As many of us did, I moved back to Ojai during the pandemic. I came back to be with my family, who have lived here since the early 90s. It was hard to tell what kind of community I would find here after the restrictions were lifted and life started to return to “normal,” but what I’ve found here is a sweet and flourishing LGBTQ community. As someone who has lived most of my adult life in San Francisco, I feared I would not be able to find a place to feel as free. It has been a surprising turn of events to come back to the town I wanted to flee as a teenager and to find such a sense of love and belonging. 

There has always been queer community in Ojai, but it has never been as visible as it is today. When I was asked to write an article to detail the activities planned for Pride weekend, I jumped at the opportunity to speak with some of the town’s local legends. I started my journey with Lynne Doherty and Helen Allen, longtime Ojai lesbians who led the first Pride walk over 30 years ago in 1992, with just six women marching down Ojai Avenue. 

I drove out to the East End to interview Lynne and Helen, who welcomed me into their home bearing decorations from many a party past. When Lynne saw me looking at the streamers hanging from the ceiling, she told me she had put them up for the Super Bowl and had decided to leave them up. There was a corner that had obviously been decorated for New Year’s that remained covered in black and gold, and rainbow Pride decorations lay scattered throughout. I tried to remember the last time I’d decorated for a party and couldn’t. I sat in their living room on the first hot day of the summer while Lynne told me their histories and Helen made jokes. 

Helen has lived in Ojai since the mid 70s and Lynne since the late 80s. They met while traveling in India in 87 and have been together since 89. “I followed Helen to Ojai,” Lynne said, “and we brought everybody out of the closet.” Helen then looked me dead in the eye and said, “You’re not still in the closet are you?” I laughed at her boldness and answered, “I’m the B and/or the Q in the community.” Helen and Lynne exchanged glances, and Lynne said, “In our day, you were either gay or lesbian.” 

That afternoon, I was given not only a brief history of their relationship and many interests, but an etymology lesson of the word lesbian. Apparently, it comes from the name of the Greek island Lesbos, home to the Greek poet Sappho. Lynne tells me that she had never even heard the term lesbian until she graduated college. 

Lynne and Helen are nothing if not enthusiastic about hosting parties and creating community. They not only started the Ojai Pride march, but they once started a lesbian softball team (which continued for five years), as well as a concert series at the Ojai Women’s Club called the Lavender Living Room (which has since become the name of their ultra informative weekly newsletter). As Helen said, “One of my functions on this planet has been getting people together.” She then extended the invitation to their pool party the following Sunday and said they had plenty of extra rooms if I ever had friends in town who needed a place to stay. 

When I asked them what they thought of the next generation of LGBTQ Helen, ever the jokester, responded, “I know a lot about them, they’re younger! I can testify if you want me in the court.” I laughed and Lynne continued, “They can come out so easily nowadays. It was really hard back then.”

This year they have decided to pass the torch to Queers in the Valley, which consists of a new guard of locals — JoEllen Depakakibo, her wife Robin Quinn, and Kate Levinstein. They have been planning, and will be facilitating, the picnic following the Pride walk this year. Lynne says that, “Hopefully, the tradition will be carried on for another 33 years until it’s passed on, yet again, to the next generation.” 

JoEllen and Robin of Queers in the Valley moved from the Bay Area to Ojai (Robin’s hometown) with their son in 2022. Upon arriving, they lost their cat and were engulfed in grief and without community. In an effort to soothe their grieving hearts they went to Ecotopia hot springs where they happened to meet a local healer, both a POC and Queer. They connected on a common yearning for a diverse queer community in Ojai. As JoEllen says, “From there, Queers in the Valley was formed with the intention of finding our queer community to represent, strengthen, support, and inspire. This all leads to the feeling of belonging and a space for people to be their authentic selves.”

I asked JoEllen how it felt to move to Ojai as someone who is queer and has no personal history here. “In the beginning, being POC and Queer, I automatically felt a disconnect. I had my own assumptions of everyone around me, without actually connecting directly with people. A new town that you’re not from is intimidating. However, being a parent (to a now four-year-old), we slowly connected to the parent/kid world. It truly wasn’t until Pinholita Coffee Van, our battery-operated cafe on wheels (an extension of my ten-year-old coffee shop, Pinhole Coffee in San Francisco), that I felt like my authentic self. I was able to do what I love (make coffee), and serve it to people that appreciate it. That allowed me to connect to the community naturally.” JoEllen has since gone on to hire four employees that all identify as Queer women. “It’s been a beautiful thing for people to approach us in comfort to be their authentic selves.” JoEllen’s coffee truck will be serving coffee at the picnic, and let me tell you, it’s some of the best coffee in town!

Robin, although originally from Ojai, also had to adjust to life back in a small town, “It feels very special to have childhood roots in Ojai and to strengthen those roots here as an adult, and parent, now. I appreciate the beauty and community here now on such a deeper level than I did twenty years ago. It was challenging when I first moved back to town two years ago, transitioning from the culture and diversity of the Bay Area, back into a quirky small-town life. But I have grown to truly love it here and am excited to watch our son grow up here, just as I did.”

Both are hopeful that the community will be sustained and nourished throughout the year and that queer community continues to grow and become more visible and accepted any time of year and not just on Pride weekend. There have been rumblings of a queer softball team, a queer choir, and queer line dancing, and it sounds like the sky’s the limit! 

