Out on the Farm

At The Outback Farm, queer students find community with each other and nature.

Story by Cam Olsen-Roth // Photos by Nicola Wasmuth

March 16, 2022

It was a cold, crisp January morning as my coworker Sasha and I threw on our bee suits and made our way toward the apiary. The crunch of the frost-stricken leaves beneath our feet and the damp trees around us breathed life into our morning. We stopped at the foot of the Forest Garden next to one of the garden beds and saw a new splash of green; it was an artichoke. Its pointy, brightly colored leaves reminded us winter was soon coming to an end, and spring would be here before we knew it.

While I’ve been around farms throughout my life, I’ve never appreciated seeing plants spring to life until now. The Outback Farm on Western Washington University’s campus has been my home and my classroom since starting college. Queer people haven’t always been able to be open in farming spaces, but the Outback has provided me and other queer people a safe place to learn about ourselves and the environment.

Students given a tour or introduced to the farm through a class often find reasons to stick around.

“I just fell in love with the fact that there is a space that exists that is accessible on campus,” said Isamej David, an Outback Farm student and co-organizer of the Western Queer Eco-Justice club. “I just realized how interconnected agriculture was with all of my needs and all of my interests and also my embodiment as a queer person.”

The Outback meets the niche interests of students on the main campus and at Fairhaven College. For David, their trans identity fits into the ecological community at the Outback. They see themselves in things like the sex assignments of flowers, which have both male and female parts, that are sometimes called perfect flowers.

“When I hear that a flower, who I can connect with and who I see myself in, is perfect, it sits with me as truth,” David said.

When they asked me about my interpretation of perfect flowers, I began picturing a tulip whose petals were a blend of different colors. One petal was blue, another was pink and many of them were purple. I told them that to me, a perfect flower was something both masculine and feminine.

“When I see queerness reflected back at me, I am reminded that I’m whole and that bodies change and adapt and flow for a reason,” David said. “I believe the land knows its own soul the best.”

David said they believe nature can ultimately take care of itself.

They also drew inspiration for topics in queer ecology from one of their previous professors, Anika Tilland-Stafford. Tilland-Stafford is a Western instructor from Women, Gender and Sexualities Studies and teaches with a social and eco-justice oriented perspective.

“So much of my experience with queer gardening is that we really learn by showing up,” Tilland-Stafford said. “You get a bunch of people with mixed experience. And people learn from each other.”

Like David, I was introduced to the farm through a class. One of the first classes I took at Western was Experiential Learning at the Outback Farm. In the course, we explored food and regenerative farming.

“When I kneeled to dig for weeds in the beds, I didn’t need to think about who might walk by and snicker at the big girl bent over on the ground. “— Cam Olsen-Roth

I sat in the outdoor classroom, listening to my instructor, Terri Kempton, read one of her favorite sections from the book “Belonging” by Toko-pa Turner.

“For the rebels and the misfits, the black sheep and the outsiders…” she started.

The crisp autumn wind whipped through my hair as the smell of fresh wood chips and pine permeated the air. I realized it had been a while since I sat outside in a nice wooded area like this.

“May you give up your allegiances to self-doubt, meekness, and hesitation…” she continued.

I hadn’t done any farm work before. Would I be good at it? What if I couldn’t keep up with anybody else? Was there a place on the farm for somebody like me?

“May you see, with the consummate clarity of nature moving through you, that your voice is not only necessary but desperately needed to sing us out of this muddle,” she read.

After the class, I applied for a work-study position on the farm, and three years later, I continue to work as an Outback coordinator.

Through this, I’ve had the chance to explore regenerative agriculture in a way that felt safe for my body type and my lack of experience. Being plus-sized has sometimes made experiencing the outdoors uncomfortable. At the Outback, I was encouraged to work at my own pace and in a way that let me feel comfortable in my own skin. I could walk around in the summer in tank tops and shorts, and I wouldn’t have to worry about feeling out of place because of my size or the clothes I wore. When I kneeled to dig for weeds in the beds, I didn’t need to think about who might walk by and snicker at the big girl bent over on the ground.

I could go home to my family and talk to them about work I was proud of: I turned compost bins, planted radishes in the greenhouse, fed the chickens and let them out in the mornings.

