PITTSBORO — Donning rainbow-colored cowboy hats, bow ties and assorted bead necklaces, a group made up of mostly high schoolers held up homemade posters in front of the historic courthouse as passersby honked horns to join in the celebration.
It was Pittsboro Pride Day — organized by two teenagers and attended by more than 30 others on June 26.
“I just posted it everywhere I could and got people to hype it up and tons of people went,” said Caroline Puckett, a rising senior at Northwood High School who organized the event with her girlfriend, Lauren Chubb. “It was really, really fun. It was a huge social distancing movement, too, so we tried to get everybody to stay far apart from each other, which was hard because people just want to hug each other. But I was just happy that it happened.”
The event took place during Pride month, a month celebrated nationally to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising that served as a tipping point for gay rights in the U.S. For Puckett and Chubb, who with Jasmine Sedaghtzadeh served as presidents of Northwood High School’s GSA Pride Club, the month gave them an opportunity to come together with club members to celebrate their identities and community, in spite of the coronavirus.
The club hasn’t met in person since March 13, the last meeting before North Carolina public schools moved to remote learning. In that time, the group has kept in touch through the social app Amino. More than half of the attendees at the Pittsboro pride day were club members.
“It’s pretty much just like any other club, but the energy there is great, everyone really gets along,” Puckett said. “All of the kids that go to the pride club are inspired by me and by my members and leaders — they build off of each other and learn things from each other and It just makes me really happy to see everybody understanding each other and wanting to learn more.”
‘What happens in Pride stays in Pride’
Puckett first heard about the club from her older sibling, Piper. The first meetings she attended were fun, she said, but as time went on, the then-leaders stopped showing up. It was then that Caroline decided to take matters into her own hands by “reinventing” the club.
When she joined her sophomore year, club meetings usually consisted of playing games and sharing pronouns and zodiac signs. Now, the club meetings are more educational and discuss various LGBTQ topics and identities each week.
“I just sit back, and I actually learn a whole lot from them,” said Nathan Hoover, the club’s advisor and a history teacher at Northwood. “I don’t want to give this false impression that I do a whole heck of a lot other than I learn from them and give them a place to run their meetings — I look forward to it every week.”
Every Wednesday, the club meets for one hour in Room 508. Topics vary from defining pansexuality to learning about aromantic identities, and after the informational presentation, members work on art projects related to that week’s topic while hanging out and eating food together.
Hoover said the club is a great place for students to feel accepted and that a common expression among members is “what happens in Pride stays in Pride.”
“Whenever I was applying for the new job, I saw that Northwood had their own Pride Club, and I just thought that was awesome because all kids need a safe space to hang out, chat and feel welcome,” he said. “It’s really just a place of learning and acceptance, and I’m just so proud that I get to be a part of it.”
For Puckett, who is bisexual, leading the club has become a huge source of community and happiness. She used to be bullied because of her identity, so seeing people at Northwood support all the work she puts into the club means a lot to her.
“I have been going through my sexuality and my gender journey for a really long time — it’s just kind of crazy to me that all these years later, I’ve gotten to this point where I’m not afraid of what people say about me because I am free and open about what I feel and who I am,” Puckett said. Some of her old bullies, she said, even support the club and her leadership efforts now.
“I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m proud of me too,’ for moving past what I’ve been through and becoming this leader and symbol to continue to fight for my human right of sexuality and gender,” she said.
‘I am proud’
On Valentine’s Day, the Pride Club hosted a school-wide activity where students and teachers could write what love meant to them in pink and purple paper hearts. Just one month later, the club would host its last meeting of the semester.
Hoover, who was out of town for that last meeting, returned to his empty classroom the first week school was canceled to pick up some things he needed to teach from home. The heart notes celebrating love no longer hung outside his classroom, but other art projects from past meetings remained. And on the whiteboard, written in large dry-erase-marker script, were Sedaghtzadeh, Chubb and Puckett’s names and phone numbers.
“If anybody needs to talk, regardless of what their home life is like, they can always get in contact with them,” he said.
This is especially important to Chubb, who said being in the club was important to her when she was really struggling with her identity her first year of high school.
“Being in the kind of environment with other people identifying as LGBT, or as allies, made me feel safe, and I felt like I didn’t have to be as like anxious or nervous because I was around people who I knew were probably going through the same hardships and struggles as I was and it made me feel a lot less alone,” she said. “I really hope that as the club continues on, it can keep making sure that Northwood is a safe and accepting place for all kinds of people but especially the LGBT community, because there’s some difficulties there.”
Though Sedaghtzadeh and Chubb both plan to help out with the club after graduating this year, Puckett decided to elect another co-president, Oliver Ewy. It’s unclear when or if the club will be able to meet in person next year, but for her senior year, Puckett wants to continue growing the club, even if virtually.
At her pride day, listening to a curated pride playlist with friends and peers, it seemed possible that the community of the club could continue, even separated by a computer screen or masked faces and six feet worth of distance.
They’re no longer waving gay pride flags or wearing rainbow capes, but they still find ways to celebrate who they are. One particular poster at the event, marked with small hearts in all the colors of the rainbow, emphasized the inspiration behind both the day and the club.
“I am proud,” the sign read simply.
Reporter Hannah McClellan can be reached at hannah@chathamnr.com.