The Challenge of Finding Community in 2021
As the year closes, we wanted to reflect on our efforts to find time and space to be in community in 2021, amid an ongoing pandemic.
In October, SFQP (Southern Fried Queer Pride) hosted their annual artist market. With all of the cancelled and delayed events brought on by Covid, for many of us it was the first in person pride celebration in over a year and a half. Two of our board members, Dan and Isabelle, represented Bi+ Georgia with our own table at the event where we had flyers, a pride bracelet making station, as well as a QR code to our newly launched Redbubble with all in-house original designs (link under the “merch” tab on our website).
For them it was not just the first time attending an in person pride event since early 2020, but the first time meeting in person since being nominated to Bi+ Georgia’s Board of Directors. Since then, we’ve been expanding our efforts to try and connect in person safely in 2021 and moving forward into 2022.
Isabelle:
I’m grateful for the ways virtual meetings have allowed us to stay connected despite the circumstances we all find ourselves in these days, but there’s an energy to in person events that just can’t be replicated in a virtual setting. People stroll and linger, pause to recharge and then join back in to the event newly refreshed. The artist market was a relatively small event compared to the large Pride festivals that got outright cancelled this year and last, but it felt the perfect size for this return to in-person community events. Virtual events won’t be gone any time soon, but with all of us getting burned out from sitting frozen in front of a screen trying to connect, the ease of meeting someone new face-to-face (or mask-to-mask as it were) was like releasing the clichéd “breath I didn’t know I was holding”. It’d been a long time since I’d felt so seen, so surrounded by people who understood not just the struggles of being in our Bi+ and larger LGBTQ+ communities, but also the joy and celebration that comes with it. I came out of the event hopeful, grateful, and proud of what we’re building together.
Dan:
In my opinion, the continuation of virtual events (and limited in person events when they are relatively safe) during a global pandemic speaks to the resiliency of our organizations. With virtual events needing ongoing technical know-how, and the in person events we are able to hold needing to be outdoors and with many precautions taken, it is hard to be a community organizer these days. That’s why I’m particularly grateful for the space our fellow organizers at Southern Fried Queer Pride provided for us, despite being postponed for weather and all the myriad of circumstances working against us these days. It was well worth it to see some faces in person I hadn’t seen in over a year, including my own fellow board member Isabelle! Working together to set up that table and run it was very satisfying given that a lot of the work we do lately is behind a screen and hard to grasp tangibly at times. Seeing new faces who already knew about us and our work for bi+ community, and some who wanted to get to know us for the first time was exhilarating and reminded me of why we do the work we do.
Similarly to the SFQP event, we had a BBQ and potluck originally planned for September but it was rained out. On top of that, the original date in October we had planned also had a lot of rain, so we opted for the next day. I decided that pushing it off for a day at the last minute was a better option than having another month without an event. The SFQP Artists Market really made me realize how vital the few in person events we were able to have really were. The potluck went great, all things considered. We had some new faces, had great discussions, and it was just a fun vibe overall but I definitely felt the struggle of getting to that moment. For me as an organizer, sometimes it really feels like our two options are: organize another Zoom event when honestly a lot of people are burnt out on Zoom or try and plan an outdoors event around inclement weather. But I can honestly say on the other side of some of those struggles that the pay off is worth it. It’s clear that during these isolated times, finding community spaces is as important as ever for bi+ people and that’s why I will continue struggling for those spaces to exist however they can.
