Following in the footsteps of similar groups around the country, Cougar Pride Center in Provo will be starting its own queer chorus in time for the new semester at Brigham Young University to start.

Run by BYU students and alumni, the chorus is open to all people. They are inviting BYU students, other college students, members of the LGBTQ+ community and anyone else who wants to join. There are no requirements to join the chorus, it is free to participate in, and people can sign up by filling out the Google form found on the link in the Cougar Pride Center’s Instagram bio.

Queer choirs started as a way for members of the queer community to come together in a supportive environment and share political messages through song.

The first queer choir was the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, which consisted of 115 original members. It was founded by Jon Reed Sims in the fall of 1978 as a way to include more music in the local Gay Freedom Day Parade. Since then, the group has done national tours, had over 2,000 members sing with the chorus, expanded the chorus to include all people regardless of every race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation, and has become a national activist organization for the LGBTQ+ community.

According to its website, “The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has not only persevered in the face of persecution and intolerance, but we have also inspired an LGBT choral movement around the world.”

Soon-to-be BYU graduate David Shill, who will be the local choir director, said Cougar Pride Center’s choir is also for everyone to join. He said, “Just because it’s geared towards queer people and LGBTQ people, doesn’t mean that you have to be LGBTQ to join. You can be an ally. … We just will not tolerate any sort of hateful language or homophobic comments or stuff like that. So, we’re still very adamant that it’s a safe space for queer people, but non-BYU students, alumni, anyone who wants to can participate.”

This way of allowing everyone to participate is how the Cougar Pride Center runs all of its other events as well.

The Cougar Pride Center is a group that advocates and provides resources for members of the LGBTQ+ community. Like other Cougar Pride Center events, the choir is unaffiliated with BYU, but BYU students are invited to attend. Some of the resources the organization promotes are a safe housing program to connect LGBTQ+ people with safe housing and a gender-affirming clothing drive.

In addition to their other events and resources they have a weekly snack time on Wednesdays from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. which is a time for people to get to know each other and build a community where people feel comfortable and safe.

Macey Gwynn, president of Cougar Pride Center and a senior at BYU studying sociology, shared about the San Francisco gay men’s chorus that they also helped spread awareness of the AIDS crisis through their music. While the queer choir in provo does not intend to communicate any political messages through their group, she said it will bring awareness to the fact that AIDS still affects many members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“The AIDS crisis isn’t fully over, and it’s important to remember that. It’s important to remember the history that we do have, and also the ways that gay choruses and queer choruses have been so important as places of belonging and places of gathering, of places where people could feel welcome and feel like they can belong,” Gwynn said.

Shill added that the choir will also bring awareness for other crises that affect the LGBTQ+ community and Utahns at large. He said the mental health crisis is especially present in the LGBTQ+ community in the form of depression, anxiety, suicide and other issues. “I hope to make a place where people can feel safe to talk about these things and safe to lean on each other in a hard time,” Shill said.

A CDC study conducted in 2019 that surveyed 13,437 U.S. high school students found that “46.8% of their LGB (lesbian, gay, bisexual) participants had seriously considered attempting suicide within the last 12 months as opposed to 14.5% of heterosexual students.” In addition, the study found that “LGB students were nearly 4 times more likely to actually attempt to commit suicide compared to their heterosexual peers (23.4%, 6.4%).”

Shill grew up singing and was a member of BYU Singers. He said during his time singing he realized that music has a power to bring people together. “I just loved the opportunity to bond, and I could see how much of a community it made.”

As the choir director, Shill said the songs will be chosen based on what the choir wants to sing. He added that one of the goals with creating this choir is to highlight composers and artists who are not heard or celebrated as often, such as female artists, artists who are members of the LGBTQ+ community and artists of color. “It’ll hopefully give them more of a highlight and show that we care about good music no matter where it comes from.”

Getting the idea from one of the directors at BYU, Shill and the Cougar Pride Center presidency are making a point to address each section according to the voice part — tenors, sopranos, etc. — instead of saying men or women, to create an inclusive atmosphere and be gender inclusive for all of the members.

In addition, they will be sectioning off the members into voice parts based on their vocal range, not on their gender. Gwynn explained, “Historically, (choir) has been very gendered, like tenor and bass are with men and soprano and alto are with women. But I hope that the way that we decided to do the choirs, we decided to ungender those voice parts and just make them whatever is most conducive to an individual’s voice, because every person is an individual regardless of whatever gender they are, or whatever sex they are.”

Concert attire will be the same for everyone instead of enforcing one attire for women and one for men.

Gwynn said many of the group’s singers grew up in or are still members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and as such many participated in choirs. She explained, “I think it’s really wonderful to bring that part of people’s childhood and people’s cultural upbringing, as well as the cultural meaning it has within the queer community together, as a place where people can gather and can be together and can find places that they belong.”

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