Tickets to the 2017 (WCF) in Bishop, California, sold out in a minute. Literally鈥攐ne minute. Soon聽the waitlist to register for the weekend event, open to women-identified and non-binary people, had over 800 names. That鈥檚 how Shelma Jun knew she needed to add another event.
The following year, Jun, who founded the women鈥檚 climbing platform 聽(which runs the event) in 2014, organized a second weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee. That one sold out, too.
The 2019 Flash Foxy Summerfest, to be held at the New River Gorge and in nearby Fayetteville, West Virginia, won鈥檛 replace the now classic WCF, which will still take place in March in Bishop and Chattanooga; Jun describes it as a complementary event.聽Its panels and sessions will be led by women, but there鈥檚 one difference: its 300 to 350 spots will be聽open to people of all genders, which Jun hopes will expand the conversation around women in climbing to be more inclusive.
鈥淲e鈥檙e using the term all genders聽to take away that binary focus,鈥 Jun explains. 鈥淢ale, female, non-binary folks鈥攅verybody is welcome, across the entire spectrum of what gender can mean.鈥澛
This is the first event Jun has organized where cisgender men (that is, men whose gender identity matches the gender they were assigned at birth) will be welcome alongside women, but Jun and the Flash Foxy team have been working to reflect intersectional feminism since the beginning.
鈥淲CF welcomes all women (cis and trans) and enbies [short for non-binary] to join us at the Women鈥檚 Climbing Festival,鈥 the WCF registration reads. 鈥淥ur goal is to create and maintain a safe and diverse space where consent and respect are our first priorities.鈥 Jun says that while the event has always been open to all people who identify as female, she鈥檚 updated that language on the registration page in the past year to be more inclusive. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 an expectation of our events.鈥
That鈥檚 not the only step WCF events have taken in the past few years to include more people in the climbing community. The organization works closely with land managers and local climbing groups in Bishop and Chattanooga to incorporate good stewardship practices. And last year at Bishop, Jun invited a local Paiute woman to kick off the event by providing some history of the area. (This practice, known as a land acknowledgement, recognizes the indigenous people who have looked after an area for generations.)
Summerfest, Jun says, is another push in a larger effort to 鈥渟hift the climbing culture to be a better reflection of all of us.鈥 Inviting male allies to be part of that conversation, she hopes, will broaden the movement toward intersectionality.
鈥淲e鈥檒l be celebrating women in climbing,鈥 she says. 鈥淏ut we鈥檒l go a little deeper, too, and think about the challenges faced by women of color, queer women, adaptive women. We shouldn鈥檛 be talking about these things in silos.鈥
Registration for will open on March 1 at 12 P.M. EST.