I talked to my dad, a farmer in Kingston, Washington, about why he has enjoyed animal farming for the past 30 years.

His answer: adrenaline and freedom.

“I have the best office view in the world. I look at the Puget Sound every day,” he said.

The farm he works on is beautiful, perched on a cliff in Kingston Cove. When I come home from college on the ferry, he stands on the cliff looking out over the water, waiting for me.

“I look out into the Sound, and I feel free. I can look up the straits, all the way up to where you are in Bellingham,” he said.

These sentiments of freedom and feeling good working in nature are shared not just in Kingston and Bellingham, but in the Northeast as well. Environmental sociologist Isaac Leslie interviewed 20 different Northeastern queer farmers to better understand their experiences in agriculture.

“Most farmers, regardless of sexuality, appreciated being outside, doing physical work, producing tangible results, and feeling healthier. Many expressed that it made them feel good to feed people. Others spoke about the joy of feeling connected to the earth and the seasons,” according to Leslie’s thesis.

Leslie was also able to identify differences between motivations for cisgender heterosexual farmers and queer farmers.

“There were certain things that attracted queer farmers to the farming space. For example, the ability to dress in what some folks would interpret as more gender-neutral or gender non-specific dress,” Leslie said in an interview.

I thought back to a moment on the Outback Farm where I was wearing my great grandpa’s old overalls with my favorite bright yellow shirt underneath, along with a pair of sneakers I salvaged from the farm. I felt comfortable and happy with what I was wearing.

“Other folks found it really important for them in their coming out process, either as far as sexuality or gender identity goes, to have that space oftentimes working alone,” Leslie said. “To have that space and time to process your relationship with the world.”

Growing up and having so many different opinions and ideas thrown at you in the age of the internet can muddle your sense of identity and where you fit into the world. When I was at the farm, offline and unplugged, I could find peace in being myself. I had the freedom to explore my identity in a quiet and calm space, doing work that felt important to me.

When I asked my dad if he ever saw any queer farmers in his line of work, he said no.

“I don’t care if you’re gay or straight,” he said. At that moment, it seemed less like an interview and more like he was talking to me. “If you wanna have a farm, have a farm. As long as things are taken care of and your animals aren’t neglected, more power to you.”

At first, I felt a little silly asking him a question like that. I was nervous that people from rural farming communities might have a problem with young queer farmers. Most of my worry stemmed from the fact that I didn’t see anybody else like me around my home.

I grew up in Bremerton, a relatively conservative but urban navy town. I only knew a handful of queer people and none of them seemed interested in farming. When my family moved 45 kilometers north to Kingston, I saw even fewer queer people but significantly more farmers. Tilland-Stafford was the first queer person older than me with a background in farming that I’d met.

Why haven’t I seen more queer people in farming? Where do I usually see queer people congregate?

“Bars,” Tilland-Stafford said. “What does it say about our take on a population if we can be associated seamlessly with alcohol consumption but not with food production?”

One of Tilland-Stafford’s goals is to expand society’s imagination of where queer people are and what they can do.

Expectations for the queer community weren’t the only reason I hadn’t seen more queer people in agriculture.

“We’re taught in dominant Western culture that trans people are new, that nonbinary people are new, and that us being an intrinsic part of our communities and the sustenance of our communities is something that’s just beginning to happen,” Tilland-Stafford said.

It’s not that queer and trans people are just now entering these farming spaces; it’s that society is just starting to acknowledge that they’ve been there the whole time.

“It’s not easy to be a successful farm. To anybody that can make it, congratulations. Whether you’re gay or not doesn’t matter,” my dad said.

I throw my loose overalls on, tie up my boots and head out the door. As I walk to work, I look past Sehome High School toward the forested hills and mountains. I remember that behind those trees, 150 kilometers away, my dad is working on his farm. Come summer, I’ll be back home and he can take me to see his pigs and chickens whenever I want.

For now, I’m headed to the Outback Farm. Spring is almost here, and there’s lots of work to be done. The sun is shining and its glow keeps me warm while I walk. I step through the south gate of the farm and I notice tulip leaves beginning to poke through the grass.

“What a great day to be at the farm,” I think to myself.

Cam Olsen-Roth is a third-year Fairhaven and Huxley College. She spends much of her time at the Outback Farm where she explores food insecurity and permaculture principles.