I’M MIGRATION Number 177 Spring 2019 • $11.95
RFD 177 Spring 2019 1
Issue 178 / Summer 2019
STONEWALL 50
Submission Deadline: April 21, 2019 www.rfdmag.org/upload
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, we call for submissions on DIRECT ACTION. We truly honor the legacy of those who rioted when we take direct action ourselves. What are our struggles today? Where is direct action going? We ask to hear from Standing Rock and indigenous struggles for space and survival. We ask to hear from those who are part of Black Lives Matter, Occupy, Queers for Climate Justice, and movements to abolish the prison industrial complex. Stonewall was festive and defiant, but also messy and violent. In what ways does the state still bear down on our bodies? For a select few, secure in race, gender, or passing privileges, clubs and guns may have become less likely. For the rest of us—black, brown, poor, and especially trans—conditions have not much changed. The neglect and abuse of our queer children continues to this day. Many people still live trapped in homophobic communities, hiding and suppressing themselves. What happens when we can’t take it anymore, when we feel there is no choice but to act? Many are firmly committed to nonviolence, using our fierce glamour and humor to dazzle, evade, provoke, and inspire as we find ways to put our bodies upon the gears. Others, like the queens and butches who threw bricks and bottles at Stonewall, are committed to doing whatever it takes to bash back against the oppression bearing down on us. What creative tools and skills might we use to take direct action ourselves? How might we act here and now to transform our oppression and to conjure a new world into being?
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photo by ysonuts under license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/legalcode
Roaming Faerie Diaspora Vol 45 No 3 #177
Spring 2019
Between the Lines “Welcome home!” Do you remember your feelings when you first heard these sweet words? They offer respite and represent the bedrock of fey consciousness and hospitality. With this hearth-felt greeting we become one another’s most cherished resource. Welcome home to this volume of RFD entitled, I’m Migration. Found in these pages are stories of courage by queers from several cultures around the world, peers who challenge us to reflect on their hard-won stories while inspiring us to organize for change. In this volume we ask what are the necessary conditions for LGBTQIA+ people to feel safe, whether in their own country or en route to another? What are the emergent roles and emergency plans of our gatherings and sanctuaries? Which strategies, skills and stories of our own difficult pasts can translate into needed supports and structures that may help our comrades rest in lovers’ arms? As this generation’s story unfolds, let’s be one another’s safe harbors dreaming of fairer days. Feeling safe is paramount and requires many factors both external and internal. Acts of generosity are critical if we are to survive. Be it the temple of our bodies, the roof over our heads or the ways in which we gather, sharing our lives helps resettle our deeply held sensitivities and temporarily nourishes this core need to feel secure. Our community-making helps one another heal by reflecting back the shared dignity of the commons. “Give me your tired, your poor Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” These hallowed words emblazoned on the Statue of Liberty, the Mother of Exiles, are being brazenly erased by the Corp-rupting policies of White House occupiers. When the myths and symbols of nation states sour to bitter untruths and are founded on outright lies, when the co-opted arms of justice build walls of denial and separation, it becomes our task to transform our precious lives into acts of freedom through connection. We recognize the extreme shame of our current political moment here in Amerikkka and around the WorldInc. Histories must be rewritten if we are to undo assumed privileges and return stolen Indigenous lands. By debugging our consciousness of supremacist conditioning we resist the violence of colonial imperialism. RFD contributors show us how to live as enactments of radical mutual liberation. No one wants to leave the comforts of home, our place of birth, unless we have to—whether it is ecological devastation, and/or political, social or civil uprisings, this world is ever and increasingly on the move. Some of us had to escape, some needed to stay. Some fought, some fled; many still suffer. While migration implies moving one’s body through space, it also infers an inner movement of consciousness, identity, ways of bad-ass being-ness. Thank you for simultaneously navigating these inner shores while seeking and sharing beloved havens so we may celebrate being queer in a non-queer world. Welcome homo! —The RFD Collective
RFD 177 Spring 2019 1
Submission Deadlines Summer–April 21, 2019 Fall–July 21, 2019 See inside covers for themes and specifics.
On the Covers
Front & Back: “I Want To Grow Old” by Vojislav Radovanovic
Production
Guest Editors: robin hood and Rosie Delicious Managing Editor: Bambi Gauthier Art Director: Matt Bucy
For advertising, subscriptions, back issues and other information visit www.rfdmag.org
RFD is a reader-written journal for gay people which focuses on country living and encourages alternative lifestyles. We foster community building and networking, explore the diverse expressions of our sexuality, care for the environment, Radical Faerie consciousness, and nature-centered spirituality, and share experiences of our lives. RFD is produced by volunteers. We welcome your participation. The business and general production are coordinated by a collective. Features and entire issues are prepared by different groups in various places. RFD (ISSN# 0149-709X) is published quarterly for $25 a year by RFD Press, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302. Postmaster: Send address changes to RFD, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA
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01035-0302. Non-profit tax exempt #62-1723644, a function of RFD Press with office of registration at 231 Ten Penny Rd., Woodbury, TN 37190. RFD Cover Price: $9.95. A regular subscription is the least expensive way to receive it four times a year. First class mailed issues will be forwarded. Others will not. Send address changes to submissions@rfdmag.org or to our Hadley, MA address. Copyright © RFD Press. The records required by Title 18 U.S.D. Section 2257 and associated with respect to this magazine (and all graphic material associated therewith on which this label appears) are kept by the custodian of records at the following location: RFD Press, 85 N Main St, Ste 200, White River Junction, VT 05001.
Visual Contributors in this Issue
Images or pieces not directly associated with an article. Chang Martin.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Sunlight Moonshadow/Jason Jenn . . . . . . . 17, 40, 41 Chris Moody. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22-24 Aaron Coshaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Vojislav Radovanovic. . . . . . Covers, 39, 46, 52, 53 Summer Minerva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Robbie Sweeney. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48, 50 Bill Castello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Demonstration in support of immigrants, Paris, November 2016. Photograph by Chang Martin.
CONTENTS Announcements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Expanding Faerie Consciousness Globally. . . . . . Hammer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The “Let Them In!” Resource Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . robin hood and Rosie Delicious. . . . . . . . . . . 11 The Essence of Ourselves That We Put Into Everything . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Méraki. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Migrations, Messages and Motivations. . . . . . . . . Miqxtja . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 The Multiple Migrations of a Transgendered Korean Adoptee . . . . . . . . . . . Pauline Park. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Chris Moody. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 get out of town. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pink jimmie on a pale blue dot. . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Report from the Spanish Sanctuary Search, or: Fear and Loathing in Andalucia . . . . . . . . . May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 The Ones Who Stay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ed of All People. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 I Wanted to Make Friends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . anonymous. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Carlito. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Uranus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Stormproof: Cultivating Spiritual Resiliency. . . . Keala Naone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Grief is the Sound of Living . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . robin hood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Femminiello//belonging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Le Mani della Mia Nonna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summer Minerva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Queer Migrants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J Jha + Keith Hennessy (Cuz’n) . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Don’t Take Your Marble For Granite. . . . . . . . . . . UltraViolet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading. . . . . . . . Review by Leo Racicot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Stella Maris: and Other Key West Stories. . . . . . . Michael Carroll. Review by Leo Racicot. . . . 58 Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tolth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 Where I’m From, April 1997. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Meadows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Transmigration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Blackbird. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Have You Told Your Parents? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alan Sugar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
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GATHERING GUIDE Midwinter / Visioning
Feb 28–Mar 3 Saratoga Springs, CA
thebillys.org
Many-Fae-Station Gathering
Mar 10–21
Guatemala
atitlanradfae.dudaone.com/#Gatherings
Ostara Gathering
Mar 19 – 26
Featherstone, Haltwhistle, UK
albionfaeries.org.uk
New Zealand Summer Radical Faerie Gathering
Mar 21–25
Raglan, New Zealand
www.radfae.org
Maple Sugaring Gatherette
Mar 22–25
DeKalb Junction, NY
radfae.org
Spring Awakening Gathering
April 5-8
Chengdu, China
chas@faeriesexmagick.org
Black Leather Wings Rites
Apr 6
San Francisco, CA
www.blackleatherwings.org
Sex Magic
Apr 6–13
Austin, TX
faeriesexmagick.org
Spring Awakening Gathering
Apr 7–14
Andalusia, Spain
eurofaeries.eu
Spring Retreat
April 12–14
Highlands, NC
gayspiritvisions.org
Spring ButchQueens Community Week
Apr 14–21
Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Magic Gathering
Apr 24–28
Gloucestershire, UK
albionfaeries.org.uk
Beltane
Apr 27–May 4 Nomenus, Wolf Creek,OR
nomenus.org
Beltane Gathering
Apr 27–May 5 Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Berlin City Gathering
Apr 30–May 5 Berlin, Germany
radfae.org
May Day
May 1–5
Saratoga Springs, CA
thebillys.org
Beltane
May 2–5
Lake Nipissing, Ontario, Canada
akaamberfox.ca
We Here Now– ZMS Renewal Convergence
May 10–20
Ramah, NM
www.zms.org
Meditation Retreat
May 16–20
The Channon, Australia
www.ozfaeries.com
Victoria Day Gathering
May 17–19
Amber Fox, Ontario, Canada
akaamberfox.ca
BC Radical Faerie Camp
May 17–20
British Columbia, Canada
bcradfae.ca
Spring Love Awakening
May 19–24
Glastonbury, UK
albionfaeries.org.uk
Kench Hill
May 24–27
Kench Hill, Tenterden, Kent UK
www.edwardcarpentercommunity.org.uk
Welcome Home
May 24–27
Faerie Camp Destiny, Grafton, VT www.faeriecampdestiny.org
Gavdos Gathering May 28–Jun 5 Agios Ioannis, Gavdos, Greece
https://www.facebook.com/ groups/1409750252484141/events/
Laurieston Hall “Connections” Jun 8–14
Laurieston Hall, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland www.edwardcarpentercommunity.org.uk
Naraya
Jun 12–16
Nomenus, Wolf Creek,OR
nomenus.org
Europride Vienna City Gatherette
Jun 13–16
Vienna, Austria
radicalfaeries.at
Solstice Gathering
Jun 15–23
Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Canada Day Gathering
Jun 28–Jul 1
Fox’s Haven, Lake Nipissing, Ontario, Canada akaamberfox.ca
Faerie Sex Magick
Jun 29–Jul 6
Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Sex Magic
Jun 29–Jul 6
Nomenus, Wolf Creek,OR
faeriesexmagick.org
Faerie Spirit Gathering
Jul 1–6
Kawashaway, MN
radfae.org
July Fourth
Jul 1–7
Saratoga Springs, CA
thebillys.org
SGRF
Jul 8–10
Nomenus, Wolf Creek,OR
nomenus.org
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Pan Gathering
Jul 12–19
Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
American Ridge Radical Faerie Gathering
Jul 15–22
Naches, WA
americanridgegathering.org
MidWest Men’s Festival
Jul 16 – 25
McLouth, KS
http://midwestmensfestival.com/
Summer Community Weeks
Jul 21–29
Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Lammas
Jul 26–Aug 4
Faerie Camp Destiny, Grafton, VT www.faeriecampdestiny.org
Faerie Roots and Ancestors’ Great Circle
Jul 30–Aug 4
Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
High Summer Gathering
Jul 31–Aug 5
Amber Fox, Ontario, Canada
akaamberfox.ca
Lammas Gathering
Aug 2–11
Kawashaway, MN
radfae.org
Naturrrisme Gathering
Aug 5–13
Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Queer Spirit Mystery School
Aug 9–19
ZMS, Ramah, NM
www.zms.org
Faerie Camp at Queer Spirit Festival Aug 14-18
Northamptonshire, UK
albionfaeries.org.uk
Breitenbush Summer Gathering
Aug 14–18
Breitenbush, OR
www.cascadiafaeries.org
Art in Abundance Gathering
Aug 14–21
Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Golden Sands Black Sea Gathering
Aug 17–25
Varna, Bulgaria
radicalfaeries.at
High Close
Aug 20–27
Lake District, UK
www.edwardcarpentercommunity.org.uk
Harmony in Nature S.P.A.C.E. Retreat
Aug 24–Sep 2 Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Blue Heron Farm Gathering
Aug 25–Sep 2 DeKalb Junction, NY
radfae.org
Labor Day
Aug 29–Sep 2 Saratoga Springs, CA
thebillys.org
Meditation Retreat
Sep 5–9
The Channon, Australia
www.ozfaeries.com
Sex Magic
Sep 7–14
Faerie Camp Destiny, Grafton, VT faeriesexmagick.org
Shamanic Reconnection Gathering
Sep 9–15
Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Shamanic Reconnection Gathering
Sep 9–15
Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Fall Conference
Sep 19–22
Highlands, NC
gayspiritvisions.org
Pendulum
Sep 19–24
Nomenus, Wolf Creek,OR
nomenus.org
Radical Rest Gathering
Sep 25–Oct 2 Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Coldwell
Sep 27–30
Coldwell near Burnley, UK
www.edwardcarpentercommunity.org.uk
Thanksgiving Gathering
Oct 11–14
Amber Fox, Ontario, Canada
akaamberfox.ca
Fall Foliage
Oct 11–14
Faerie Camp Destiny, Grafton, VT www.faeriecampdestiny.org
GlitterBall
Oct 12
Jiggi Hall, NSW, Australia
www.ozfaeries.com
Samhain Gatheirng
Oct 17–20
Lake Nipissing, Ontario, Canada
akaamberfox.ca
Sex Magic
Oct 19–26
Nimbin, NSW, Australia
www.ozfaeries.com
Lumbers Community Weeks
Oct 19–Nov 3 Folleterre, Ternuay, France
www.folleterre.org
Samhain
Oct 27–Nov 3 Nomenus, Wolf Creek,OWR
nomenus.org
Halloween
Oct 30–Nov 3 Saratoga Springs, CA
thebillys.org
Samhain Gathering
Oct
Featherstone, Haltwhistle, UK
albionfaeries.org.uk
New Year’s
Dec 27–Jan 1
St Dorothy’s Rest
thebillys.org
Summer Gathering
Dec Dates TBD Nimbin, NSW, Australia
www.ozfaeries.com RFD 177 Spring 2019 5
ANNOUNCEMENTS faerie sex magick workshops 2019
169 - First level
Austin, TX - April 6-13 Folleterre, France - June 29- July 6 Faerie Camp Destiny, VT - Sept 7-14 Faerieland, Australia - Oct 19-26
I found myself pulled into the effort to shift the School away from private ownership. It’s been a wild ride, working with a wonderful team of folks who really love the work of the School, and I’m thrilled to say: WE DID IT! We’re open for business, now as a nonprofit, which is the model that fits best. Years ago it was only for gay men, but now there are events for all genders. So, I want to encourage you, dear RFD reader, to check out the calendar, and consider giving yourself the huge gift of a Body Electric workshop. http:// thebodyelectricschool.com. We’ve lowered the prices significantly from the past, but even so, don’t let money get in the way—there are scholarships available too. With love in this breath in this moment. —Mountaine.
