Girls Rock campers at Jannus Live in St. Petersburg, Florida on July 19, 2025. Credit: Alexis Thompson / Girls Rock St. Pete
In a better world, places like Girls Rock Camp St. Pete wouldn’t exist.
“Put me out of business,” Jesse Miller, executive director of the nonprofit founded a decade ago, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “Make it so girls, women and gender-expansive folks don’t need these kinds of spaces.”
But they do.
From January 2020-December 2024, the FBI recorded 1,883 anti-transgender hate crime offenses (1,660 incidents) nationwide, according to the agency’s Crime Data Explorer. Data from the CDE also shows a 61% increase in offenses in the same time span. Looking at reports from GLAAD and more data for hate crimes against women or BIPOC folks is just as devastating.
“While we’re trying to teach these kids that their voices matter, and their bodies are important, and their bodies are their own, look at what’s happening with the leaders of our nation telling them exactly the opposite thing,” Miller added. “So we have to fight harder for these spaces all the time.”
Today (Monday), Miller—together with GRC founder Rachael Sibilia, and program manager River Oakley—welcomed a few dozen campers to “Power Week.” Over the next five days, they’ll learn instruments and form bands that will take the stage at Jannus Live this weekend.
They also learned about trailblazers of rock and roll like Bikini Kill and its founder Kathleen Hanna, who had beer spit in her face and chains thrown at her as she broke down barriers in punk-rock—a story sadly understood by thousands of women whether they dared to bring feminist values to the stage, workplace, home, or to the world in general. Hanna’s efforts have helped open the door for a legion of rock acts not fronted by men.
Girls Rock Camp St. Pete on July 18, 2025. Credit: Sandra Döhnert / Girls Rock St. Pete
GRC has a small army behind it, too.
Organizers told CL that more than 100 people volunteer as roadies, music coaches, Therapunks, workshop hosts and more so that camp happens. There’s even a “dude crew” providing support behind the scenes along with campus and concert prep. Last year, more than 1,000 people showed up to the showcase concert where the new bands performed. Organizers would love to see the 2,000-capacity venue sold-out this time around, to not only give the finger to leaders who’ve sought to turn the clock back on trans rights, but push back on the World Economic Forum’s 2023 finding that it could take 131 years to close the gender gap.
“In St. Pete, we don’t have to abide by that. We can start the work now. Just by showing up to this concert, it’s showing these girls and these kids that that get up on that stage that the community is here to support them,” Miller said.
Sibilia added that anyone walking through the gates is taking an active part in a revolution, noting that the three hours spent at the concert galvanizes a community for the months between. Supporting the cause, she said, takes courage—the very thing campers aged 8-17 bring to the table.
“The bravest thing they’re doing is walking through on Monday morning and being vulnerable, stepping out of their comfort zones,” Sibilia explained.
Together, they start to chip away at the gender confidence collapse. At GRC, it’s safe to raise your hand. Campers don’t have to be people pleasers, and they are encouraged to mess up. “Once they learn that the mistakes is what makes you good at something. Then it’s like, ‘OK, game on, sky’s the limit,’” Miller said.
Asking campers to examine barriers that need to be overcome internally and outside of camp equips a generation with tools that could leave the people who come behind them with fewer barriers to break through. Despite a political climate that seems impossible, giving up and complacency don’t have to be options for a dissenting community.
“By these radical acts of love, and creativity, music—all of the things—we can really build community and not be bogged down by the weight of oppressive people and oppressive systems,” Sibilia added.
And it’s not just the campers that grow.
Miller herself is subject to bouts of imposter syndrome, but camp has reminded her that you can’t be onstage teaching confidence, empowerment and self-love without walking the walk yourself.
She has seen giant men in the crowd crying at the concert. Some of them, she thinks, are dads who see their kids radically-supported by strong mentors and other people who believe in them. Parents, especially the fathers and brothers, are taught to give up the stage and play a supportive role.
Many folks send their kids to GRC because of transformative effects the program has demonstrated over the last decade. There are some parents who don’t fully grasp the idea of gender inclusivity, but they are safe, too. Humans are always evolving, Sibilia noted, and being inclusive means helping everyone break down walls and get comfortable. It’s OK to ask questions, to try to get better.
“As long as you are working to be more inclusive and more open, then you are welcome here,” Sibilia added. “I think that parents that perhaps are more conservative, or perhaps have had one sort of narrow way of thinking, they see that we create safety. We are not turning people away because they don’t know everything about everything. It makes them feel safe too.”
Support, and that kind of joyful uprising, organizers noted, is what it’s all about. And a strong showing on Saturday would go a long way to show campers that St. Pete is a haven in a state that can feel deeply bigoted at times. In fact, to not show up, or give in to those working to quash gender inclusivity, is not an option at all.
“Some of these kids, they look forward to this camp every single year because it’s this space where they’re not bullied, where they can be themselves, and that’s sacred,” Miller said. “If you build that trust with these youth, and then outwardly you’re not sticking up for that, what is that teaching them? It’s completely opposed to the whole reason we started.”
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This article appears in July 09 – 15, 2026.
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