The Kitsap Youth Rights Rally is an annual event hosted on the Olympic College campus, centered around the Bremer Student Center and the surrounding buildings. The attendees and organizers, when asked, almost universally stated that they are there to promote an environment of “diversity and inclusion.” A noble goal, to be certain.

The problem is that such “diversity and inclusion” only comes when it is convenient, and the entire event is, for the most part, just a gathering of students so like-minded that they might as well be clones. Their idea of “diversity” is diversity of skin color, not diversity of ideas. Their idea of “inclusion” works only so long as those looking to be included do not disagree with them. The event is, for the most part, an echo chamber.

This is reflected in the workshops one attends at the event. There is nary a question about the content of the workshop to be found. Nobody questions the information they are given, no-one steps up to analyze and consider upon an even keel the presentations they are given. They all simply listen and believe, and for the most part, the beliefs of the workshops mirror the preconceived notions of the individuals in the room.

I attended a workshop on “relationship issues unique to LGBT couples,” hoping for perhaps some insights that might be interesting to my own relationship. What I found instead was a nearly hour-long presentation on abuse and domestic violence. No mention of all of the other quirks of dating and/or being an LGBT person. No mention of how to talk to your partner about the issues involved in starting hormones, or how to deal with adopting children, for example. Just an hour of teenagers talking about abuse.

And the regular and repeated use of the word “heteronormativity” indicated that these people were interested in blaming straight people for the abuse seen all too often in the relationships of gay people. As though taking responsibility for your own actions and the actions of people in your community is somehow homophobic.

These observations reflect my own experiences in the LGBT “community.” A year ago, I was a member of the Kingston High School Gender and Sexuality Alliance club, before a move out of the NK school district required that I change schools. It was a very cloistered and extremely echoey chamber, where only certain ideas were allowed to permeate. Many individuals would join, only to leave swiftly after being bullied out of the club for having ideas that contradicted the narrative. I myself was excommunicated from the club shortly after leaving Kingston for the cardinal sin of suggesting that trans people should not blow up at people for accidentally misusing their pronouns. This is an experience that many of my center-left LGBT friends have experienced as well, as part of many of the groups that showed up to the Kitsap Youth Rights Rally preaching diversity and inclusion.

Walking the floor of the Bremer Student Center after the second workshop, I found myself hearing the same ideas repeated and affirmed among the students gathered at the tables. The same ideas kept coming up and being reaffirmed, the same principles went unchallenged. There was an almost complete absence of intellectual discussion, of debate. The same thoughts echoed from the mouths of everyone and the same concepts were spouted. Make no mistake, this is no place for actual diversity, no place for true inclusion. You are only accepted if your ideas march in lockstep with the rest, only allowed and included if you do not challenge the preconceived biases of those in attendance. They might as well have said nothing for all the effect their speech had.