269 - Second level
Wolf Creek, OR - June 29- July 6
faeriesexmagick.org
The New Body Electric School Big Change !!! How many life-changing experiences have I had? I can’t count them all. I’m fortunate that way, and also have had a long life of invoking uplifting change. To me, change that leads toward a deeper and more meaningful life is always good. And change that increases my availability for intimate connection is the best! Since before I came out at the age of twenty, I’ve always felt the importance of integrating sexuality with my spiritual life. So one of my most significant life-changing experiences was discovering of Body Electric. Attending the two-day workshop “Celebrating the Body Erotic” many years ago gave me tools for exploration and experimentation that have served me well ever since. There are many teachers who provide various angles on exploring intimacy, and many of them are excellent. Having said that, Body Electric is unique in that the program is so well-designed, well-established, and is facilitated with very high standards. Last year, 6
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Radical Faeries of Albion Dear Faeries of the World and beyond: 2019 marks forty years since our conception. Here in Albion (United Kingdom), some of us are in the process of organising a series of happenings which involve art exhibitions to celebrate forty years of Faerie fundamentals. Doing something similar? We’re eager to hear if there are any other events being planned across the globe, dreaming that we could somehow weave them together creating a global web of jubilation. If you would like to get involved, find out more information or to share with us your plans to honour the Ruby anniversary of Fae please contact us on faerieuk@gmail.com. Big hugs! P.S. Photos needed! If any global faeries have photographs from Faerie gatherings they wish to be showcased in the our timeline exhibition, please get in touch.
Alto das Fadas (Faerie Hill) Needs You!
S
ince the first gatherings in Terschelling in 1995 and the inauguration in 2005 of the first sanctuary of Folleterre in France, the EuroFaerie family has grown rapidly. In recent years, this mushrooming of interest and engagement of old and new faeries alike with Folleterre has put a great deal of strain on the existing infrastructure and emotional capacity of the community. Further, our only sanctuary in Europe remains closed for half of the year throughout the proverbial “faerie winter”. To that extent the general sentiment among the community for sometime has been that new sanctuary projects should be a priority and a variety of efforts have been underway to add to the diversity of faerie cultures across Europe and to create sister-homes to Folleterre. One such project has been the efforts to scout new land in Spain and Portugal which began early in 2018. One of the lands discovered - a lush south facing valley in Portugal, overlooking the Village of Sortelha, bewitched a group of enthusiastic faeries, who collectively proceeded to lease it for a period of two years with expressed intention and preferential rights to purchase it if it proves viable as a long term sanctuary space. A vital and connecting experience was had by those who initially stumbled upon the now fondly named Alto das Fadas (literally “faerie hill”). The already habitable house growing out of a magnificent rock; ancient boulders littering the land; the multiple water sources and impressive views of the surrounding valleys and charming medieval Iberian villages, embodied a sense of gravitas and magic - holding great promise and potential as a nurturing and thriving faerie sanctuary. This is both an announcement of our progress and an invitation to connect and get involved with our efforts. We are currently seeking some faerie coin to the tune of 20,000€ to secure Alto das Fadas over the short term. This will help contribute to the first year’s rent, setting up a cooperative to steward the land, legal fees, purchase of tools and to prepare to host our first gathering around Beltane. Beyond finance we are seeking faerie minds, hands and hearts to join our effort—either
Images courtesy author.
by joining our Steward’s Circle, actively working on the land or by organising and offering material donations to the sanctuary (such as beds / tents / kitchen equipment). To donate, please visit our fundraising site: https:// faenet.org/donate/alto-das-fadas. For more information, please visit the Alto das Fadas FaeNet home page: faenet.org/community/pages/283-alto-das-fadas-sanctuary/info. Thank you fae—we hope to see you at Alto das Fadas soon!
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Expanding Faerie Consciousness Globally by Hammer
I
n 2017 the United Nations reported over 250 million people migrated internationally, with the number being much higher if internal national migration was included. Today, primary causes of migration are related to environmental concerns, including worsening climate problems and economics. Refugees fleeing violent political upheavals represent a significant portion of these numbers. There are currently over sixty eight million political refugees; 44,500 children and adults flee from war, terror, and military destruction every day. This is the largest single-year increase in the history of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Last year the UN published an alarming report stating that despite the growing numbers of displaced people only 100,000 refugees were resettled by the international community in 2016. Queer people seeking political asylum are included in these migration patterns. Refugees are people fleeing terrible situations in their home countries or regions, while asylum seekers are seeking relief from political and social persecution by following specific procedural requirements from the country they wish to live in. Wikipedia reports the United Kingdom, Canada and the USA are three of the larger emigration and refuge status countries being sought out. Queer asylum seekers can be doubly isolated however, even in their new protective country. Unfortunately for many queer people, both refugees and asylum seekers alike, dangers also exist from other homophobic migrants. Because of this greater burden for LGBT refugees and asylum seekers, trusted spaces are crucial. Some of these folks have been finding refuge in Faerie communities. Refuge has been part of the mission of the Global Radical Faerie Gatherings, the first in 2014 in the United States and the second in 2017 in the United Kingdom. The gatherings called for more Radical Faerie connections cross-culturally, 8
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across languages, across Faerie subcultures, to more tightly weave our bonds as Faeries across the globe; to continue to share and co-create Faerie spiritual consciousness together. The intention was to explore our similarities and differences as Faeries as well as to expand Faerie consciousness in contrast to LGBT assimilation. The belief is that we have something to offer the wider hetero-dominated world, a world that is so clearly destroying itself environmentally as well as rapidly regressing in regards to social justice, freedom, equality and enlightenment. As conscious queer men we may have a great deal more in common with other queers from around the planet than the heterosexual couple next door. Personally, I feel called to step up as an activist and support our expanding competencies and consciousness as Radical Faeries capable of a global impact. I believe my Radical Faerie elders and ancestors expect this of me. I am vehemently opposed to the me-first, closed society propaganda of Trump and the Republican proto-fascists who support and enable him. I am appalled by the manipulated media campaigns leading to the Brexit debacle and am deeply disturbed by many populations bending back to right wing Nationalist agendas. The rise in Nationalism and closed authoritarian societies around the world has rapidly become the new normal. Risks of persecution, scapegoating, torture and murder of LGBT people are on the rise in many regions of the globe. Brazil has just elected a horrendously anti-LGBT conservative president and crime against people of color and trans folks in the US has skyrocketed since Trump’s election. Putin allows Chechnya to round up and torture LGBT people while mass arrests of queer people are also being reported in Tanzania. Many Eastern European countries are embracing right wing agendas, scapegoating LGBT as political strategies, as was done by
Closing circle of the Second Global Faerie Gathering at Featherstone. Photo courtesy author.
the US Republican party politics of the 1990’s. Even in liberal Europe alarming gains are being made by far right parties. African dictators scapegoat and persecute LGBT people and it’s still so dangerous to be queer in the Middle East that we don’t have good measurements of the levels of oppression there. State sanctioned discrimination or persecution against LGBT people exists in approximately ¾ of the nations of the world. In seven countries queer people can be put to death if discovered. These risks increase for people who do not fit in or rock the boat politically. We Radical Faeries are often some of those people. Faeries do not assimilate. We explore the spiritual essence of our differences and push for more open social spaces for the other. We are drag artists, freaks, standouts, sissies and leather men, seekers of justice, union organizers, and racial equality advocates, health and community advocates, writers and teachers, spiritual rebels, environmental activists, and trouble makers of the highest sort. We Faeries who live in protected bubbles in the West are not as safe as we may think. We have a lot of work left to do on this planet. Most of my Faerie circles support and encourage the activist work I am doing: wanting to expand radical queer consciousness around the world and strengthening the bonds across the planet between various Faerie enclaves. This is a consciousness and ethos that includes responsible environmental resource management, not the suicidal death pact of the military-industrial machine raping the planet. This includes a call for economic justice, freedom for self-expression of gender and sexuality, racial and labor justice, an honoring of diversity of all kinds, rights for animals and plants, and spiritual consciousness advancement for human beings. The Global Radical Faerie Gatherings have not occurred without criticism. Some have critiqued the organizer’s skills and capacities in regards to proper social and political awareness, especially in terms of inviting others from developing and/or non-western countries to join us. When more privileged white people work with economically poor brown and black people, there are risks of complexities, complications and painful differences of opinions. Mistakes have certainly been made and learning curves have been a
part of the process in regards to cultural competency and the avoidance of neo-colonist patterns. Continuing to pay attention to these concerns is one of the lessons learned from the first two gatherings. And skillful inclusion and full participation of trans people and women is another hugely unfinished conversation in Faerie world. Another key observation is that the Global Gather-
ing volunteer organizers work very hard for very long periods in order to create these large Global transcontinental events. It’s taken 1-2 years of planning, great fundraising, and commitments to work with teams, often with very uncertain outcomes. Organizers have had to be able to take risks, make decisions, go forward, often work in isolation, and take responsibility for errors. Supporting the organizing team circle is also vital, especially by attending heart circles and resolving conflicts within the organizing team itself. Keeping the diversity of the team as wide as possible, resilient, spirited, and logistically functional is a difficult task in an ad-hoc faerie anarchistic and antiauthoritarian model. Ok, but really! What difference have these gatherings made? A few examples, which might in whole or in part be attributed to the previous large Global Forums include: • Heart circles woven into Russian LGBT activist training as a capacity builder for stronger emo-
Ed of All People reunited at Saratoga Springs with a recent refugee from Uganda, a young man he had first met over fourt years prior to the gathering. Photo courtesy author.
RFD 177 Spring 2019 9
tional, social, and community resiliency in the face of crushing social and political repression. • Faerie heart circles and gatherings in Beijing China, offering alternative ideas of being gay. • Expanded Faerie gathering sites in Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal, Spain, and Guatemala. • Cross-pollination between large Faerie populations, including North America, Albion Faeries in UK, Euro-faeries, and Canaan Faeries in Israel. • Expanding consciousness among first world Faeries in regards to Faeries still emerging from less developed populations and increasing capacity to support asylum seekers and refugees among them. • Personal and group networking. • Fantastical Faerie gatherings with people from all over the world. • Expansion of increased faerie sanctuaries. • Development of Faenet as a global network alternative to corporate Facebook.
A
possible site for the third Global Radical Faerie gathering is being explored in South Africa for winter of 2019-20. South African Faeries are expressing excitement and eagerness about this possibility. Post-apartheid South Africa is a very dynamic multicultural country with eleven official languages and a wide range of belief systems, from deep acceptance to homophobic intolerance in regards to queer people. Society has been opening up quite rapidly in some ways but it’s not immune from the dramatic uneven distribution of wealth as in most of rest of the world. And Faeries here practice social services, art, activism, and live regular lives like elsewhere. Global 3 organizers are excited about the possibility of the South African site to fulfill on the invitation to various new faeries that were denied visas at the first two gatherings in the US and the UK. South Africa apparently has a less stringent visa application requirement and this may make for an even richer mix of faerie participation from around the globe. The work of queer liberation is not over and I wish to invite the world again to join the Faerie Liberation Front. Help send a wave of heart centered love consciousness around the planet. It sounds so airy-faerie, but some of my most respected faerie brothers constantly remind me the work is to stand in love today and be the new way. Reach out beyond our comfort levels and expand into the light of radical enlightenment for the planet, for our people, and for everyone.
