Darian Andrea Doucet, 25, is using her experiences as a member of the LGBTQ+ community to curate safe and loving spaces for others in Southwest Louisiana.

Doucet — with the help of a friend — said the mission is to create the environment she said she needed when she was younger.

“I wish I had that when I was navigating through these thoughts and emotions … No matter how you identify, we want to make y’all feel supported and loved just the way you are.

“Our vision is to hold a loving space for all because, unfortunately, while there are many supportive allies — and I could not have the life we have without the supportive allies — being gay in south Louisiana is not always rainbows and sunshine.”

Her story begins with sports. Her connection to queerness, as well as athletics, began when she was young, and as a girl raised in a Catholic home, not only did she not understand her feelings, she felt isolated in them.

“I never understood why I looked for the pretty girls in the stands instead of the pretty boys … I started to believe that these feelings for women were ‘wrong’ and ‘not normal.’ ”

Entering high school, this isolation ebbed as she began to come out to friends and teammates. They widely accepted her sexuality and offered her a space to express, she said. This support encouraged her to tell her parents, but the reaction was not as positive.

“They did not take it well by any means. The unacceptance from them tortured me for years, it tortured my parents, and it also tortured our relationship.”

In college, her life split into two parts.

“In one life, I was a queer college softball player living my childhood dream. In the other life, I was faking it ’til I made it. My queerness became the elephant in the room, the unspoken topic of the house. The silence was so deafening that it made me not want to visit home.”

She started to pull away from her parents, and the schism between the two lives became greater and the feelings of loneliness became stronger.

Today, Doucet’s relationship with her parents is good, but the healing took understanding from both sides. Nearly a decade after she came out to her parents, they took the initiative to mend the relationship.

“I felt so alone, unloved, and unwanted. What I didn’t know is that my parents felt a lot of the same feelings I was dealing with at the time. They explained to me that they couldn’t handle the thought of their daughter not coming to holiday events, not calling them to tell them about my day, not being home just because I miss them. They would rather love me the way I am than not have me at all. Although it took awhile, I am so thankful for the relationship I now have with my parents.”

Her experience contributed to the creation of a community-based initiative to amplify queer voices in Southwest Louisiana and create spaces for local LGBTQ+ members and allies to connect and bond.

In its infancy, it was a personal blog of another co-founder, going by the name Willow. This page was a private account in which she shared her own coming-out journey, family strains and personal struggles as a gay person in the south.

Doucet said Willow’s vision for the page evolved into a space that was “more communal and supportive of the community as a whole.” The blog was deleted, and the pair collaborated to create Gay Gazette (TGG).

TGG is a zine — a small circulation of self-published creative works — that was partly inspired by the popular interview project “The Humans of New York.” In the zine, LGBTQ+ community members and allies are able to share their personal stories on TGG’s instagram page (gay_gazette).

“It is a place in which we can freely be ourselves and our full selves — the shadows and the light, no judgment. It is a place where we find growth, unity, and healing.”

TGG has a focus on “the art of life.”

“We utilize the page as a way to connect queer artists to our community and our community to queer artists so we can support one another in our endeavors and become more well-rounded, inspired, beautiful human beings.”

On their Instagram, TGG hosts one-month residences for local artists. The post four pieces of art — drawings, poetry, paintings, dancing, singing, etc. — along with a message about their inspirations and experiences.

These residences are in addition to one-off features on the page that tell the stories of community members.

While Doucet is not an artist herself, she is a “social butterfly.” She primarily runs the communal arm of the project, “The Queer is Here” (TGIH).

TQIH aims to host in-person events for SWLA LGBTQ+ members. They work with LGBTQ+ friendly local businesses to ensure the environment is comfortable, and safe, for community members.

Their first event, TGIH Kickback, took place at the end of June at Panorama Music House. Their second event is tentatively planned for August.

Advocacy and awareness is another vital tenant of TGG, with the page regularly sharing information on state legislative bills, such as Louisiana House Bill 648, and how community members can submit their views and voices to the different levels of the government.

For Doucet and Willow, ensuring community members are aware of political happenings, while creating a “unified, loud, but also respectful voice, is the only way to maintain the rights that were secured by older LGBTQ+ activists.

“Our rights that have been fought for by our predecessors are being stripped away on a state and federal level. In our opinion, a unified community that supports one another in taking the hard stand is what makes real change happen. People are ready for positive change. People are ready to bust their hearts wide open with unconditional love, we just need to forage that.”

Other than Instagram, people can contact TGG at darian.gaygazette@gmail.com