Before Beau Gordon moved to Northern California , he dreamed of a different life. His friendship group was very male-oriented, and he wanted to surround him with some more diverse energy. After he got divorced from his ex-husband, his moment arrived: he reconnected with a few old colleagues of his who had bought their own land and started a ‘ queer intentional community ’ just north of San Francisco.
He jumped at the chance, and he’s now been living there, harmoniously, for two years. ‘We want to be in nature, we want to live in a community. It’s about supporting each other and living with your friends in the woods,’ Beau, who is 34 and originally from the UK, tells Metro.
co.uk. The group, which operates like an LGBTQ+ commune but describes itself more as a ‘queer intentional community,’ owns five acres and has 10 land mates, all of whom have developed a close relationship with one another.
Beau isn’t alone: LGBTQ+ communes have been flourishing for decades as alternative spaces where queer people can live together outside of mainstream society, which might not always provide safe housing options. Typically, they’re non-hierarchical organisations where everyone is equal and shares similar socio-political values. In the US in the twentieth-century, a group called the Radical Faeries was founded that began as sporadic meet-ups between gay men, and later became a more comprehensive network of communities that spread across the US and Europe.
Likewise, the Wom.