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Top: Caanan Radical Faeries outside the castle walls. Bottom: Faeries prepare for Talent/ No-Talent show held in the ballroom of the 16th century castle. Photos courtesy author.
The “Let Them In!” Resource Page by robin hood and Rosie Delicious
D
ear reader, as you know, radical inclusivity is the hex-breaking spell of our times. Belonging is the magical ingredient in our personal and community recipes for survival, adaptation, mutual support and co-creative genius. Educating ourselves and state representatives is critical to this potion for change. We also ask: How does our local fae-crew welcome newcomers? How might our sanctuaries, gatherings, rituals, heart circles, art shows, dances, group sex events and other potluck initiatives partner with your regional LGBTQIA asylum, seekers, refugees organizations to raise awareness and needed cash?
HIAS in America, founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in 1881 has assisted Jews fleeing pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, and now supports queer folks (www.hias.org/). Other local faith based groups such as CLASP, the Chicago LGBT Asylum Support Program is part of a U.S. nationwide LGBT faith & Asylum Network (www. lgbt-fan.org).
One of the best online resources is Rainbow Bridges: a community guide to rebuilding the lives of LGBTI Refugees and Asylees (www.oraminternational.org/images/stories/PDFs/oram-rainbowbridges-2012-web.pdf ).
ORAM, (oramrefugee.org) founded in 2008, specializes in the protection of exceptionally vulnerable refugees, including LGBTI folks. Their primary focus is to safeguard the “integrity of the international refugee protection system.”
Foundation of Hope Canada is a Canadian charity that provides financial assistance to other Canadian charities actively supporting LGBTQ asylees, refugees and newcomers (foundationofhope.net).
Rainbow Railroad has 30-50 cases open at a time, helping queer and trans people identify safe routes of escape. The number of cases increases daily. On average this costs about $10,000 (www.rainbowrailroad.com ).
Rainbow Refugee (www.rainbowrefugee.com/ seeking-protection) works with Circles of Hope, made up of LGBTQ+ community members and allies. This program depend upon on a blended sponsorship approach where the Canadian government provides financial support to each sponsored refugee with a start-up package and the first three months (at social assistance rates) after their arrival in Canada. The community group provides financial support for the remaining nine months. “… the very idea of queer [was] brought about by migration in that the mass movement of people to the West from various non-western cultures had brought into sharp relief the numerous ‘sexual identity categories and practices that [did] not depend on Western conceptions of selfhood and community’, thereby producing a range of queer identities and subjectivities.” (Mole, 2018). The co-editors of RFD 177 wish to thank the contributors to this edition. We also acknowledge our
The San Francisco based LGBT Asylum Project is exclusively dedicated to providing pro-bono legal representation for LGBT immigrants who are fleeing persecution and seeking asylum in the United States (www.lgbtasylumproject.org/)
The Russian LGBT Network runs an emergency evacuation for those in danger of being captured and tortured in Chechnya. They partner with All Out to raise the funds needed to get people to safety. $4,000 USD relocates one person and covers travel, housing, food, and medical and psychosocial services. In 2017, All Out members helped fund the evacuation of 150 people who needed to escape Chechnya. Their emergency helpline can be reached at 8-800-555-7374 or kavkaz@lgbtnet.org. privileges, biases and limitations as white, cis male queer settlers. We represent children of first and second-generation eastern and northern European immigrants. Future RFD editors, people more immediately affected by the current queer diaspora, may choose to further explore ways in which sexuality interacts with hierarchies of class, race, class, gender, as well as national identities and the complex social mechanisms of border crossing and international migration. RFD 177 Spring 2019 11
12 RFD 177 Spring 2019
Photograph courtesy author.
The Essence of Ourselves That We Put Into Everything by Méraki
“W
here are you from?” This is the question I have been repeatedly asked throughout my life. I wonder how it has changed throughout the times up to this age and I see how much more complicated it has become to simply answer it with one thing, like an address or a concept. Sometimes the answers I gave were satisfactory and other times there would be further questions as to “but where are you really/originally from? To track myself back to my origins and to realize that I am neither from there or the many other places and cultures I am associated with has been a journey for me in itself. I was born in 1978, the year when a revolution came to Iran for “unclear” reasons and created even more confused “outcomes”. As a result, during the eighties the country I was born in was a place of terror, prosecution and murder. Whatever did not fit into the new ideologies of the theocratic rule of the priesthood was eliminated or outlawed or driven into diaspora. In my childhood I was taught to lie and live a double life not because my family was so keen on lies but in order to survive in and under the suppressive regime we had. We needed to separate our lives at home from the public life we were obliged to fit into, we had to make sure that what happened within the four walls of our house stayed within those walls. Very early I was interrogated by my father on what I should be saying and not be saying outside of the household, what was acceptable and what was not and sometimes I had the right answers and many times from my childish mind and view I had the answers that I thought were right. It wasn’t long before my father faced problems with the authorities and for the safety of his life and our family we had to flee and in a manner that was very sudden and abrupt. I was only twelve but I remember my mum running around trying to make each of us a suitcase of some basics, they were talking at night and assumed we were kids and didn’t understand, but I knew what was happening. I was telling my friends in the street that “I am going to America.” This was the outcome of my naïve thinking, that due to American cultural dominance, I thought that everything that was not Iran was America. My father was warned by one of his colleagues to leave immediately, and the
day we left everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong, the plane we were taking broke down and landed in Istanbul and we had to stay the night in a country that had an agreement with Iran to return political “refugees” to each other. That night while my siblings and I were enjoying the hotel’s bar and its comfortable beds, my father aged ten years from worrying. I remember the trauma of leaving without the option of going back, and to not even be able to look back. We only had the luxury of phone calls once a month that were filled with tears of hearing my grandmother’s voice, or my aunt’s, or my cousins’ or whoever could fit into that ten-minute phone call we shared as a family. A few seconds of those voices was like going home for a brief moment, only to return us to where we had fled which was so painful. I never felt at home in the place we sought refuge —Sweden, the climate was cold and so were the people. We were treated like aliens that had landed in an unknown landscape. At the time I didn’t realize fully all the things that were going on, the traumas of my disrupted childhood and the identity I was creating by myself based on the sentiments found in the diaspora. As I was rejected and repulsed by the new culture, I became more extreme in the shunted identity I took with me from Iran. Yet every time I was among Iranians, I felt so un-Iranian, as my burgeoning queer identity made me a minority within a minority. I felt isolated and alone in all possible ways. To relate to places and to identify with them I started treating places like people that were hurting my feelings or by feeling the need to please them. I would act and react to things in a very personal way depending on how I related to those spaces. I had this romantic idea of the place I had been forced to leave behind, a terrible impression of the new one and a lovely hope that there was a third place where people were nicer to each other. The idea of identifying with a place became stuck within me since I had to leave the place where all my senses were born and created. This obsession to find a place to belong to distracted me from the thought of what I actually wanted to be once I would find that home. It seemed so impossible, so out of reach, like it would be a life-long search in RFD 177 Spring 2019 13
14 RFD 177 Spring 2019
Photographs courtesy author.
and of itself. This yearning, this feeling of longing for belonging was so strong, as soon as I actually started to penetrate a place and started to deeply belong to it, I would leave it and immigrate, as if the superficial knowledge or the romantic encounter was stronger than the real experience. It is the irony of life that through forced immigration and living in diaspora I was pushed to pursue the opposite of what was true to my nature (being normally very versatile and adaptable) and to think that I needed “one” place and one language to take refuge in and belong to. While a simple notion of identity is encapsulated in the question, “Where are you from?,” it is so limited as to where you could be from and there is no time for a longer, more profound answer. I remember being in a nightclub in NYC when some chatterbox, talking to everyone, came up to me and asked me where I was from. At first, I said Sweden and he asked me which state that was in and then I told him that I was from one of the ‘Axis of evil’ countries. “Are you German?” he replied and I just laughed and said to him: “Update yourself man!” I remember being an Iranian-born Swedish teacher in Portugal for many years. How much of what we identify with is in the space and how much of it is in the notion of language, sexual orientation, ethnicity and other specifications? How much of what we identify with do we take with us when we have to leave the lands we were born in? Today I work with refugees and in their stories, I recognize my own story: the escape, the transition and the hopes for and about the ‘new place.’ How much of these hopes are based in desperation, not in the reality awaiting them? While I felt excluded in the culture that my family immigrated into, I became extreme in the preservation of the culture and the identity that we brought with us. I froze it to preserve it. When exposed there’s a comfort in our cultural cocoons. But once I felt included and experienced acceptance in this new homeland, all of the external identities I held on to melted away. I found the path open to myself beyond space and beyond nationality. It was always a challenge as a queer to identify myself on several levels, as a migrant, as a queer migrant within my own community, then as the minority within the minority groups. The migratory pattern complicates the sense of belonging or not belonging, what we leave behind in hope of what to find, sometimes by force sometimes by choice, sometimes by the power of our imagination. Migration for a better life is a human pattern.
The first European migrants escaped cruelty and prosecution and hoped for better lives in the new lands. Little did they know then that they would enact violence ten times worse than what they had experienced as victims in the lands that they left or were forced to leave. Currently everyone wants to escape from where they are to somewhere else, as we are decaying as humans and advancing as technology. When I visit my family in Iran now, they keep saying to me how lucky I am that I can just leave and all I want is to do is to stay there, but every time I go back the soul of the place slips further away from that place of my childhood. Its ethos is transforming into something I am not participating in, and I realize that my longing for that place belonged to my inner dialog for an identity. It was a long journey, to be assured, that home is not necessarily a physical space and that I actually didn’t have to belong to anywhere but could belong to everywhere. Sometimes home is found in a smell or a piece of music and other times can be found in a dear companion. Many times, I find it in that feeling of not being attached to anyone and anything— allowing me to realize that I am free. These days I struggle to answer these queries about where I am from and people sometimes think I am being uptight about it, but the truth is that it’s a question that provokes my soul. I like the answer: “Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home”, but I like it even more as “Wherever I am not judged and allowed to just be—that’s where I feel at home”. “Poem of the Atoms” by Rumi
ای روز برا که ذره ها رقص کنند آن کس که از او چرخ و هوا رقص کنند جانها ز خوشی بی سر و پا رقص کنند در گوش تو گومی که کجا رقص کنند هر ذره که در هوا یا در هامون است نیکو نگرش که همچو ما مفتون است هر ذره اگر خوش است اگر محذون است سرگشته خورشید خوش بی چون است O day, arise! The atoms are dancing. Thanks to Him the universe is dancing. The souls are dancing, overcome with ecstasy. I’ll whisper in your ear where their dance is taking them. All the atoms in the air and in the desert know well, they seem insane. Every single atom, happy or miserable, Becomes enamored of the sun, of which nothing can be said. RFD 177 Spring 2019 15
Migrations, Messages and Motivations by Miqxtja
O
ne of the aspects of my chosen name of Miqxtja, reflects some generations of mixed ancestry. On my South African birth certificate it is plainly stated there - “Race: Mixed”. Pretty soon in my early life, this led to me being in effective exile from my birth country - a situation which then continued for most of my life. Migration (and my own bumpy adaption to ongoing culture shock) for me meant an easy distancing from any of the nationalism that continues to surprise me when so many people all around seem to have it so ingrained. It is one of the things that I find “unnatural” in much of mainstream existence. My personal experience as a Radical Faerie since I first encountered others back in 1980, thankfully has been a transnational experience. It seems that, as a culture, radfaes mostly take for granted that we live on a global Gaia-based substrate – to the point that I am surprised when I do encounter those faeries who appear unaware of our deep connexion to the wholeness of the earth and the living world. For me this one-ness of being is an intrinsic part of Radical Faerie life (with or without any spiritual “wooo”). However, the urgency of issues like climate change, destruction of ecosystems and extinction of species, genocide of indigenous peoples and their cultures, I think now confronts faeries to live up to the radical in our name. It is good that we form sanctuaries that sustain us. But just living in a faerie bubble (or using faerie spaces as a brief escape) is neither in itself sustainable nor radical enough. Here in Europe, part of the reason that people are drowning or barely surviving in unsafe boats in the Mediterranean and other seas is down to climate migration. Among them, and among the many others living in fear, are those suffering from regimes where their variant sexuality or gender identity are legally and/or culturally persecuted. Not only fellow humans of various races and identities, but many
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who would be overjoyed to be welcomed into Radical Faerie spaces. We recently widened the remit of our EuroFaeries group to extend beyond the concept of Fortress Europe to include those neighbouring lands. (This was also partly prompted by the 2017 Global Gathering and by some inspirational circles at Folleterre.) But we are very conscious that so far we have not been at all effective. There is so much to do, we have few resources and we lack key skills and experience. Now that we have helped to create Faenet, we have a safer space to create discussion groups and plan actions that are just beginning to engage with these issues. Check out www. faenet.org Please do join us there and help. In September this year we will celebrate forty years of Radical Faerie gatherings. Albion Faeries and the new EuroFaerie Communities Circle plan an exhibition about this - and some live performances in that month with a preview in the Queer Spirit Festival in mid August. But we do not just want to look backwards. If we are to stay true to our radical spirit, then next 40 years will bring us many challenges. How do we rise to defend the earth, support displaced peoples and sustain those who seek refuge in faerie spaces? It is surely not up to just a few of us as individuals but this needs an awareness and commitment throughout our communities internationally to network together. We have gifts of love that grow from our heart circles, our spontaneity, our tribal bonding and our passionate strength. Let’s use these and find creative delight in being true to the oneness of our essence and our connected nature. Let’s hold the hands of those who are reaching out to us, now and in the years ahead. We are one and we are many. The call is here. Yoooo-hooo!”
