Last weekend, a few hundred of us spent a July afternoon at Lagoon, just riding roller coasters together. I’ve organized this event since the 1990s, and every year I’m still touched by how simple it is and how much it means. There are no speeches or agendas, just a community coming together in the sun, intentionally.

I’ve been involved in Utah’s LGBTQ community since the early 1980s, when I helped restart the then-Gay Student Union at the University of Utah after it had faded away. Years later, as the Queer Student Union and the LGBT Resource Center, it was shut down again. Not because of drama, but because of a state law that banned officially recognized student groups focused on what’s now called “DEI” at public schools. With one bill signed, years of meetings, afternoons making banners, and nervous freshmen finding the courage to join were erased from the campus directory.

I’ve carried that lesson into everything I’ve done since, like running QSaltLake since 2004 and organizing Lagoon Day even earlier. They can take away our charter, official status, funding, or even our office. But they can’t stop us from gathering together simply because we enjoy each other’s company. That’s why I’ve never seen the fun events as less important than the serious ones. I now think they might be the most important thing we do.

From the outside, Lagoon Day just looks like a group riding Cannibal and eating overpriced food in the July heat. But after organizing it for thirty years, I know it’s more than that. It’s a headcount. It’s proof, through ticket stubs and group photos, that when our community calls, people show up. It’s also a way to reach LGBTQ people who feel isolated — those who might never attend a rally or support meeting, but will join a crowd on the midway with others like them. Sometimes, fun is the best way in when seriousness can’t reach someone.

The same goes for local sports leagues — the kickball games at the park, volleyball nights, and bowling leagues that have been around for years. No one is fighting for civil rights on lane six. But I’ve seen people find their first sense of belonging on these teams. I’ve seen people who couldn’t say the word “gay” out loud in the 1980s learn to say it with a laugh, surrounded by teammates who already knew and didn’t mind. I even saw people who otherwise would never have been in a queer league laugh and throw balls with all the gay banter around them without even a flinch. A league is a community that meets regularly, week after week, no matter what the legislature thinks. That consistency is its own quiet form of resistance.

I also want to talk about why senior groups matter. The senior socials, coffee hours, and potlucks for those of us who lost more friends to AIDS than most people can imagine — those gatherings hold the community’s memory, even as the state tries to ignore or work around it. Sitting with these folks isn’t about doing them/us a favor. It’s how the rest of us learn what worked, what didn’t, and how our community kept finding each other, even when it wasn’t safe or allowed.

That’s really the point of events like Lagoon Day, bowling nights, or senior lunches, and it’s important to say it clearly: showing up for the fun things isn’t a lesser way to be part of the community. It’s the foundation for everything else. The lesson from the old Gay Student Union is that a law can take away funding, recognition, or force a name change. But it can’t erase friendships, bowling teams, a group meeting for a roller coaster ride once a year, or a Sunday potluck for men facing tough times. Every time we show up for something as simple as a ride at Lagoon, we’re helping rebuild something that’s been rebuilt here before and will need rebuilding again.

So keep buying your Lagoon Day ticket each summer. Keep joining the league. Keep going to the senior lunch, even if you feel too young for it. I’ve spent over forty years watching this community’s institutions fall and rise again, all because people kept showing up for each other, whether they had a reason or not. Showing up is the whole strategy. It’s the only one that has ever truly worked.