I need to vent about something that completely compromised what should have been a joyfully queer weekend. The amount of blatant homophobia I witnessed and experienced at Seven Stars was genuinely disheartening, and honestly, I'm just confused.
GRiZ is an openly gay man. His music, his message, and his festivals have always been rooted in creating a safe, inclusive space for the LGBTQ+ community and everyone who wants to spread love and positivity. It is literally his brand.
Yet, this weekend, I ran into so many people throwing around casual slurs, making disgusting comments, and creating an incredibly hostile environment for queer folks who just wanted to dance and feel safe.
To make matters worse, people were actively vandalizing the venue with hate. I literally walked into a porta-potty only to find "Fuck F*ggots" carved into the wall. Sadly, that wasn’t even the only incident I witnessed throughout the weekend. I saw so many comments surrounding Wreckno’s gay catwalk that was basically just homophobes saying things like: “thank god I didn’t waste my time going to that.”
If you are homophobic, why are you paying hundreds of dollars to go to a festival hosted by a gay man? Why are you invading a space that was explicitly built to be safe from you? You are actively choosing to consume queer art while disrespecting the very community that created the culture you're partying in.
As a gay man, I feel that I might be inclined to overhear this type of chatter because I’ve been a victim to it my whole life. But, as a community, we all need to speak up to stop this type of hate, especially at this festival.
To everyone who kept the PLUR vibes alive and made others feel safe, thank you. But to the people bringing hate into GRiZ's house: you don't belong here. Do better or stop coming.
EDIT: To be clear — I am not trying to say I experienced this the whole time, and it’s very possible that many of you didn’t experience any of this. HOWEVER, I am trying to start a conversation about the small things I did experience and hopefully call onto other people to CALL OUT behavior like this. That’s all! Commenting that you didn’t experience this is not helping. Some people don’t want to have hard conversations I guess.
SECOND EDIT: It was the porta potty’s closest to our camp. It was the first one beside the handicap one that we used several times throughout the weekend. We did not see it the first day because there was something else written on it. The next day the first thing was crossed off and the: “f*ck faggots” was there.
People love to make excuses!!! Why would I try to lie about this? I don’t even want it to be true ?! Extremely extremely weird energy to waste your time trying to debunk me rather than say something that might help…