Elli Jahangiri’s entrance into climbing was as seamless as it gets. Friends lent her shoes and other gear, got her free day passes, mentored her in climbing movement, and brought her climbing outdoors. While Elli had few barriers to accessing climbing, she couldn't help but notice the barriers faced by climbers all around her. She was the anomalee. She had a seamless experience, but that was not the experience for nearly everyone else around her—especially her fellow queer, POC, and BIPOC climbing friends. Her brain got to working. How could she change that?
It started as a lot of things do with millennials...Elli created a group chat called “Queer Climbing Collective Board Members” as a joke with her friends. It was just a dream though. Just a joke. Soon, she made a logo...because why not dream more? Then it felt too real not to.
The official affinity group Queer Climbing Collective (QCC) started with weekly meet-ups at Mesa Rim, a gym in San Diego. Soon, queer climbers in other states latched on to the idea and wanted to start their own chapters in other parts of the country. Elli had sought out community in queer climbing spaces before, but frequently found that those spaces felt overwhelmingly white. She continued to feel othered, oftentimes facing micro and macro aggressions in spaces where she was “supposed” to find connection. She was determined that QCC would be shaped and led by queer POC and BIPOC climbers like herself. And as QCC has grown, she has been intentional about crafting a space that foregrounds climbers with those experiences.
“It can be difficult to listen to Queer experiences, the more intersecting identities you have the more difficult your experience can be operating in this society. [For example,] my friends who are Black and trans…their experience at the gym is super different than mine. In society, we are happier to listen to those who have less and less of those identities, than people who could really change people’s minds and blow the whole system up, because their suffering or experience is really uncomfortable to witness.”-Elli Jahangiri
”A lot of the queer community doesn’t fit an image that people are looking for; the easier you are to promote and easier you are to look at, the more your voice is going to be heard, but those are typically not the most marginalized in our community.” -Elli Jahangiri
One of the most empowering parts of this community, in Elli’s eyes, is the way it makes climbing less intimidating. After a QCC participant tries climbing for the first time at a QCC event, Elli will often spot them at the gym with their own built communities. She sees people grow in confidence, feeling more comfortable at the gym, and flourishing in climbing because of it.
But key to making climbing accessible and less intimidating is not only creating spaces for climbers with similar experiences to build community, but also to share knowledge and offer education. The QCC in San Diego has offered clinics teaching anchor building, crack climbing, gear placement, the logistics of getting your SPI, setting for different body types, and more. At every meet-up, there is someone who is dealing with something in their personal life that is limiting them from participating fully or reaching a goal. The power of QCC for Elli is seeing these individuals be supported by the group, be pushed by the group to go beyond their comfort zone and to achieve that goal, no matter what level it is.
For Elli, the QCC has become her community support network—her family. And she’s not alone.
That’s why the Affinity Support Network is so crucial for supporting organizations like the Queer Climber’s Collective. Climbers are finding connection and a home through organizations like QCC. And the AAC wants to help as many climbers find a home in climbing as possible.
Joining the Affiliate Support Network (ASN)
QCC might be a power house at creating a home for these climbers, but the financial realities of organizations are tricky. Elli echoes the experience of other affinity groups who haven’t been able to become nonprofits. Grants are only for nonprofits most of the time, and most people won’t donate to “unstable” community organizations. So then, how to fund this work? Thanks to Climb United's Affiliate Suppor Network, the AAC is QCC's fiduciary, so that QCC can now be a nonprofit. They can now create a bank account, apply for grants, and accept donations. The financial future of their organization is looking bright.
But even with the support of the Affiliate Support Network, the Queer Climbers Collective faces some obstacles that other affinity groups can learn from.
QCC particularly is grappling with liability, and the fact that there is no legal safety net for group leaders when they bring attendees outdoors, when a waiver can only do so much. Gym support can also be incredibly hard to navigate. The only reason QCC is able to help their climbers so much is because the gyms they work with subsidize day passes or offer free passes and gear rentals. Too often, Elli has interacted with gyms that barely offer any substantial support…yet take all the social media assets and use it for their own purposes.
But despite these continuing challenges, Elli leaves us with a hopeful image. At the QCC meet-ups in San Diego, she’s been seeing more and more families bring their queer children to the gym to climb with queer adults. As someone who had come from a “somewhat repressive Asian family,” it was stunning for her to see families be so supportive of their queer children’s identities and to help them find adult role models who thrived in that identity, and in a space that was also very diverse in other ways. QCC is doing more than just impacting the present climbing community. They are shaping the future climbing community in incredibly tangible ways.
Ultimately, that's the QCC vision: expanding the definition of who is considered a climber. Beyond expanding….shattering it. The Affinity Support Network, a Climb United initiative, is ecstatic to help support them in their mission.