Miqxtja with the Outside Project at Deptford Pride 2018. Photo courtesy author.
“America We Vs Me” by Sunlight Moonshadow / Troubadour Trixter / Jason Jenn
RFD 177 Spring 2019 17
The Multiple Migrations of a Transgendered Korean Adoptee By Pauline Park
I
was born in Korea in 1960 but left the country of my birth seven and-a-half months later, only ‘returning’ for the first time over half a century later in the summer of 2015. At the time of my birth, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world and had only begun its recovery from the devastation of the Korean War that ended in 1953; but the country I returned to at the age of fifty-four was the eleventh largest economy in the world, with large parts of its capital unrecognizable to those who knew it before the startling industrialization that transformed the southern half of the peninsula in the 1970s and 1980s. My adoptive parents were told that my birth mother died giving birth to my brother and me and that our birth father died before we were born. It was not until 1994, when I was reading a history
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of Korea, that the thought occurred to me that my birth father might have been among the thousands who died in a massive popular uprising led by students and workers in April 1960 that ousted Syngman Rhee (the dictator/president-for-life installed by the United States) from power and ushered in the short-lived Second Republic, so perhaps I was born to make revolution.
T
he Republic of Korea’s brief experience of democracy ended abruptly when Park Chunghee came to power in a military coup in May 1961. Of course, as an infant in an orphanage in Seoul, I was completely unaware of the tumultuous political drama that was the backdrop for my birth in 1960 and adoption in 1961, only a few weeks after Park Chung-hee’s coup d’état. Photograph courtesy author.
In Korea, familial blood-lines are of paramount importance and orphans rarely have the opportunities for advancement that those raised in families do. And as difficult as it still is to be openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered in contemporary South Korea, in the 1960s and 1970s, it would have been all the more difficult to be LGBT/queer; the prospects for a queer Korean growing up in an orphanage in Seoul in that area would have been dim indeed. For that reason and for many others, the flight in 1961 from Seoul to Tokyo on Northwest ‘Orient’ Airlines and then onto Anchorage before landing at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago was the most consequential of my life; but it was only the first of many migrations—some across national borders, some state lines, and others across boundaries of sexuality, gender, religion and spirituality; that long trip from Korea in 1961 would begin a long process of self-discovery as well as exploration of the wider world. It is extremely unlikely that I would have survived infancy in that orphanage in Seoul, but had I lived, instead of growing up in a Korean orphanage, my brother and I grew up with a tall and balding Norwegian American father and a stout and devoutly Lutheran German American mother and her mother, who lived in the house until my senior year in high school. My parents were already well into middle age when they adopted my brother and me: my mother was born in 1916 and my father was born in 1912; my grandmother—as significant a figure in my childhood as my father—was born in 1888 and had grown up working the family farm in northern Wisconsin with her father after her mother’s untimely death. I had known no ‘homeland’ other than the United States, but to strangers, I was a foreigner because I was Asian. Though I had never learned to speak Korean and had never lived in Korea since my adoption at the age of eight months, my Asian features defined my status as the ‘other,’ the foreigner, the outsider. When we went out in public, the striking physical differences between my adoptive parents and my brother and me made it impossible for others not to notice and our parents were constantly asked, “Whose children are they?” But that was life in an all-white neighborhood on the south side of Milwaukee in the 1960s and 1970s; in fact, my brother and I were the only non-white children in our elementary school. Every December 7th my brother and I were verbally harassed by the white kids at school. This
happened more than twenty years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. ‘Chink’ and ‘Jap’ were hurled at us, and it made me feel ambivalent about my adoptive country. Because of this, I had a hard time thinking of myself as American; but without any opportunity to learn Korean and with none of the infrastructure of Korean culture camps like those now available to young Korean adoptees, I had no direct way of connecting to my birth culture, though I tried to do so through books; but there were none in our house on Korea—beyond encyclopedias with brief entries—and only one in the local branch library in our neighborhood; it was not until many years later that I would find books on Korea written for adults with much information about the country of my birth.
M
y childhood was a relatively happy one but security abruptly turned to insecurity when our father died just before my brother and I turned thirteen, plunging the family into financial insecurity as well as mourning; and the inevitable emotional insecurity that most adolescents feel when puberty hits was multiplied exponentially in its effect by the sudden surge of masculinizing hormones which forced me to confront not only the increasingly obvious maleness of my body but the heavy imposition of the sex/gender binary on me. My first encounter with the sex/gender binary actually came on my very first day of school when I went off to kindergarten and came home to ask my mother if she would buy me a pair of stretch pants with stirrups that many of the girls were wearing. “But those are for girls,” she exclaimed, surprised at the request; it was at that moment that I realized that there were apparently two kinds of people in the world and that I had been assigned to the category ‘boy’ without even being consulted. Nonetheless, however gendered I was in grade school, junior high and then high school enormously intensified the oppression of the gender assignment. And puberty brought the realization that I was attracted to other male bodies. In junior high and high school, English class and orchestra and chamber orchestra provided refuge from the generally oppressive school environment, gym class above all. My brother and I were placed in the advance placement classes, and we therefore had some of the best teachers in our public schools. My high school English teacher Miss Riley was the teacher I remember with the most fondness; in her class, we read English and American literature from William Shakespeare to Richard Brinsley RFD 177 Spring 2019 19
residents. For the first three years of my adulthood, Sheridan to Henry David Thoreau and it opened up Madison would be home. Madison, the ‘Berkeley a whole new world to me. of the Midwest’ and the center of the anti-war Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” inspired the Mamovement during the Vietnam era, had a small but hatma Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, growing gay community when I first arrived in 1978. Jr.—both of them lifelong sources of inspiration for me. In “Walden,” Thoreau wrote, “The surface of the The Gay Center in the basement of a church on campus would be the site of my first coming out, as earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn a gay male in my first semester at the University of Wisconsin. and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, London represented the next shift in venue and how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go be- identity and during my two years there, I first went fore the mast and on the deck of the world, for there out publicly dressed as a woman; it was the most liberating experience of my life. For the first time I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. in my life, I was presenting myself as I saw myself I do not wish to go below now…” That passage became a kind of literary and philosophical North Star to be. Despite my nervousness and to my surprise, I encountered few problems. At the same time that for me, all the more so as I was becoming increasI was exploring my gender ingly disillusioned with the identity in public for the Lutheran Church - Missouri first time, my two years in Synod in which I was raised, London provided the opespecially after the synod I have come to portunity to reconsider my (the largest conservative Lunational identity. theran sub-denomination in understand that I am I moved to Chicago in the United States) was taken not a ‘fake Korean’ but October 1983 and entered over by its fundamentalist rather a real Korean a career in public relations, wing around the time of my adoptee; above all, I but helping large corporaconfirmation. tions enhance their public am the real ‘me.’ And I image did not give me a had never known any no longer feel any need sense of fulfilment, and other home other than the to apologize for my so I decided to go back to house I grew up in, but just personal history or for a graduate school to pursue a before turning eighteen, I Ph.D. in political science at left that house, never again lack of Korean language the University of Illinois at to live there. Including the proficiency. I can now Urbana-Champaign. When orphanage in Seoul from locate ‘homeland’ in I finished my dissertation in which I was adopted and the a way that does not December 1993, I discovhouse in Milwaukee, I have ered Foucault while taking a lived in twenty-five different diminish my own graduate seminar in political places in thirteen different sense of wholeness or theory. Reading the work cities (Seoul, Milwaukee, authenticity. of this radical gay French Madison, London, Chitheorist helped me re-think cago, Champaign-Urbana, my lifelong identity complex. Berlin, Regensburg, BrusI had labored for years under sels, Paris, Lake Forest and the feeling that I was a ‘fake New York—Staten Island Korean,’ unable to live up to the expectations of and then Queens) in six different countries (Korea, others. In light of my reading of Foucault and other the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, theorists, I came to understand that the pursuit Belgium and France) on three different continents (Asia, North America and Europe). With each move of – or flight from – ‘Korean-ness’ was doomed to failure from the start, since there was no ‘essence’ of came a subtle shift in my understanding of home ‘Korean-ness’ to pursue. I came to see myself as havand homeland. ing a distinct identity as a Korean adoptee, neither Milwaukee, my childhood home, was a workingethnically Korean in the way that Koreans or recent class city of beer, bratwurst and bowling with a Korean immigrants were nor even Korean Amerismall town feel, despite its one and-a-half million
I
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can in the way that US-born, English-speaking Korean Americans were. I have come to understand that I am not a ‘fake Korean’ but rather a real Korean adoptee; above all, I am the real ‘me.’ And I no longer feel any need to apologize for my personal history or for a lack of Korean language proficiency. I can now locate ‘homeland’ in a way that does not diminish my own sense of wholeness or authenticity. Becoming involved with the growing community of adult Korean adoptees has also been helpful in coming to terms with my identity as a transracial inter-country adoptee. Just as I came to reject the self-imposed label of ‘fake Korean’ in favor of an accepting myself as Korean adoptee, I also came to understand transgender as distinct form of gender identity that challenged the sex/gender binary of ‘man/woman.’ I would eventually come to call myself a ‘male-bodied woman,’ a concept radical even within the transgender community, because I reject the assumption that the presence or absence of the penis determines my gender or gender identity. Addressing multiple oppressions has been challenging, of course; but being nested in multiple communities has also enabled me to engage in intersectional analysis not only through academic discourse and writing but also through lived experience and through a process of thinking through what it means to be an openly transgendered woman of Korean birth and American adoption in daily life. Ironically enough, being a member of multiple marginal communities has helped me see the striking parallels as well as the significant differences between oppression based on race, ethnicity and national origin on the one hand and sexual orientation and gender identity and expression on the other. At the same time, I have seen the pitfalls of projecting one’s own identity and experiences onto others as is so common in both the transgender community and the Korean adoptee community; to be an effective activist and advocate, it is important to be able to understand one’s own lived experience and speak from it while at the same time understanding and articulating the diversity of identity and experience in the marginalized communities of which one is a member. In fact, my move to Queens, New York in 1997 corresponded with the end of my academic career and the beginning of my activism and advocacy work in New York as well as my coming out as an openly transgendered woman. In January 1997, I
worked with other Queens activists to co-found Queens Pride House, a small LGBT community center in the borough. In February 1997, I joined with other queer Koreans to co-found Iban/Queer Koreans of New York. And in June 1998, I worked with other transgender activists to co-found the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA).
I
now see myself as a transgendered Asian American woman with a distinct identity as a Korean adoptee. I have gone from growing up in an allwhite neighborhood on the south side of Milwaukee to living up in Jackson Heights, which one demographer determined to be the most demographically diverse spot on earth; I am now truly at home living at the epicenter of global migration. While I am not a conventional ‘immigrant,’ having come to the United States as an infant, I have in an important sense experienced multiple migrations across race, sexuality and gender as well as across multiple national boundaries and linguistic communities. And I am still inspired by the wisdom of Henry David Thoreau, nowhere more so than by the great New England Transcendentalist’s conclusion to “Walden”: “I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings…” I have abjured a cabin passage below and have instead gone before the mast upon the deck of the world; I can now see the moonlight amid the mountains. Pauline Park (www.paulinepark.com) is the chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) and president of the board of directors of Queens Pride House. She led the campaign for the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002 and participated in the first US LGBTQ delegation tour of Palestine in 2012. Park has written and spoken widely on issues of race and nationality as well as LGBT identity.
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Chris Moody
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Top: “Hopping across the United States”, Bottom: “The Map”. Photos by Chris Moody.
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Top: “Going North”, Bottom Left: “Home for the Fall,” Bottom Right: “Going Somewhere.” Photos by Chris Moody.
get out of town when the cold wind meets the heat wave everybody wants to get out of town california arizona just get me out of this fucking town there’s a strong wind heading our way nobody wants to stick around colorado montana it’s time to head for higher ground I’ve been wondering if it’s all true that’s all I ever seem to do i’ve got good news and i’ve got bad news i can tell you things that are true get on the highway walk if you have to there’s a storm coming through ohio north dakota do what you have to do get on the highway take an airplane before the sky’s no longer blue i wouldn’t go shopping if i were you there isn’t anything left there even if you do we did our best we were faithful but everything kept falling down iowa california they’ll be plenty there to be found arizona new mexico any place i don’t care california ohio we’ll figure it out when we get there when the cold wind meets the heat wave everbody wants to get out of town california arziona just get me out of this fucking town
—pink jimmie on a pale blue dot RFD 177 Spring 2019 25
Report from the Spanish Sanctuary Search, or: Fear and Loathing in Andalucia By May
O
ur first mistake was taking an Israeli on the trip. Apparently no one heeded Sigourney Weaver’s warning at the beginning of Aliens: “Just one of those things managed to wipe out my entire crew in less than 24 hours.” We lasted two weeks.
