Before retiring earlier this year, Dennis Haines spent his career as an entomologist working for Tulare County in California’s San Joaquin Valley. He studied insects in the nation’s breadbasket, where agriculture is king and where pest control is a priority.
Haines joined a crowd of supporters Friday in Visalia, south of Fresno, to celebrate the lighting of The Gleam, an art installation honoring the area’s LGBTQ+ community.
“I’m 72, so I spent a lot of years in the shadows,” said Haines, a glow-in-the-dark necklace draped around his shoulders. “Tomorrow will be the first Pride I have ever attended, and so I wanted to experience the whole thing.”
Friday marked National Coming Out Day, an annual event aimed at raising awareness and support for members of the LGBTQ+ community. The following day, Visalia – a traditionally conservative town in what is California’s most conservative county – held its annual Pride parade.
The Source, an LGBTQ+ community resource center located in Visalia, celebrated the occasion with an art installation that quite literally lit up the valley night sky in rainbow hues.
“We’ve never been this visible before,” said Nick Vargas, who along with Brian Poth helped found The Source eight years earlier to support the county’s LGBTQ+ residents. “The Gleam we knew was going to be visible. We knew people were going to talk about it. But it’s doing more for us than we even first thought.”
Inspired by a similar laser display used by the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, The Gleam is an impressive series of six laser canons that project high above the valley below. Visible for miles around, a test run the previous night drew spectators from across the region – including many who pulled off the freeway to get a glimpse – and a fair share of hate.
“When we tested the light last night… and it was up for maybe 45 mins, there was a lot of hate. Some of the media outlets picked it up in Fresno and their Facebook pages blew up with tons of anti-LGBT comments,” said Poth, who, like Vargas, spent much of his childhood in Visalia.
“For us, it shows this is exactly why we need something like this, a joyous event where we are celebrating Pride,” he added.
As young adults, both Vargas and Poth left Visalia, fleeing the kinds of anti-LGBTQ+ intolerance that was and to some degree still is a deeply embedded part of the region. Pro-Trump signs line the road into town, a sign of the county’s predominately red political leanings.
Yet they returned eight years ago, in part to launch The Source, which began as a “safe space” situated in a small basement and has since grown to be a complex of buildings in a garden compound. In 2023, The Source served some 26,000 people across three counties, providing a range of services including health, HIV awareness and prevention, as well as food assistance, leadership training, and community building.
The Source is the only LGBTQ+ center of its kind between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Earlier this year, Poth and Vargas were honored with a James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award for their service to the community.
“They are a voice that we didn’t have before,” said Haines of The Source’s impact in Visalia and the wider region.
Larry Micari represents Dist. 1 – which includes Visalia – on the Tulare County Board of Supervisors and was among the more than 100 people who turned out Friday night to celebrate.
“I’ve seen a lot of great things happen through The Source and they are very supportive of our community,” he said, adding that for LGBTQ+ residents, “The Source helps them be open about their lives like we all should be.”
Singer Caroline Kingsbury helped kick off the lighting with an energetic performance of some of her favorite hits.
Ian, 17, serves on The Source’s youth board and says that while coming out is still a struggle for many here, the organization’s presence has been transformational. “The Source is such an inspiration for a lot of us,” said Ian, who uses he/him pronouns. “A lot more youth have been able to spread light on who they are.”
He added, “It’s been beautiful to see Visalia bloom to be more welcoming.”
Still, the threat of anti-LGBTQ+ hate looms even in liberal leaning California, where last year attacks targeting the community spiked 86% from the year prior, according to the 2023 Hate Crime in California report issued by the State Attorney General’s office.
According to Vargas, as the November election nears the rhetoric locally is growing increasingly heated. “There is stigma… and a lot of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, anti-trans rhetoric in our community,” he said. “And the election year is making people more vocal, it’s making our community more polarized.”
Tré Borden is a Los Angeles-based artist who was commissioned by the James Irvine Foundation to help design The Gleam. “When I think about being a kid who is queer who is growing up in Visalia now… it’s hard not to be emotional. Especially at a time when so many of us are in fear.”
As to the installation’s design, he described it as being inspired by The Source’s sense of itself “as a beacon… and so we wanted to make that sense of being a beacon literal and vibrant, visible for miles around.”
Pointing to the display, it’s brilliant beams projecting into the heavens, Borden said it represented a bold coming out for The Source and the community it serves. “The rainbow goes on forever.”
This resource is supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to CA vs Hate.
