In American Canyon, Napa County’s newest city, students create a thriving queer community
They call it THE Club.
“That’s our closet-friendly name,” said Karlos Garduce, a senior at American Canyon High School. Garduce is the president of what’s known on paper as the school’s LGBTQ+ Club: the biggest queer-oriented student group in the Napa Valley Unified School District. The club’s 30-odd members meet at lunch on campus every Wednesday.
“We’re just a safe space,” said Garduce, who uses they/them pronouns. “There’s not a lot of queer representation here. It’s a small town,” they said. While every year, American Canyon flies a rainbow flag at city hall for the month in June, Pride celebrations disappeared after 2023 — which was only the third year of celebrations.
“You could say AC’s queer culture revolves around this club,” Garduce said.
“It’s nothing revolutionary. But, the fact that we get to say there is a club for queer students … is revolutionary,” said Garduce. The club focuses on activities like watching movies or making pins. But it doubles as a space for honest communication, where openly queer or closeted students alike can freely discuss their issues and needs.
California law currently protects queer and trans students, but President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting LGBTQ+ communities in education, healthcare and government loom large. Just this week, a major Bay Area hospital ended programming that offered gender-affirming care for trans youth due to pressure from the Trump administration.
“I’ve always been queer,” said Garduce. Though their family is not homophobic, the term bakla, a Tagalog slur for queer, was used casually when they were younger. Even so, said Garduce, “I would openly sing Bruno Mars songs and my parents would not bat an eye.”
On a recent Monday, district administrators met with American Canyon High School LGBTQ+ Club members to discuss queer life on campus, the challenges faced by students alongside their positive experiences.
Bathrooms and locker rooms are some of the major issues Garduce and the club’s treasurer, Tate Hilton, brought to the administration.
Hilton also joined THE Club his sophomore year. Highly organized, Hilton likes to talk logistics. In the district meeting, Hilton focused on immediately solvable problems.
“I don’t use the school bathrooms,” Hilton said bluntly in an interview with the Current. “There are two gender neutral bathrooms, and they’re not broadly accessible.” One is in the nurse’s office, which requires permission, and the other is in the school’s Wellness Center, typically open only to staff and faculty.
Hilton added: “The guys’ locker room — it’s a living nightmare. My experience was: Hide in the corner and get out as quickly as possible.”
Garduce is one of the only students across the Napa Valley Unified School District whose gender is listed not as “M” or “F” but as “G,” which stands for genderfluid. They officially made the change last year, thanks to a tip from a fellow ACHS graduate. The “G” comes with a gender support plan offered by the district — an option that most students don’t know about.
“I wasn’t advised or told that that was a thing,” said Garduce. “I emailed my counselor for two weeks. It took her some time.” The plan has been worth it. “There are a lot of amazing benefits that came with the gender support plan,” said Garduce. “It gives you the option to change your name, change bathrooms, locker rooms.
“There should be more people knowing you can do that,” they said. “I didn’t even know about it.”
What’s needed, agreed Hilton, is a culture shift at the school and across the district. Both Hilton and Garduce worry that, while leadership is open to listening students, follow up could be minimal. To avoid that, Hilton presented action items to the visiting administrators.
Along with more gender neutral bathrooms and spaces, he said, the first step to changing culture at the school is to educate faculty on queer campus life. “I talked about teacher and substitute teacher influence,” said Hilton. When the paperwork doesn’t align with a student’s identity, roll call can be painful for some.
“When they’re reading off roll, what are they gonna read? They’re gonna read the dead name,” Hilton said. “Every time a substitute teacher comes in, it’s that all over again.”
He also urged adding appropriate supervision in locker rooms and bathrooms and making gender-affirming programs more available. But Hilton said, while the district meeting was promising, he and Garduce are still waiting to hear back from administrators about their plans to address these issues.
“The result of a couple meetings was that [our principal] sent out an email and then did nothing else.”
Beginning August 2024, LGBTQ+ Club members have been invigorated by the addition of mentors from Napa nonprofit organization LGBTQ Connection, which pairs queer youth advocates in high schools across the Napa Valley Unified School District. LGBTQ Connection offers one-on-one support with students, and leadership and communication training to the clubs.
“Even just having the clubs at the schools is great for visibility and the support queer kids need in Napa,” youth advocate Kristina Skinner told the Current. She also works with students at St. Helena High School, Calistoga Junior-Senior High School, Napa High School and Vintage High School. Unlike American Canyon High School, there are only about five or six students at each of the other campuses who meet with LGBTQ Connection.
Even so, the work matters: “We are the only LGBTQ organization in Napa,” Skinner said. When Skinner, now 24, was a student at St. Helena High School, she said, there was little in the way of LGBTQ+ support.
“Though some clubs are small, we see them show up every week. American Canyon High was unique in how big their club is. They’ve shown a lot more initiative,” she said.
Several years ago, Jose Luis “JL” Rodriguez, a mentor figure from LGBTQ Connection, was killed in a car accident. Recently, the club hosted a movie night in his honor, featuring JL’s favorite movie, “To Wong Foo: Thanks For Everything,” a film about a drag competition in Los Angeles. “I’ve held this club as a legacy for him,” Garduce said.
THE Club’s ambitions are much higher than weekly get-togethers. “I’ve realized we can do so much more than hosting lunch,” Garduce said. “We can make a name for ourselves at this school. I want to do a lot more queer history lessons.”
But having fun is a big part of the goal too. “Since we’re gay, we do a lot of crafts. Members really like slime making for some reason,” Garduce said, laughing.
“There’s a lot of people that are scared to come out to our club,” they added. For years, they said, homophobia has come up during club rush, a time in September when clubs lay out tables with displays to get new members to join.
“American Canyon’s biggest challenge is verbal harassment,” noted Skinner from LGBTQ Connection. “But at the same time, more people are less afraid of being out there.” It’s a numbers game, she said. The more visibly queer students there are, the safer others will feel.
Garduce agreed. “The club is never gonna go away,” they said. “It’s here when you’re ready.”