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e were supposed to last seven weeks. Faekind, you see, had overpopulated planet Folleterre. We desperately needed to find a second planet, one inhabitable to Faeries, even if it meant traveling far outside the solar system of Western Europe. So seven brave and unemployed Faeries volunteered. A German with expressive eyebrows, an Argentinian with half a foot, a fair-minded Spaniard, a Dapper American who can whip up dinner for fifty with two chestnuts, a bashful French countryboy, myself, and yes, an Israeli. We’d ride one beat-up rocket and another moderately-priced rented rocket and traverse Southern Spain and Portugal in search of…a new home? The German, the Israeli, and the Spaniard were nomadic, which is Faerie for “homeless.” Notable non-blondes, and not especially tall ones at that, these three Faeries had chosen to live in, of all places, Sweden. Now, after some years, they realized they were really very short dark people and it was probably best to leave Sweden where short dark people are regularly executed on television and hit the road in search of...a new life? Is a theme developing? The Dapper American had lost his husband. The Argentinian had spent two years in bed after losing his foot. I had lost... my mind? We’d all lost something, and this trip was just the thing to help us find...ourselves? All of us, that is, except for the French countryboy, who had nothing better to do. He’s been unemployed for four years.
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n a glorious day in May, we launched from Folleterre possessed of terrible good spirits and high hopes for adventure.
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“Gurl,” said the Argentinian, whose idea this whole thing was, and who had quit his stable albeit soul-sucking job in Argentina to spearhead the land search, “we are going to have such an amazing time. Lots of Heart Circles, nice dinners, we’re really going to bond. It’s going to be a journey, gurl.” Exactly thirty minutes into the trip the window of the beat-up rocket broke, and the Israeli accused the German of the Holocaust. “You did the Holocaust,” was what he said, or something. Sensing that conflict would arise within our group, I gave myself the title of Counselor Deanna Troi. If you know who she is, nerd. If you don’t, Counselor Deanna Troi was the half-human, halfBetazoid empath—she had the “psionic” ability to sense emotions—who served on the bridge of the U.S.S Enterprise under one Captain Jean-Luc Picard. She would look at a Klingon and impart, “Captain, I’m sensing anger.” “We’re only thirty minutes into the trip,” I said, “you can’t already be bringing up the Holocaust.” “It’s gonna be a looooong seven weeks,” the Israeli laughed. Ah how we all laughed.
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t’s one thing to argue with a bunch of Faeries about something abstract like installing a water reservoir—because really, when will that ever happen?—it’s another to argue with a bunch of Faeries over AirBnB. Unlike the languorous Great Circles where Faerie Gandolfs can opine for long afternoons about someday, somehow updating Folleterre’s compost toilet system—because really, when will it ever happen?—here, on our interplanetary journey, time mattered. AirBnB was an unforgiving mistress. She demanded that we book her rooms well in advance—at least 24 hours!—which imposed upon our fledgeling group that most deadly of Faerie concepts: planning. We couldn’t just la-dee-da our way through Spain, tiptoeing through the tulips. We had to know, in advance, which cities we would be in on what days. Which meant that, collective Faerie gasp, decisions had to be made. Everyday. Deci-
sions, decisions, decisions. Planning, decisions, planning. Ironically, it was the German who objected to all the planning. “I don’t want to wake up in a different place everyday,” he said. “You’re on a road trip, gurl,” said the Argentinian (to others, about him, in private). “I was in the army,” the Israeli reminded everyone, and trotted out, collective Faerie gasp, spreadsheets. “Captain,” I said, “I’m sensing control issues.” “We need to list and rate all the land we see on this trip according to ten criteria so we can have something concrete to report back to the Land Search committee,” said the Israeli. I might have stopped listening at “We need to.” This all seemed, in the beginning, sort of adorable. Wasn’t it adorable, we thought, that the Israeli Faerie is thinking of this as a project that can be managed?
“I
’m in charge of shopping,” I declared suddenly, to no one’s objections. Luckily, wherever we went in Spain, we were close to a Mercadona. Now, for those of you who don’t know, Mercadona is a dirt cheap supermarket and its selection of cheap pork is, in my humble opinion, the best reason to visit Spain. I literally cried out whenever we passed a Mercadona. Besides being a half-human empath, I was also Chinese, which meant that my superpower was of the budgetary nature. As I might’ve mentioned, we were, as a whole, unemployed—because Faeries—and money was on our minds. There were donations from the community to cover a rental car but gas, food and lodging were on us. “As we all agreed,” I reminded everyone at morning circle, “our daily food budget is five euros per person per day. And since we’re here for three days, our total food budget for this leg of the trip is [pretending to calculate when really I already knew the answer]...105 euros.” I presided over the shopping cart like a soccer goalie. You want cheese? Then we can’t have ravioli. You want veggie burgers? Then we put back the marmalade. Yes put that back. No we cannot have both tea and coffee. No we cannot get syrup for the pancakes. We’re gonna have a nice dinner of rice and steamed onions. Why? Because budget. See, it’s fun to argue about money. At first.
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ur cover story, when we met with real estate agents in small dusty towns, was that we were an international group of ecologists with an interest in permaculture—and not, as it were, a bunch of faggots who liked ritual sex, drumming circles, and elaborate dishwashing protocols. We drove up mountains to amble about parcels of dried out land, pick through patchy olive groves, and kick expertly at the walls of collapsed houses. The German, our permaculture expert, would squat down and take a fistful of dirt. “Pour some water on this,” he’d tell me, then rub the wet dirt between his fingers and taste it. “This isn’t soil,” he’d say. “This is clay. Nothing will grow here.” After a few days of doing this, we took on the air of serious buyers. We dutifully recorded our ratings in the spreadsheet. Besides water, farmability, neighbors, privacy, and price, we had a key rating for something we only called “magic.” We squinted at hills and cliff faces and rolling or terraced groves and asked, “Is it magical?” “Sure it’s got water and a standing house, but does it have the Faerie magic?” “Sure it’s ugly and there’s no house and no farmable land, but there is something magical about the place, no?” Fucking Faeries.
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ome days there wasn’t land to look at. The Argentinian, whose job it was to set up viewings, threw up his hands and said, “There’s nothing. We’ve seen everything good in this area.” “Then what are we doing here?” the Israeli asked. “I didn’t come on this trip to do nothing.” “Self-care day!” the other Faeries cried. If you don’t know, “self-care” is Faerie for “nude beach.” “Nude beach,” if you don’t know, is any body of water where there aren’t Muggles, with their clothing and their morality, to tell you that you can’t be naked. They were beautiful days, self-care days.
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s the trip went on, as the costs started piling up, little arguments about money started to take over morning circles. We found a room in the next town, but it was outside our budget. Okay, but we can’t stay here, so then what? Find a cheaper room then. Fine. But the only cheap room is 30km outside of town, we’d be paying extra for gas. And on and on. The arguments were really about something else, something existential, that couldn’t be RFD 177 Spring 2019 27
settled so easily. Just what the hell were we on this trip for? To go to the nude beach all day? Or to actually find a new sanctuary? Just what the fuck were we all doing with our lives? We were wasting time on this trip, just like we were wasting time in our lives. We were going fucking nowhere. “We have to work,” the Israeli said. “No more fucking around. We have to look at land.” “Gurl,” said the Argentinian. “It’s Sunday. This is a Catholic country. Nobody works on Sunday.” “What about tomorrow then? What do we have lined up for tomorrow?” asked the Israeli. “Gurl,” said the Argentinian. “We have to arrange with real estate agents ahead of time, and they’re not in the office today. We have to do some research online.” “Then we do some research,” the Israeli said. “I think we should go to the beach,” the Spaniard said. “No,” said the Israeli. “No beach today. It’s a work day. We have to go find a cafe, look at some listings, set up appointments.” “Look,” said the Spaniard, “we don’t need all of us to do that. How about half of us go to the beach, and half of us do research?” “So you don’t want to work?” ask the Israeli. “I didn’t—” said the Spaniard. “You don’t want to work? Fine, don’t work.” “I’m not here to take orders from you,” said the Spaniard. “I’m sensing—” Counselor Deanna Troi started to say. “OK, OK,” said the Dapper American. “You guys go to a cafe, we’ll go to the store and pick up things to make sandwiches—” “There isn’t time for sandwiches,” said the Israeli. We were aghast. Has such a thing ever been uttered in the Faerie world? “I’m staying home,” said the German, who was missing his boyfriend in Geneva very much. “You guys go to the cafe, we’ll make some sandwiches,” said the Dapper American, who wanted only, ever, to feed everyone. “there isn’t time for—” said the Israeli. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” said the Spaniard. “I just don’t, I just, what the fuck are we doing here? Are we on vacation here?” asked the Israeli. “I mean, aren’t we?” said the German, who wanted everyone to go away so he could call Geneva. The Israeli turned to the Bashful French Coun28 RFD 177 Spring 2019
tryboy. “What about you? Do you want to go to the beach?” “It’s OK for me,” said the Countryboy. Did I mention they were lovers?
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e started to dislike each other.
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t the end of the day, we piled into bed and cuddled, laying in a mass of bellies and legs, and did Heart Circle. We had to remind ourselves we were still friends. After all, we were Faeries. Didn’t Heart Circles solve everything? But at morning circle, we went back to the same bickering. The Israeli would say blahty blahty blah, and the Argentinian would say blahty blahty bluh, and the German would say blahty blahty blub. The positions started to harden. It became predictable. At some point, we stopped even arguing. We started texting.
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e couldn’t reach consensus on where to move to next. One half wanted to go into the Alpujarras, where we could visit hippie communes in Orgiva. But the German, who was spending more and more time on the phone with Geneva, thought the drive was too long. Up to now, we had always traveled, all seven of us, together. But now we couldn’t reach consensus. We didn’t even much want to be physically near each other. It was I, Counselor Deanna Troi, that suggested we split. “But Faeries always decide through consensus,” the Dapper American said. “That’s not true,” said the Spaniard. “Look,” I said. “It’s only for two days. In two days, we’ll all meet up again in the Alpujarras.” “I don’t think we should split,” the Dapper American said. “There’s no other way,” I said. “We’re about to kill each other.” We texted the offer to the German, who was back at the house with the Israeli. After a few tense minutes, during which we were sure he was going to reject the idea, the German agreed. Let’s split.
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ell I don’t know what the German and the Israeli and the French Countryboy did in Alicante, but the four of us—the Spaniard, the Argentinian, the Dapper American and I—we had
a fucking blast. We stayed in an enchanting little shack and made spaghetti and laughed our heads off. We drove into town and asked locals if they knew of any land being sold. The really good land, said the Argentinian, isn’t listed on the internet. You have to ask the town bartender. Any excuse to hit the bar, am I right?
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farted a lot in the car. The farts slid from my ass, silent and pale yellow, and wafted thickly around the car until the Spaniard, seated in the front, muttered, “Goddammit, May,” and rolled down the window. During particularly long stretches of driving, we played games. We’d each pick a song we loved and play it on Spotify, and talk about what it meant to us. The Dapper American picked Cho Cho San’s aria from Madame Butterfly. He heard it when he was twelve, he said. “It was the moment I realized there was such beauty in the world, and that I would dedicate my life to pursuing it. It set the course of my life.” The music swells. At the apex, Cho Cho San’s voice breaks open, it pours from her like light. The Dapper American began to sob. “It’s so beautiful, it’s so beautiful.” Outside, it is spring in Andalucia and here we really were, on a roadtrip through Spain, as Puccini wafted through the— “Goddammit, May,” said the Spaniard, rolling down the window.
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hen all seven of us regrouped in Orgiva, we were clearly two factions. The Alicante group felt we had abandoned them. And to be honest, we did! “We had so much fun without you!” I blurted out. We sat on the roof of the rental house and held a final Hail Mary Heart Circle. We went round after round, hour after hour, airing our frustrations with each other. At one point, and this is now lore, I, Counselor Deanna Troi, whose domain was feelings, said, “Feelings are bullshit. Fuck your feelings. You, and you, and you. Fuck your feelings.” Well, that seemed to bring the group together.
t dinner, after an exhausting afternoon of Heart Circles, the mood seemed briefly convivial. There were a few jokes. Then we had to decide an upcoming leg of the trip. We had been invited to spend the night at Cortijo Verde, but we had already booked an AirBnB, and the German, whose AirBnB account we were using, did not want to cancel and risk irritating the owner. “But you’d rather irritate someone who is a friend of the Faeries, who invited us personally?” the Spaniard asked. The Israeli raised a point about money, I fucking forget what. Somehow, within a few minutes, we were yelling at each other. Shit was dramatic. I push myself away from the table and went to the kitchen and started washing dishes. (Dishwashing is my stress response. There’s a reason my full Faerie name is Maytag Dishwasher.) “So what, you’re just walking away?” the Israeli asked. “I am no longer listening,” I said. “And I,” said the German, “am going to Geneva.” “You’re leaving?” “Yes,” said the German. “I’m out.” “Then what the fuck,” said the Spaniard, “did we do all that Heart Circle for?”
