Camp Aranu'tiq is a sleepaway

camp Camp may refer to: Areas of confinement, imprisonment, or for execution * Concentration camp, an internment camp for political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or minority ethnic groups * Extermination ...

for transgender children. It is operated by Harbor Camps, Inc., a nonprofit organization that runs camps for children and youth from marginalized populations, including those with

dwarfism Dwarfism is a condition of people and animals marked by unusually small size or short stature. In humans, it is sometimes defined as an adult height of less than , regardless of sex; the average adult height among people with dwarfism is . '' ...

and craniofacial abnormalities. The camp is located in

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

History

Camp Aranu'tiq was founded in 2009 by Nick Teich, a

transgender man A trans man or transgender man is a man who was assigned female at birth. Trans men have a male gender identity, and many trans men undergo medical and social transition to alter their appearance in a way that aligns with their gender identit ...

who had been asked to stop working at a sleepaway camp as a result of his transition. He realized that transgender children would go through the same issue of being kept out of gender-segregated spaces and thought that they should have a place where they felt completely comfortable. The name "Aranu'tiq" is a

Chugach Chugach , Chugach Sugpiaq or Chugachigmiut is the name of an Alaska Native people in the region of the Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound on the southern coast of Alaska. The Chugach people are an Alutiiq ( Pacific Native) people who speak ...

word for people who were thought to embody both a female and male spirit, also known as

two-spirit ''Two-spirit'' (also known as ''two spirit'' or occasionally ''twospirited'', or abbreviated as ''2S'' or ''2E'', especially in Canada) is a umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a trad ...

. In that culture, Aranu'tiq people were considered lucky. In 2015,

Caitlyn Jenner Caitlyn Marie Jenner (born William Bruce Jenner, October 28, 1949), formerly known as Bruce Jenner, is an American media personality and retired Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete. Jenner played college football for the Graceland Yell ...

visited and blogged about the camp, which was featured on an episode of her reality show, ''

I Am Cait ''I Am Cait'' is an American television documentary series which chronicles the life of Caitlyn Jenner after her gender transition. The eight-part one-hour documentary series debuted on July 26, 2015, on the E! network. The series focuses on t ...

''.

Notable campers

Jazz Jennings Jazz Jennings (born October 6, 2000) is an American YouTube personality, spokesmodel, television personality, and LGBT rights activist. Jennings is one of the youngest publicly documented people to be identified as transgender. Jennings receiv ...

, activist *

Nicole Maines Nicole Amber Maines (born 1997) is an American actress, writer, and transgender rights activist. Prior to her acting career, she was the anonymous plaintiff in the Maine Supreme Judicial Court case '' Doe v. Regional School Unit 26'', in which ...

, actress

References

{{Reflist

External links

Camp Aranu'tiq websiteHarbor Camps website
Non-profit organizations based in the United States LGBTQ youth organizations based in the United States Aranu'tiq Aranu'tiq Transgender organizations in the United States 2009 establishments in California LGBTQ in New Hampshire