Scholarship Recipient | 2022 Flash Foxy Climbing Festival - Bishop

***Content Warning***

Please note there is mention of historical sexual assault that happened to the scholarship recipient prior to the festival.

There are momentous moments in every person’s life and going to the Flash Foxy festival was one of mine.

At age 35 I just recently got my driver’s license. For over a decade, I avoided learning to drive because every time I entered the driver’s seat, I had flashbacks about the incident that happened to me when I was 21, when I was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by multiple men, a few years after arriving the US. In the past, I felt helpless entering the driver’s seat, getting mad at myself for how my life turned upside down and I was helpless to prevent it from happening. My fear of possibility of hurting people through driving (due to having flashbacks, and inability to focus) was so intense that it drowned out my ability to engage in the act of learning to drive.

When COVID came, I had to confront my driving phobia. I lost access to climbing, which happened almost 100% indoors in gyms, and the community of gym climbing partners. Climbing was the activity that kept me going through working as a mental health professional, and it was essential to my health. To access climbing, I now had to access it outdoors.

Knowing that Flash Foxy was on the horizon and I would need to get myself there, I made a pact to get my driver’s license before then.

In order to do that I mustered up my passion for climbing and I reframed what driving meant to me. For most people it is a necessity and something they learn when they’re a teenager as a rite of passage. For me it was a necessity to drive myself and others to the crag and to take any climbing partners to a hospital if they hurt themselves. It was about having the ability to independently take myself to access an outdoor climbing community at Flash Foxy.

Things aren’t necessarily done in order. I learned how to trad climb last year and applied those skills to learning to drive. For example, to stay in the car lane, I channeled the precision and awareness used to choose the right sized cam and wiggle it around for the ideal fit in the crack. Whenever I felt anxious during a drive I pretended I was trad leading; mustering confidence before a hard move over placed protection, or finding focus on a long runout. I followed the cues such as grounding into my feet and trusting them, sending my breath downwards and actively relaxing my shoulders and neck.

Driving to Flash Foxy in Bishop was a big deal. First time driving over an hour by myself. First time attending a climbing festival or event outdoors. The motivating factor was having gender queer people be actively invited to and celebrated. I wanted to meet other queer enbies and witness more diversity than I’ve ever seen at any climbing event.

At Flash Foxy,

It was so freeing to…

…not have to shrink.

…not have to explain pronouns.

…not have others’ perceptions and expectations of my gender presentation override my lived experience and truth. It was a relief when allies embraced and celebrated non cis people.

For so long I had been frozen by burying the horror of what happened to me. Climbing, especially climbing in spaces that are safer like Flash Foxy gives me permission to move my body and for me to move it in ways that I never knew it could. To reclaim what it means to feel pleasure and challenge in my body. To have control and autonomy over my body. With each opportunity that my body and being get to climb safely, the impacts of past violence get to slowly dissolve.

I long for a longer festival! Between supporting the tabling, affinity meetup, attending the two day falling clinic for trans and gender nonconforming folks by Lor, and immersing in the novelty of meeting people in the flesh instead of our usual video calls, I ran out of time to embrace the excitement of the ongoings at the climbing village.

I wish the climbing village could be a permanent physical entity and space that folks could access on a daily basis. I want to keep walking through it and learn more about the diverse climbing communities in one concentrated gathering, and to learn deeper about peoples’ stories. It’s an experience that most climbing magazines and editorials don’t show. That was just one of the highlights of the festival.

I like to think that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to inclusion of QTBIPOC in the climbing sphere and Flash Foxy is a space to establish a foundation for them to thrive. Thank you to the organizers, partners, volunteers, and attendees for contributing so much of their hearts, visions, and hard work to making this dream come true.

Jay Louie (they/them)

Judy Su (she/her)

2022 Flash Foxy Climbing Festival Scholarships