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T
W
t seemed a game of chicken was underway. We were getting further and further away from Barcelona, which—with its connecting flights to Paris and Berlin—seemed now the seat of civilization. We were venturing, it seemed, down the Amazon, into the jungle, and with each leg of the journey, further from hope of return.
Mea Culpa. I was never fully in. It was insane to me that anyone would commit to seven weeks. I thought, let’s give it two. See, I’m a lone wolf. When the pack started to unravel, I was always ready to say, see ya, May out. I wasn’t the only one thinking about abandoning ship. We couldn’t say it out loud. We pretended that we were still one group, that no matter how difficult things were getting among us, we would stay and support each other. There was a financial reason for sticking together. Splitting the costs seven ways spread the burden. If anyone left, his share of gas and housing would be picked up by the remaining Faeries. Through the Heart Circles and the increasingly quiet meals together, we were just waiting for someone to blink first.
he Argentinian, especially, was in shock. The whole land search was his idea, and he and the German had been working on this together for months. He thought that no matter how much we disagreed, at least he and the German would finish this trip together. Meanwhile, the German excused himself and RFD 177 Spring 2019 29
went into the the next room to Skype with his Shamanic teachers which, besides being ridiculous, gave us room to murmur, “We need his car.” If the German took his car with him, the six of us couldn’t fit into the rental. And without his car, the mission was essentially over. We went into separate corners of the house. The Spaniard was fuming. He really thought that after the Heart Circle, we would survive. The Israeli and the French Countryboy went into their room. I heard snatches of their conversation. The house of cards was collapsing.
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n the morning, the Israeli and the French Countryboy announced they would leave with the German. Then the Spaniard and I said we were out, too. That left the Argentinian and the Dapper American. Would they continue onto Portugal? “I don’t know,” said the Argentinian, who had slumped so deeply into the couch that he seemed to be one of the cushions. But first we had one more commitment. We would spend the night at Cortijo Verde.
P
ablo, a British cousin of the Faeries, welcomed us warmly at Cortijo Verde. He had found a break between yoga retreats on the land to house us for three nights. But when we arrived, we told him that we were only staying one night. “This is the end of the trip for us,” I told Pablo privately. He asked if we wanted to walk the spiral. “When I’m confused, that’s where I go,” he said. He walked through the olive groves, over gentle rolling hills, until we came to a rock spiral on a cliff. One by one, we entered the spiral and walked it. Then one by one, we left and walked back to the house in silence. At dinner, no one spoke. The German and the Israeli and the French Countryboy would leave in the morning. We held a perfunctory dinner circle. Finally I said I had an announcement. “I have a prophesy,” I said, holding out my arms, “that one of you will betray me by morning.” We didn’t hang out by the fire after dinner. We didn’t say good night. In the morning, the three of them announced that they would stay one more day. “Why are they dragging it out?” asked the Spaniard. One more day. Now that we all admitted it was over, there was
30 RFD 177 Spring 2019
suddenly no more blame, no more futile efforts to stay together. We relaxed into the day. We—well, the Dapper American—made dinner in the big house, and after dinner, I, your darling May, put on a little show in the livingroom in which I did a very extended Holocaust joke. The Israeli laughed harder than anyone. That’s one thing I’ll always love about him. Sister has a wrong sense of humor.
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henever someone asked, “Hey May, you were on the land search trip through Spain, right?” I would answer, “Mmmmmmmmmm hmmmmmmmmm.” “We saw the photos on Facebook. It looked amazing!” ”Uughhhhhnnnn hhhhhuuuuuuuhhhhhnnnnn,” I would say, slowly backing away. Later on, I would just cut someone off midsentence. “Hey May, weren’t you part of the—” “It was Lord of the Fucking Flies,” I’d say. “Do you hear me? Lord of the fucking flies.”
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he Spaniard was kinder. He said we were Monty Python in search of the Holy Grail, just clackety-clacking with our coconuts all over Spain like a bunch of buffoons.
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was convinced, when the trip ended, that I never wanted to see some of these people again. It’s a familiar feeling, if you’ve been in the Faerie world long enough, and probably not unique to our particular utopian experiment. To have your heart broken by the people you think you will grow old with is a special kind of shittiness.
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he Argentinian did finish the trip. All seven weeks. “I made a promise,” he said. “I made a commitment to the Faeries. And no, this is not what I planned. But I’m keeping my word.” The Dapper American went along with him to Portugal. Later he said, “That dirty Argentinian taught me how to go on.”
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he Israeli and I are still friends. We spent a beautiful three days in Antwerp bickering and annoying the fuck out of each other. Now he is going to be one of the pioneers of the new sanctuary in Portugal. Good luck to the new crew of the Nostromo.
The Ones Who Stay by Ed of All People
“H
uman migration is the movement by people from one place to another with the intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily in a new location. The movement is often over long distances and from one country to another, but internal migration is also possible; indeed, this is the dominant form globally.” I am migration as well. My mother’s grandparents migrated to the United States from Bohemia in the mid 1880s. They, like so many immigrants of that era, first met each other coming across the Atlantic and somewhere during that voyage decided to get married. They were processed together on Ellis Island and, since the immigration clerk could not pronounce my grandfather’s last name, it was shortened to Kubik. John and Anna Kubik lived on the lower East Side of New York City and in 1899 my grandmother was born. Soon after that, the family moved to the Astoria neighborhood in Queens which was where, twenty years later, my mother was born. My father’s Irish relatives had migrated to the United States before the Kubiks came and he was newly returned from World War II when he met and married my mother who pretty quickly gave birth to me on Long Island in 1949. When I was six my father, who was both a drunkard and a gambler, stole money from his employer to bet on a horse which was going to be a sure winner. The horse lost and my father got caught. To avoid prosecution, my father moved us to Florida and I migrated for the first time. For the next fifteen years my mother moved myself and my ever-increasing siblings back and forth between New York and Florida, back and forth, as she divorced my father, met my stepfather and then ultimately divorced him as well. Over and over we migrated from the north to the south and then back again, looking for our situation to improve. In 1971, when I graduated from the University of South Florida, I migrated back to New York City to find my tribe. I, like thousands of others, had read of the Stonewall Inn riot in 1969 and knew that’s where I needed to be. We arrived in huge numbers, moving into the tenement buildings of Greenwich Village, changing those neighborhoods forever. In 1976, the challenges of living in New York
City (the 4 D’s as I called them: Dirt, Drugs, Danger and Depression) got to me and I migrated west to San Francisco. Like my mother and great grandparents before me, I was looking for my situation to improve. I’ve remained in San Francisco ever since. I am also the one who stays. When the AIDS epidemic began in 1981, I watched friends and neighbors moving away from the Bay Area, migrating to other parts of the country as a strategy to protect themselves from becoming infected, to avoid the heartbreak of what was happening, to escape the constant requests to become part of yet another caregiving circle; they moved away hoping that their situation would improve. When someone would confide in me that they were leaving, I would tell them, “I understand,” and I did. But I would also think to myself, “You’re moving now, when things are so bad? Where else is your love more needed?” Over the years, both through my work in the field of HIV prevention, as well as my volunteer organizing work with the Global Radical Faerie gatherings, I’ve had the great privilege to meet LGBT activists from around the world as well as travel to their countries: Europe, South America, Africa, Russia, Ukraine, and China. I’ve met those who’ve migrated away from their countries of origin and also those who have stayed. I see the power of both these decisions, especially since many who migrated away were doing so to save their very lives. There is great power in migration. As the great lesbian poet Mary Oliver wrote, one leaves: “Determined to do the only thing you could do, Determined to save the only life you could save.” There is also great power in being the one who stays. “Where else,” they may ask, “where else is my love more needed?”
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“Haiyden,” photograph by Aaron Coshaw.
I Wanted to Make Friends by anonymous
M
y overall experience as a gay man immigrating to Canada has been good. However, immigrating to a country where the social, cultural, economical, and judicial structure (everything) is absolutely different from what one is familiar with is quite challenging and in parts confusing. For a positive gay man moving to Canada from a country where there is no HIV disclosure law in place can be an incomparable experience. In my second week of being in Canada I received a phone call from one of disease control centres letting me know that if I needed information on Canadian HIV disclosure law I could go to a specific governmentfunded legal clinic and get the information from one the lawyers working there. I made an appointment. Talking with the lawyer I quickly realized that this subject is much more complicated than I originally thought. I learned how complex this law is and how vulnerable positive people are if legal charges, unjustly or simply out of pure malice, are brought against them. To protect myself I decided not to have any hookup or date anyone. All this and an incident I had in my first week of arriving here
Photograph courtesy author.
made feel depressed. This depression lasted for eight months. It was through Grindr that I met him the first week I arrived. He was a middle-aged man looking to have some fun and I wanted to play around. I wanted to make gay friends. I disclosed to him before we played and we had a bit of fun but the day after he changed his mind. He thought it was a poor decision that he had made and then blamed me for not stopping him from playing together. Oddly enough, his regret did not last long and he wanted to connect again. At this point despite having lost all my interest, I had to force myself to satisfy him to prevent him from getting me into trouble. Fortunately, I met a great counsellor who helped me to learn to navigate through this complex new world. Since then things are getting better. Currently I am studying and working part time. I have an amazing boyfriend who is vey supportive. The story of my life in Canada continues writing itself and page by page this book of colourful events has become something valuable.
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Carlito by Uranus
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Stormproof: Cultivating Spiritual Resiliency by Keala Naone
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t was July 4, 2017 and at the time I worked as a housekeeper for a local rehabilitation center. It had been five months since I had moved out of the beaches and breezes of O’ahu, Hawai’i to the desert of Salt Lake City, Utah. Some degree of culture shock was not only anticipated but welcomed. The drier climate keeps my sweat production manageable. Seeing a gallon of milk with a price tag of two dollars makes me smile. The ability to afford a studio apartment without a roommate for under a grand is practically unheard of back home. I left behind the familiar in exchange for adventure. As Americans celebrate July 4, 1776 with booze and barbecues, my thoughts went to July 4, 1894. The so-called Committee of Safety declared the Hawaiians Islands as the “Republic of Hawaii”. In the previous year those same individuals, with the aid of armed U.S. marines, overthrew the Kingdom of Hawai’i and imprisoned Queen Lili’uokalani in her own palace. I thought about the summer camp I attended in middle school when I asked a chaperone if we were doing anything for the 4th of July and the response was a passionate “We don’t celebrate the independence of the oppressor”. Numerous historical points came to mind as I somberly ate lunch. What struck me the deepest was the sudden realization that my ancestors did not choose to be Americans. Immigrants move to America fleeing religious, political, social, or economical upheaval, but Native Hawaiians were citizens of a sovereign nation struck right in their homeland with nowhere to go. They became Americans under duress. I cried heavy, copious, sorrowful tears. My lunch break went on longer than thirty minutes. I didn’t care. It took me moving across land and sea to step into a place of severe mourning with all the respect it deserved. I sobbed-mumbled lyrics to the song “Hawai’i ‘78” by Israel Kamakawiwaole, “What if just for a day our king and queen/Could visit all these islands and saw everything/How would they feel about the changes of our land?/Would you just imagine if they were around/And saw highways on their sacred grounds/How would they feel about this modern city life?” As an able-bodied, mixed-ethnic, queer, transgender male of color, I check off several boxes on the intersectionality spectrum. As the Ancient Poly38 RFD 177 Spring 2019
nesians traversed the vast Pacific Ocean, so too has my personal journey taken me across distant shores. I remember the decision to transition and all the potential horrors that await (poor hormone/surgery results, rejection from friends and family, inaccessibility to healthcare, job security, threat of harm, death, etc.). I also remember my drive to proceed in spite of them. While the risks of transitioning were great, the risk of not transitioning was even greater. Being a tomboy lesbian was no longer cute after I turned nineteen. Navigating through life perceived as the wrong gender took an increasing toll on my heart and soul. My father saw my growing depression and feared coming home one day to find me hanging from the ceiling. Almost nine years later, I am happier and more successful than I ever thought possible. I moved out of my father’s house, work two jobs where both managers consider me a valuable asset to their team, and recently had my top surgery covered by health insurance. A spiritual migration took place concurrent with my gender awakening. It began with an intuitive sense that transitioning wasn’t going to solve all my problems. Not only did I feel a hole within myself but also a kind of gravitational pull towards it. When that pull later manifested into severe bouts of insomnia, I was reminded of a time when my younger brother played an audio file that put me to sleep in seconds. Thus began my foray into brainwave entrainment which would eventually lead me to meditation and inner work. My desire for deep transformation intensified the more I became comfortable in my own skin. There are reasons to be fearful of today’s changing political, social, and economic climate. In times of crises it’s easy to look outwards for leadership and guidance. Access to support networks is vital. And while the need for sanctuary is great, the need for cultivating spiritual resiliency is even greater. My success and survival would’ve been impossible otherwise. I define spiritual resiliency as “an inner state of wisdom and compassion that is unmoved by external circumstances”. If we want safer containers for inspiration and revolution, we must start being safer for ourselves. Spiritual resilience begins by asking “What walls have I built around myself internally?