Kate moved to Ojai in 2021 in a bid to find some peace and healing as their life was falling apart. They randomly ended up here while looking for a last-minute Airbnb that was somewhat in the vicinity of Santa Barbara. Kate tells me that they identify as gender apathetic. “l just don’t care about my own relationship with gender.” They also identify as disabled as they are managing chronic illness. “Everyone will be disabled at some point in their lives,” they tell me. It’s the first time I think about this truth and it is a sobering thought.

Kate is originally from Long Beach but spent many years in Chicago, where they studied Cultural Anthropology. They have a background as a paramedic, Punjabi folk dancer, and as a clairvoyant and energy healer. When they came to Ojai, as it does with many of us, something stuck. Kate had been longing for “an antidote to hyper-individualism” and, in seeking out queer community, quickly found Queers in the Valley (which they now help run). The three are focused on giving community to all the people who are systemically and marginally oppressed. This includes (but is not limited to) Trans, BIPOC, disabled, and low-income people. Kate says, “not only are you welcome, we want you here!”

When I ask about the adversity that has come up in creating the Pride event, Kate says, “It takes so much more labor to make an event inclusive.” When I ask them what they mean they explain one thing they’ve done is to create a non-police security with volunteers in the community who recently went through a training in their own backyard. Another thing they did was to hire an ASL interpreter which Kate believes will help people know they are welcome. There have also been efforts by the City, through Kate’s urging, to make the Libbey fountain more accessible to wheelchair access. In addition, there will be a socially distanced seating area for people who are immunocompromised and/or neurodivergent. “We want more disabled people to show up and tell us what they need.”

In terms of Pride festivities, no article about Pride would be complete without mentioning the local legend and performer Ryan Beaghler, aka Michelle Chakra. I initially met Ryan about 10 years ago when he was a student at the Kim Maxwell Studio. I was apprenticing with Kim at the time, and even then, Ryan stood out as a star. I didn’t see him again until last year when my sister Jesse, who is the Events Director at the Dutchess, told me she was putting on a drag brunch and I should attend. I was absolutely delighted to see that the Drag Queen performing was none other than Ryan/Michelle Chakra. She had us all in stitches the entire time. 

Ryan grew up in Ojai, attended Nordoff, and credits both Kim Maxwell and his mother for being his guiding lights, and for helping him make his way to New York City to attend the Pace School for Performing Arts. It was there that Ryan honed his craft of doing drag, performing for the Queer Union in college and competing in weekly competitions.

After returning to Ojai during the pandemic, Ryan found he was enjoying the respite from the fast paced city lifestyle and reconnecting with family after having been in New York for eight years. He also found that building community here was equally as satisfying as it had been in the city and in many ways, even more so.

Ryan said, “It was great to come back and see that there’s so many cool queer people in Ojai and also that I get to be fully myself in a place where I used to be really apprehensive about expressing myself. It’s very healing.”

As Michelle Chakra, Ryan has had to adjust his artistic sensibilities so that they resonate with the people here, as he knows that things that resonate with people in Bushwick are not necessarily going to do so with people in Ojai. Because Ryan feels that a crucial part of being an artist is reflecting the community you are a part of, he is committed to doing so and has found a great deal of support. He has performed in three drag dinners and one drag brunch at The Dutchess of which he says he could have never imagined as a kid. He also does drag bingo and will be conducting a workshop on cultivating self-worth through expression in August. 

When I asked Ryan how Ojai has changed over the years he responded by saying, “It has become more commerce- driven. I would love more live art to be funded and dispersed throughout the Valley. We have a lot of amazing performance spaces that lie empty most of the year, thanks to some pretty exorbitant rental costs. Our local government could do a better job of advocating for our community artists and not just the people who want to buy a piece of Ojai.”

Two members of the community that have been busy creating safe spaces for the LGBT+ are my sister, Jesse Rennix, and her spouse, Jeni Erickson. They also happen to be providing sound and stage management for this year’s Pride Picnic. They, too, moved to Ojai during the pandemic. My sister called me from LA and said, “We’re buying an RV, getting rid of all of our stuff, and going to live with Mom and Dad. You should come.” I thought she was crazy until I began to see there was no end in sight to the “new normal” we were living in. I decided to flee San Francisco and join my family here in Ojai. 

Jesse’s background is in music and hospitality, and Jeni’s is in DJing and event production. When they decided they didn’t want to return to LA but wanted to root down in Ojai instead, they got busy creating Ojai House Music Club. “I came back to Ojai where I started,” Jesse said, “throwing raves in the woods twenty-plus years earlier and felt that same need for a place to dance. It has almost been a year now, and our monthly party has brought together such a special community. It is for everyone, but offering a truly safe space for the queer community is paramount.”

Jeni has been a pioneer in making safe spaces for folks in their dance parties in SF and LA and spent the last twenty-five years making sure the underserved and unseen have a place to feel like they belong. “The fact that we get to be a part of this visible change in Ojai is really special,” exclaimed Jeni, who started Sound Source Ojai, a sound and lighting rental business that serves the bustling events scene in the area. They will be kicking off the weekend with a Pride edition of OHM Club this Friday at Harvest Moon from 8 pm-midnight.

The Pride walk will begin Sunday at 11 am in Libbey Park near the fountain. There will be booths with free resources for the community as well as local artists and performers until 2 pm. The Ojai Pub will be hosting an after party starting from 3 pm and local line dancing legend, Diane Anastasio, will be doing line dancing at the Ojai Rancho Inn from 4-5:30 pm.

Happy Pride, and may we all be free, safe, and loved!

LOCAL PRIDE EVENTS: