When Fern Stroud was growing up, she would tag along with her father as he drove a tour bus taking visitors from their hometown of Berkeley, California, to Napa valley’s wine country. She would notice how happy people were after a couple hours into the trip, and think: “I can’t wait until I’m 21.”
However, Stroud’s first visit to wine country as an adult was anything but pleasant. The name of the winery has faded from her memory, but Stroud, who’s now 45 and identifies as LGBTQ, remembers the feeling and her unhealthy efforts to belong. “I would go into that space with my braids, just being me and be ignored,” she says. “I didn’t feel very welcomed. I would overdo it, spending way too much money to prove to them that I can be in that space. … I was like, that’s BS. Why can’t I just be treated like anyone else?”