Are the borders within made out of fear, shame, guilt, etc? Are those divisions still necessary or is it safe to come down?” In results-driven societies, this level of self-inquiry is difficult and not mainstream. There is no distraction and nowhere to hide from oneself. It’s like a gym workout for the soul, but it can be an intellectual pursuit as well. I’m not saying that introspection will turn you into a worldrenowned activist or billionaire philanthropist (though it can!), but it will reveal inner resources you never knew you had. When clarity and vision expand, discernment improves and thus the ability to navigate the best and worst of times. The queer community needs spiritual resiliency now more than ever! Recently I left two Facebook groups because of the rampant self-pitying of the transgender folks posting there. “People won’t date me because I’m trans”, “I thought transitioning was gonna make me happier but it’s not”, “I’m forever
alone because I’m trans” and on and on it went. Did it occur to them that maybe, perhaps, selfdeprecation is not sexy to anyone? Apparently not and I was tired of it. A better call for help would be “My transness doesn’t define me, but I feel so alone because of it. I want to do and be better but I don’t know how.” Substitute “transness” with any label really. Whether we want to call it a spiritual migration or something else, severe paradigm shifts need to happen within the queer community in order to face today’s challenges. It begins with an individual and expands to others. Despite 126 years of illegal occupation, Native Hawaiians continue to thrive and work diligently in the preservation of its language and culture. I traveled far from home to find myself. In the search for safer harbors, we must make sure the ship we’re on is built stormproof.
Close up of “Unidentified Immigrant in Paris 2016” by Vojislav Radovanovic.
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“The Devil 45 & His Concubine” by Jay Sunlight Moonshadow / Troubadour Trixter / Jason Jenn
“Baptism by Boofing” by Jay Sunlight Moonshadow / Troubadour Trixter / Jason Jenn
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Grief is the Sound of Living by robin hood
(If ) any of this madness is going to change, then it is of greater pertinence to realize that each one of us, in a way, is a nation unto ourselves, and that as a nation we do have the power to change… (Here) our personal revolution to become real human beings. —Martin Prechtel
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Caravans made up of fellow humans seeking asylum because they’re afraid unable to return to their home countries. Political activists who take stands against their own government’s soldiers, harmed.
Fomentation of anti-immigration far-right attitudes reassembled the working class back together again under hostile moods of nativism, not economic solidarity.
Intimidations for brave activism, Indigenous environmentalists tortured for their work, fleeing civil war in Nicaragua; people who experienced severe backlash and death threats from armed gangs.
Nearly 3,000 children separated from parents since policy was announced. Inspector General said thousands more may not have been counted. Pious Piper, only your silence is louder than their screams.
Domestic violence victims from countries of cowards not offering protections to women mustering courage to leave. LGBTQIA youth who face persecution and acts of vehemence in
Patterning generational trauma after the death of his rage-filled father Eribon returns to his childhood days. “Everything my father had been which is to say everything I held against him
their home country; and parents who try to save young children from a world in pain. While reasons people in the caravan seek refuge in the U.S. are diverse, they are united by simple desire
had been shaped by the violence of the social world.” After holocausts and AIDS ideas of individual rights, ideas of responsibility, ideas of fraternité, group feeling
To live in freedom and safety as one, making journeys that are tremendously difficult because it was necessary for their existence. No one would go through this hell if they had any other choice.
Atomised by cynical exploitation. Pink triangles, rainbow flags, red ribbons Fodder for marriage and the gay dollar Where is the pride of once gentle angry People, free of blame, free to celebrate?
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Two people killed, nearly 40 detained; a new crackdown the activists have said. Their deaths were reportedly caused by the use of torture by state police. Paid uniforms to kill their own people.
The world is on the move at the end of modern civilization. Ask how we got here and who we forgot. Continue to write freely, verses in measured lines while others slowly march toward the wall.
Do not bother asking them what they did Let them rather ask us, how’d you do it? Queering yourselves, what skills and strategies arose bright out of history’s great shames? Survivors say, “What is remembered lives.”
The heaviest of losses comes to all of us when we as babies in the womb lose our mother’s heartbeat when we are born. Grief has a sound that embarrasses the repressed and offends the oppressive.
Bio-cultural diversity is threatened across the whole of the world by capitalistic monoculture and mass extinction, Scranton writes. We must build arks, to carry forward endangered genes.
This age of confluence is born of sorrow. Born on the backs of nature’s resistance breaking down from finality to flow. Salty womb, sacred spoor, subject to creation: all grief slowly floats to the ocean’s floor.
We cultural arks must carry forward endangered wisdoms. Memes of desire, fight, fuck or flee, instincts help us adapt. Real communities are needed for real people to grieve and praise in intimate ways.
Abandoned memories of dead not yet grieved, Our love’s tears remedy this world’s great need.
Scapegoats gather now before or we are lost. Get outta the republic if possible. People of the world seek to cleanse our blood. I ask everyone, you who are still free to treat this message most seriously.
A week of news and other found phrases re-woven by robin hood. Words on grief credited to Martin Prechtel’s The Smell of Rain on Dust; anti-immigration, economics and bio-cultural arks to Didier Eribon, Returning to Reims; and the opening stanza on caravans is the near replicated text from an online post from a social worker stationed at the Mexican-American border who asked to remain anonymous.
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Femminiello//belonging by Summer Minerva
Tammorriata, deep earth song Nacchere in hand Eyes on sparkling eyes Bella figliola, bella figliola Black beautiful and big Daughter of the Earth Si chiama Rosa Rosa
Rotations, Chases Locking hearts Locking legs Inseminating with the seed Of love with every clack Nacchere Nacchere Locked eyes Revolving in orbit
On the land On sacred sanctuary The tambourine sounds in loop Bellowing ancient voice booms above as Nonna’s face emerges from our fire Shadows dance on her hook nose We circle around as we fly
Blurred pairs of dancers Switchboards of DNA alight Memory in the bones in the body in the blood in the wild spirit La Tammorriata Evviva La Tammorriata
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emminiello:: a term used to refer to a population of homosexual males with markedly feminine gender expression in traditional Neapolitan culture A femminiello is a sacred third gender group, much like the Native American two-spirit, or Indian hijra. They tell the stories, sing the songs, dance the dances, and lead traditional rituals which usually dance the line between the sacred and profane. They dress as brides and are fake married off to their town’s most eligible bachelors, give birth to large brown phalluses, are considered lucky and call off the numbers in a Neapolitan version of bingo called tombola. They’ve always been there. Some say that their existence can be traced back to preChristian times, when worship of Cybele, a Phrygian earth goddess was most popular. Cybele had a following of a third gender group called the Galli, who would would castrate themselves in order to join in the mysteries of the Goddess and become priestesses. The Santuario di Montevergine, the cathedral my Nonna would pray at when she was a child sits where Cybele’s temple used to be over a thousand years ago. The femminielli are the evidence of us: us transpeople, us non-binary people, us gay people, us queer people, us faeries, here since… forever. And I am one. 44 RFD 177 Spring 2019
The first time I heard this word, femminiello, I was on a pilgrimage visiting Black Madonna sites in southern Italy. After some asking around, I found out that to be a femminiello signified a sacred role within the devotional practices of Mamma Schiavona and other Madonnas in the region of Campania. Photographs courtesy author.
Mamma Schiavona, or Slave Mother, (photo) is the Mary who is said to protect the femminielli and well as the LGBTQ community at large, and all other outcasted groups. Legend has it that once upon a time, two men were discovered having sex with each other and were punished by being brought to the woods in the middle of winter and tied to a tree, left to die. Mamma Schiavona appeared to them, freed them, and ensured them that they had the right to love each other. On February 2 of each year, the femminielli and other LGBTQ groups process up
this sacred mountain, in order to give their blessings to Mamma Schiavona. This year was my second time going, and I had the honor of bringing with me four of my radical faerie sorelle, in order to share this journey with me. I pray that we bring back our newfound sense of knowing, and new found knowledge of the tammorriata dance and music to our lands. We remember our sacred legacy of walking between the worlds of gender, of identity, of spirit. It is our rite of passage. I am a femminiello born in America. I believe many of us are. An excerpt from The Death of Anthony, my autobiographical documentary in progress with Adam “Prixie” Golub:
I climbed the mountain to see Mamma Schiavona, to find my grandmother’s memories, the ones that were slipping away from her. I’m sure that somewhere inside my Nonna is the answer to my questions about myself. I can almost hear my Nonna as a young girl praying to Mama Schiavona... to save her from an uncertain future…. in a far-off land. I remember myself as a child, swishing through the motions of my family’s traditions without a second thought. My name, Anthony, is also my father’s. Little Anthony with all the boys... like a joke. My Nonna had four daughters My grandfather always wanted a boy He was a jealous man. He never really spoke to me. My Nonna has dementia and the lights in her mind are slowly going out. Like my Nonna, I’ve felt like a foreigner my whole life. She was from a poor family living in a hard time and she, like so many others, fled in search of a better life in America. She traveled three weeks by boat from Napoli to Brooklyn in 1952. I went back to find myself in the memories she was losing. State dinto, vierno fora Summer come, Winter go I chose the name Summer years ago Long before I found myself at Candelora A place my ancestors have, for generations, been praying for grace Celebrating the coming of the light in the dead of winter I chose the name Summer years ago Well before I came to Napoli And learned of the femminielli. Southern Italy’s sacred third gender. A femminiello born in America, in search of my Nonna’s past I wonder what my Nonna was feeling up here. Did she see me in the face of the Madonna Schiavona? Did she know when she knelt to pray at this mountain that this is how her life would pass? Marriage, migration, descendents, loss. I can see her in my mind, looking out her winRFD 177 Spring 2019 45
dow onto a life never could have foreseen, Wondering why she had traveled so far. A feeling I understand. She lives in me. Life and death and life again. This is nature’s rhythm.. My Nonna’s mind is far gone now. The person who taught me to knit, or choose the ripest tomato is no longer.
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I see her on 86th st, sneaking me a grape from a market stand. Her rubbing my fuzzy back as a child, telling me I had a mink coat Even this, this is a document, This is a memory, And when I look back on my life, What will I remember?
“By Boat or by Plane” by Vojislav Radovanovic
Le Mani della Mia Nonna by Summer Minerva
Old country secrets are in my Nonna’s hands Inscriptions on her palms are tickets to the motherland Emissaries to belonging on an unplundered earth Her pomodori, basilica, and melanzane grew from more than just dirt. The roots of my Nonna’s garden go back to Italia, Naples Her poor but happy family spending hours around a table Belonging, the tribe, the family, firy hot emotion Then serving capitalism across the vast blue ocean Goodfellas and Godfathers never could connect me to my roots They lie, glorify men, and make a mockery to boot. But they taught us something, so we thought. No, sorry, that was just the “paesan’” experience, packaged to be bought. Bought and sold like the bodies of immigrants to start a new life Though, we are all indigenous somewhere, right? Bound to the factories and fields in this foreign land Still, though, my belonging is contained in my Nonna’s hand. Hands holding howls of dogs, oceans of tears from falling down I sogni della mia nonna were never allowed around There was no room for the dreams of this donna immigrante female Brought here for her breasts and womb- damned to a jail. A familiar jail for women under masculine control Her choices dictated by the fallacy of constructed gender roles She was misinformed, thinking she’d come to be free But, like the house and car, was a piece of property She grew un albero di fichi in her tiny urban backyard That she spoke to some nights under the stars Not spoke, cried to: “Portami a casa, take me home,” Sobbing, weeping, to the maiden, mother and crone The years of shattered dreams passed on and she proudly shepherded in 15 new lives Still though, counts down the days that she will die At 91 years old, my Nonna’s hands Are my only connection to our ancestors’ land. Photographs courtesy author.
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Queer Migrants by J Jha + Keith Hennessy (Cuz’n)
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ueer Migrants was a free street performance by J Jha and Keith Hennessy. Queer Migrants occurred unpermitted at the Immigration and Naturalization Services building (aka Department of Homeland Security) in downtown San Francisco, in May and November 2018. Jha (India) and Hennessy (Canada), combined movement, ritual, and storytelling to reflect on personal and structural aspects of queer migration to the Bay Area. Jha is a transgender asylee from India who moved to the Bay Area four years ago while Hennessy, who is gay, white, and cis-male, migrated to San Francisco from a mining town in Canada in the early 80s. During the making of the performance Jha’s asylum case was accepted and Hennessy became a US citizen. Sharing stories that cross borders, generations, bodies, and cultures, Queer Migrants considers two very different tales of queer migration, reflecting San Franciso’s iconic yet problematic image as a sanctuary city and LGBTQ utopia. The performance, which was city and state funded and produced by Circo Zero, was the third in a series of free public site performances engaging queer collaboration across lines of gender, race, and citizenship. Additional collaborators included artists Annie
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Danger and Gerald Casel and production manager Alley Wilde. A printed program introduced the audience to the project with personal statements by J and Keith. J: Seven years ago I left the shores of India as a gay man in the closet of patriarchy, misogyny, heteronormativity and flat out denial. Imagination awakened, heart emboldened, truth revealing, and living relearned I stand before you a trans asylee who embraces all aspects of non conformity in gender. I am an ungapatch, khichri, a challenge. I am GNC. I am me. And now it’s my job to keep telling stories of those left behind. This is the first such telling. Come listen. Let your senses live what you will never be. Reality. May not be you and me but it is trans destiny. Let’s just pay attention for a bit. Shall we? Keith: Thanks to the magic of theater, two people met and slowly began to feel and trust each other. Photograph by Robbie Sweeney
Grounded in shared commitments to live performance and queer life we started to work. Our first agreement: No Stress. Intimacy and power are simultaneously complicated and simple. Hierarchy and asymmetry are everywhere. What is difference? Can privilege be negotiated? How can we heal, soften, or correct the antagonisms of diaspora and stolen land? With deep respect for the ancestors of this place, Yelamu/San Francisco, and for our families/ancestors by both blood and affinity, we offer this performance.
