail to notice how often children make sweeping claims about their identities that have little to no basis in reality, Ms. Fletcher said.

Embracing these claims or letting them pass unchallenged invites madness, she said.

Moms for America President Kimberly Fletcher speaks in Anaheim, Calif., on June 28, 2021. Courtesy of Moms for America

“My granddaughter is convinced that she’s a butterfly. My other granddaughter is convinced that she is a mermaid who wants to ride unicorns,” Ms. Fletcher said.

“So do I throw my granddaughter who thinks she’s a mermaid into the waters, strap her to a tail, and say, ‘Good luck, go ahead, be a mermaid’? Do I tell my other granddaughter to go up on the roof, jump off, and fly?”

The son of a close friend struggled mentally because of abuse and abandonment, she said. After, he seemed to be seeking a new identity. He went vegan to impress a girl. He later identified as gay after teachers told him it was possible to be homosexual without knowing it, and peers affirmed to him that he seemed gay.

After the revelation that he was “gay,” his schoolmates stopped rejecting him and started accepting him, Ms. Fletcher said.

“He found a community to feel a part of,” she said.

When the boy went to see mental health counselors, they all told him he was homosexual and ignored the abandonment, abuse, and bullying issues, she said. They said the problem was people who didn’t “accept that he’s gay.”

She said that by adulthood, he no longer identified as “gay” and entered a relationship with a woman.

“We need to start treating children like children, instead of putting them in a situation where they have to make decisions that adults make,” she said.

Special Camps, Special Activities

Like traditional summer camps, most transgender camps offer activities, such as rock climbing, archery, sports, nature activities, and crafts.

But they also have several features that distinguish them from traditional children’s camps of the past.

Transcending Adolescence camp and the Trans Youth Equality Foundation camp, both in the Jacksonville, Florida, area, keep their locations secret from the public.

“Your child’s safety is our No. 1 priority,” the Transcending Adolescence camp website reads. “For the security of our campers, we only disclose the location to registered campers and their families.”

Some camps offer transgender activities that teach children how to enhance their ability to identify as the opposite sex.

“Celebration of trans identities is inherent in everything we do at camp, but we also host makeup and hair tutorials, voice training, and more!” Camp Lilac’s website reads.

“Voice training” teaches children how to make their voices sound more like those of the opposite sex. Camp Lilac provides this service to children aged between 12 and 17.

More than 80 children attend every week during the summer, according to the camp’s website.

ACA regulations require anyone working for a camp to pass a criminal background check, present at least two references, and pass a personal interview.

But the list of qualifications for a volunteer counselor at Camp Lilac doesn’t include background checks, its website shows. One job of counselors is to monitor showers, the camp website reads.

The Epoch Times reached out with requests for comment to Camp Lilac, the Transcending Adolescence camp, the Trans Youth Equality Foundation camp, The Naming Project camp, and Camp Outright. None responded.

Big Support for ‘Gender Diversity’

According to statistics from the Pew Research Center, claims of transgender identity have increased massively among young adults.

Of people younger than 30, some 5.1 percent now identify as transgender or nonbinary. Yet only 1.6 percent of people older than 30 identify as transgender or nonbinary.

Many psychologists have said that this rapid rise in new gender identities results from social contagion, not from a true change in human psychology.

Children who identify as transgender have far higher rates of depression and suicide than other children, research shows. For that, proponents of radical gender ideology blame a society “intolerant” of transgender identity.

“The findings [on increased suicide rates for transgender youth] emphasize the urgency of building welcoming and safe communities for LGBT young people, particularly for transgender youth,” the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT activist group, states on its website.

Several recently opened transgender summer camps announced plans to confront this perceived epidemic of intolerance by creating spaces for only people who aren’t heterosexual.

“Since 2017, we’ve been creating a safe, welcoming, and confidential space in which gender diversity is the norm,” Camp Lilac’s website reads.

If only transgender children are present at a camp, then it will be impossible for them to experience discrimination from non-transgender children, some camps assert in their promotional materials.

And business is booming.

Camp Lilac enrolled 16 children in 2017. In 2022, the number of campers swelled to 123.

“Due to this tremendous growth, we no longer fit in our original space,” the Camp Lilac website reads.

Some transgender camps receive funding from donors with deep pockets.

The Tawani Foundation donated $50,000 to Harbor Camps, a Florida camp for transgender children. Meanwhile, Transcending Adolescence receives support from Tides, a massive international grant-giving organization that seeks out “social justice” causes. The camp also is sponsored by the Gainesville Community Counseling Center, the University of North Florida’s Osprey PERCH mental health program, and the transgender activism group known as the Unspoken Treasure Society.

Camp Outright has received pledges totaling more than $165,000.

Uniform Day Camp receives sponsorship from Transforming Family, a group dedicated to “creating a positive environment for children, adolescents, and their families to explore issues of gender identity.”

The Trans Youth Equality Foundation camp receives funding from the left-wing charity site ActBlue.

Mr. Kardaras says he’s concerned about the lasting effects these camps may have on the children who attend and are encouraged to continue in their gender dysphoria.

“Rare is the true gender dysphoria youth,” he said. “We’re talking very rare—.04 percent was one estimate.

“So certainly, some percentage of the current transgender population is a social contagion—and you’re not going to make a social contagion better by not treating it.”