by: Paul R. Benson
During February of Spring 2019 semester, the Parkland Pride club attended MBLGTACC conference. According to MBLGTACC.org. “The Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Asexual College Conference (MBLGTACC) is an annual conference held to connect, educate, and empower queer and trans+ college students, faculty, and staff around the Midwest and beyond.” The website says, “To date, MBLGTACC is America’s largest and oldest continuously-held conference for queer and trans+ college students. And it remains proudly student-run.” This year, MBLGTACC was hosted in Wichita, Kansas which is roughly a 10-13 hour trip from Parkland. It should have only been a 9-10 hour trip, but there were many obstacles in our way, to say the least.
It was Friday 6:00am, February 15th. We hit the road in two Parkland owned cars and got on the highway. Despite getting 3 hours of sleep, I controlled the music, the GPS, and talked to Advisor Tanino Minneci about religions, nature, and dreams. (Missouri should be renamed to, “Oil fields, the state.”) Everything was relatively peaceful, until we got closer to Kansas City, where the snowstorm was. At one point, we were breaking at a red light when we suddenly slipped on the ice and almost rear ended our other car. Inches away from the other car, Minneci yelled, both rejoicing and releasing anxiety. Later on, we tried to stop at a Panera for lunch. The snow was several inches high and our car got stuck in the snow right outside the Panera for nearly 10 minutes. There were lots of accidents and we were driving down a state road. One of the scariest parts of the trip was when a semi-truck passed us, lifting a cloud of snow into the air – we couldn’t see anything for at least 15 seconds. Minneci tried to slow down and speed up enough to avoid an accident. Everything was hilarious after we survived.
After going through an overpriced toll booth, we could finally see the hotel, but we were going in the wrong direction. We tried to go down a U-turn section, but were convinced that it was closed off due to cones and wrong way signs. Minneci tried to back out, but there were too many cars zipping past us on the highway. The anxiety was intense. Suddenly a car got behind us, and we decided to do the U-turn. The road ended up not being closed off.
“No one else found the joke funny, but after the 13-hour car ride no one had the energy to say anything”
We finally got to our rooms, unpacked, registered, and listened to the last several minutes of the opening speaker, Jessica Pettitt. Afterwards, we took a shuttle bus from the hotel to a ramen restaurant that ended up being closed, despite what the website said. The bus driver commented, “Must be a language barrier,” and then laughed to himself. No one else found the joke funny, but after the 13-hour car ride no one had the energy to say anything. We redirected to a Vietnamese restaurant, where we adopted a student from MBLGTACC who was sitting alone. Their name was Nhan, and he came from Omaha on his own. Nhan was going to a drag show at Club Boomerang after dinner. Pride member Priscilla and I joined Nhan and had a fun night out. Once we got back to our hotel room, we stayed up and watched MIB II. That movie did not hold up well.
Being at MBLGTACC was the more relaxing part of the journey. There were plenty of good keynote speakers and workshops. Most of us from the group really liked the speaker Pidgeon Pagonis, an Intersex activist, educator, and filmmaker from Chicago, IL. They talked to us about Gender binaries from an intersex perspective, “If there are infinite ways for our bodies to look, our minds to think, personalities to act, wouldn’t it make sense that there is that much variety in biological sex too?” Pagonis said. They brought up a lot of thought-provoking points and they were really relaxed -occasionally tangent riffing. Pride member Kat almost cried during Pidgeon’s speech. Nyle DiMarco was another speaker we were looking forward to listening to. Nyle DiMarco is a sexually fluid deaf activist who won America’s Next Top Model and Dancing With The Stars. During his speech, he played a part in dancing with the stars where they cut all the music out while Nyle was dancing. It was magical, because for a second everyone in the audience became aware of Nyle’s experience of dancing without sound.
It was a shame that some workshops were closed due to people canceling. It also felt like there weren’t as many opportunities to mingle with peers. It was fun socializing over meals as a group with Nhan though. We had a very positive energy, and it was nice to be around friends. Nhan and I sat side by side each other at one restaurant called the Monarch, and it was cute. This one group of people in the restaurant couldn’t stop staring at us, like they had a problem with our group. One man in particular looked straight at us almost the entire time, even as they all left. I just gave him the cold-behind-the-shades stare right back as he was walking out.
The best part of MBLGTACC was the Drag show at the end of the event hosted by, “Penny-Tration,” who called Wichita, “Wicheetah.” Our group got seats in the front row. There were many great performers, and some whom we had seen our first night at Club Boomerang. The drag king from before was definitely hitting on Priscilla. Drag queens were all over the place dancing and the camera operators couldn’t keep up. It was a long night, with a crowded after party at Club Boomerang.
It was great that we got the chance to say goodbye to Nhan in the morning and he bought us goodbye snack gifts for the road. He was very sweet.
On our way back, things were relatively smooth up until we got close to the border of Missouri and Illinois. I was in the car with Jessica that time. We stopped at a subway/gas station. We saw a truck outside covered in confederate flags, and Jessica suggested maybe we stop somewhere else. While all of us felt uncomfortable, we decided to stay and eat. The person behind the counter was gay, so we thought we at least had one ally. At one point somebody walked in with a “White Supremacist” Tattoo and there were more confederate flags in the store. As a group of minorities, we knew we had to leave. Some guy in the truck next to us gestured towards us and laughed to the person in the passenger’s seat. Back on the road, we found out the town we stopped in was Kingdom City, population 130 people. Won’t stop there again.
“It was pretty obvious to us that he pulled Jess over because she was black. Crossing the “fog line” is not a violation of the law and people do it all the time”
Less than an hour or so later, we encountered an officer who pulled beside us and looked into our car. We were going 20 miles under the speed limit to avoid sliding off the icy road. The officer braked behind us and turned on the sirens. Minneci pulled over right behind the cop and Priscilla started recording on her phone. The cop asked about the car behind him, and Jess told him that we were traveling as a group from Parkland College. We asked why we were pulled over. The cop said we crossed the “fog line.” We all looked at him like, “the what?” The officer then pointed his flashlight at the snow and sleet covered road. You couldn’t see the dividing line, let alone the “fog line.” The cop realized this very awkwardly, but he still asked for license and registration. Jess looked in the glove box for the registration. There wasn’t anything in the glove box, but a warning ticket. Jess explained to the officer that we were in a car owned by Parkland and we had some students trying to get home to their parents. The officer then decided not to run our plates and told us to “drive safely.” It was pretty obvious to us that he pulled Jess over because she was black. Crossing the “fog line” is not a violation of the law and people do it all the time. Even if we did cross the “fog line,” we didn’t cross over enough to hit the rumble strip so, it must have been more of a dip than a cross. Regardless, we carried on until we had to make a stop. As soon as we parked our cars, side by side, Minneci rolled down his window and called out to Jess, “Girlllll Girrrrrll!” We all busted into laughter.
Relative to what we’d gone through, it was smooth and icy sailing after that. Overall it was a good trip with some minor perilous roadside adventures. I definitely would go again. It was a really good bonding experience with loving and caring people. Haters are going to hate regardless. Thankfully the next MBLGTACC is only four hours away.