Imperialism Against Queers An excerpt from Queer Migrants, a street performance by J Jha and Keith Hennessy (Traveling with the audience from one side of the building to another, Jha and Hennessy speak and yell the following text, repeatedly, in a playful yet unsettling improvisation.) What? What now? Imperialism? Against queers? (When the audience has settled on the steps of the entrance, Hennessy delivers the following speech with security guards looking on and tourists passing through.) We are gathered outside the US Customs & Immigration Building aka Homeland Security where thousands of queers, including myself, have come to plead their case. Why are we here? How did we get here? How does imperialism produce queer migration? Let’s repeat the question aloud, all together, call & response: How does imperialism (repeat) Produce queer migration? (repeat) I recognize that you are no strangers to the necro politics of misogyny, racism, and homohatred, so let’s begin briefly with a few ugly facts. When I call out the name of a country, please repeat it all together. Nigeria (repeat): Homosexual acts are punished by 14 years in prison. Belonging to an LGBT organization, 10 years in prison. Egypt (repeat): Biggest jailer of gay men today. Honduras (repeat):
Highest per capita murder of transwomen. Iran (repeat): 5000 LGBT murders since the 1979 revolution. Currently Iran forces gay men to undergo transgender surgery. Iraq (repeat): Queer spaces have been burned or bombed and there have been targeted queer killings. Jamaica (repeat): Sodomy is punishable by life imprisonment. El Salvador One of the most dangerous countries in the world for women Where gang and police impunity motivate trans migration India (repeat): We will discuss a little later... Great Britain (repeat): is the biggest historic exporter of anti-homosexual violence. The majority of countries violently colonized by Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries still criminalize homosexuality. Many of the anti-queer laws in these countries were put in place by the colonial government. For example, in Pakistan (repeat) an anti-sodomy law instigated by the British in 1860, is still in place punishable by ten years in prison. Several countries are still using the exact homophobic laws imposed by Britain during the colonial era. Mauritius, Bangladesh, and Jamaica (repeat each). European imperialism mobilizing a doctrine of white Christian racism criminalized indigenous expressions of sexuality and gender. Queer and trans people fleeing violence today are trying to escape the ruins of cultures decimated and perverted by the British empire. Wilhelm Reich exposing Hitler’s tactics articulated how sexual repression through criminality, torture, and murder RFD 177 Spring 2019 49
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Photographs by Robbie Sweeney
is a necessary component of social control and sets the context for totalitarian rule. Strictly controlling bodies, sexualities, and gender roles is a pre-condition for controlling the imagination, the vote, and the voice. Monotheisim + Nationalism will always attack women, queers, artists, while justifying exploited labor, and wealth inequity. How do we recognize neo colonialism: Resource extraction Civil war Corruption Then the fundamentalists rush in. USAmerican evangelicals, frustrated with their failure to stop gay marriage in the US and Europe, have intensified their anti-queer advocacy all over the world, especially on the African continent. US evangelical christians collaborate with foreign governments to criminalize queer and transgender lives in the following countries: Tonga, Uganda, Russia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia, Liberia. The backlash against gay marriage and increased visibility for queers is an infectious disease spreading internationally and cannot be distinguished from the rise of neo-fascist, ethnic nationalist, and authoritarian regimes. Reactionary anti-queer violence is escalating in Turkey, Poland, Romania, Russia, Philippines, Tonga, Togo, Brazil, Tanzania, Nicaragua, the United States... In both Jamaica & Nigeria, mob attacks against queers are frequent and are often enacted by or protected by the police. When I say police you say Anti-Queer: Police
Anti-Queer When I say police you say Anti-Black: Police Anti-Black When I say police you say Anti-immigrant: Police Anti-immigrant We must learn to recognize repeating patterns of police violence all over the world. Patterns reveal structures. Structures define power. Power is exploited. Police are the brutal front line defending centuries of injustice against women, racialized bodies, queers, immigrants, and the poor. Friends don’t let friends call the cops. When we speak about settler colonialism and the great whitening of the Americas we are of course discussing the violent and genocidal history of San Francisco, of Yelamu, of the ongoing occupation of the lands of the Ramuytush Ohlone, whose understanding of gender and sexuality we know very little about. Violence against queers, is an ugly and ongoing colonial legacy. I’ll conclude with a few questions. Please repeat the last word of each each question. What is freedom? Freedom! What is sanctuary? Sanctuary! How did you get here? Here! Do you feel safe? Safe! Are you in danger? Danger! Who is welcome here? Here! Who is entitled to safety? Safety! My colleague J asks, why is it so difficult for trans people to migrate towards safety and life?
Life!
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“Stray Dog” by by Vojislav Radovanovic
“Weeds Always Flourish / American Flag” by Vojislav Radovanovic.
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Don’t Take Your Marble For Granite by UltraViolet
only way he knew how to pursue truth was through his magic. He knew that in order for his magic to thrive he needed to leave this land. But he didn’t know how. His whole life was planned his is a story of travel, of transition, and of out before the war. The idea of moving away transformation. A post-adolescent Prince had come home from without a clear plan shattered every dream he had once possessed. However, his heart was strong, war. He moved back home when his parents had and Verne had made him courageous. But as expected him to build an empire and conquer the much as he feared jaunting into the darkness, he world. He had been preparing to build his own feared being alone a thousand times more. Prince kingdom his entire life. But the Prince’s time at knew he needed a friend to accompany him. war had forced him to confront his own sanity Prince had kept in contact with one of the and his understanding of the world. He saw the kindred soldiers, a farm boy named Jacob. Jacob violence and greed of his own kingdom and ponhad the wheat in his hair dered on the conflicting and the sky in his eyes. truth of the fragility of life He was training for the and inevitability of death. priesthood when the Having seen so much They settled in a mostly church turned against death already, why continhim. He professed a pure ue fulfilling the wishes of deserted land, with dust love for all people, espehis parents? However, the and cliffs shaped by the cially the begrudged, but Prince was afraid because wind. It was there that his message threatened he did now know of any they saw their first large to upset the powerother way to live. His time balance of society by at war disturbed his sleep land mammal. Most large welcoming the outsider. and gave him nightmares. animals were merely So Jacob had been run To escape the torment, he legends in the land of out of town, betrayed would wander the streets the mid-west. People had and defamed, and found at night and partake in the himself on the battleflesh of other men. Once scared them all away. For field, fighting the same during his nightly prowl, the first time, the pair war we all fight with ourfate was in his favor. He understood their place in selves. The Prince and became acquainted with the world, not as people in Jacob had been lovers in wizard named Verne who one desperate moment had taught him about his society, but as creatures during the war, but since personal power and how on a journey of the soul. then, they have explored to use it to learn truth the mind instead of the and beauty. The magic flesh. The Prince knew was yoga, and it the price that Jacob needed to became obsessed. He leave this place to thrive. ran away from home and Jacob needed a new land to heal to grow and found a teacher to learn more of this yoga. The training purified his senses and gave him glimpses become a powerful child of god so that he could profess love to an audience that would listen. of true sight. With this vision came the underJacob was still living near the old battlefield when standing of the corruption of the government. Prince paid him a visit. This knowledge terrified the Prince, for now “Promise you’ll move away with me?” The he could not go back to the way things were. Prince asked Jacob. But Jacob was terrified. He Truth seemed to be the noble pursuit, and the
The things that make us most afraid often are the most fulfilling —Jacob Buttry
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knew not how to live without the security and comfort of his current job with the government. But the Prince’s magic was strong and it made Jacob feel as if anything was possible. They made a vow with each other to never let the other get lost in the darkness, and to never eat any food that caused harm to another being. They knew that they needed each other to have the courage to start a new life in a place where nobody knew who they were. The stars aligned and the pair spent the next few months preparing for the greatest journey of their lives. They abandoned all the comforts that kept them settled and content, said goodbye to all their friends and family, packed up an eight by six trailer hitched to a Honda Element, and set off with a traumatised little dog named Kika who was “Untitled� by Bill Castello
always terrified to be away from the only person she learned to trust: Jacob, the boy who loves all forsaken creatures. They set out a few hours before a mid-summer sunset to Minneapolis, a nearby kingdom in the land of the mid-west. In the early night they reached the gates of the city. Restricted entry, they were forced to find camp in the outskirts, where merchants and thieves communed in peace. They set-up near a mobile neon-church and slept in the car. Early the next day they explored the gardens and the waterfall within the city. Then they traveled through Dakota, driving 35 mph up a gentle incline on the highway, afraid to burn out the motor on their mobile home. But the fields were filled with sunflowers for miles in all directions, sunflowers that were in full bloom RFD 177 Spring 2019 55
crossed the Cascades and entered the lush land and facing east as they traveled west. of the Pacific Northwest: a land of rain and giant They settled in a mostly deserted land, with trees, where life was growing everywhere, and dust and cliffs shaped by the wind. It was there moss hanging from the branches. They knew they that they saw their first large land mammal. Most were getting closer to where they would settle large animals were merely legends in the land of down. Here trees filled the earth with energy that the mid-west. People had scared them all away. the boys could feel under their feet. In this land For the first time, the pair understood their place they would plan their garden to cultivate the famin the world, not as people in society, but as ily that would teach them of love. creatures on a journey of the soul. Prince realThe pair visited a volcano that had erupted ized his dependence on Jacob was foundational thirty years prior. Through stories told by the to their relationship. Carefully the pair had to locals, they re-lived the destruction that took discern what sort of dependence would help each place that day, and then of them thrive individually, learned of the beauty that instead of creating a crutch had emerged the years that would hinder their following. Good and bad growth. They talked about no longer had any lasting family and how they would meaning, but were merely commit themselves to each Good and bad no perspectives, opposite sides other’s prosperity. The folof the same coin: beauty lowing day they visited the longer had any lasting came from the destruction, black hills, where the roads meaning, but were and complacency of a corwere covered in crystals. merely perspectives, rupt government resulted The desert continued opposite sides of the from the modern comfort all through Wyoming until of the citizens. they got to Yellowstone, the same coin: beauty came After a flat tire had land of an ancient volcano from the destruction, given them problems, the that once destroyed nearly and complacency of a pair decided to drive on everything on the planet. corrupt government through the night to reach The land continues to cool their destination: Seattle, as the rivers flow with resulted from the the emerald city. They upboiling water filled with modern comfort of the graded their home from the brightly-colored ancient citizens. Honda Element, to a studio unicellular life. It was here apartment. At least they the pair, caught in the fever each had their own bed. of fearlessness, scaled the Kika, who had spent the sides of mountains to get a last three weeks sharing a better view of this ancient bed with both boys, would land. From these heights now alternate from one bed to the other, acceptthey received the vision of how the elements ing Prince into their pack. The three started a shaped the land: Earth piling high to form mounfamily built out of love for each other and a desire tains, water carving deep canyons, Fire ravaging to help each other succeed. Prince taught Jacob the land making room for new life, and wind yoga, and would later teach classes thanks to Jaspreading the seeds to distant lands. The insight cob’s support. And Jacob benefited from Prince’s gained from the vision of grand design would insistence on the pursuit of truth, despite his guide them to their eventual home. cold, austere approach, which was usually more With their path laid before them, they stopped aggressive than with what Jacob was comfortable. at the most curious land on their journey: a land A new chapter of their lives had begun, and the of twisted, black rock and underground caves. future could be molded as they saw fit, without Groping around in the dark, the boys explored the desires of their families directing their choicthese underground caves and confronted their es. A future which would not be curbed by fear of fear of the unknown. destitution. A future that would cultivate love. Revitalized from their bath in darkness, the pair headed to the last stop on their journey. They 56 RFD 177 Spring 2019
The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading by Edmund White. Review by Leo Racicot
W
ielding his pen as deftly as master landscapers wield their shears, acclaimed author and winner of 2018’s Pen/Saul Bellow Award and Lambda Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement, Edmund White fashions once again a literary topiary of thought, of scholarship, of memory and of the many books and authors that informed his life as a writer and an inexhaustible chronicler of his times. The Unpunished Vice parades delightfully before us the eclectic assortment of White’s literary tastes. Lovers of books, lovers of writers will think they have landed in Paradise. Readers will discover old favorites: Tolstoy, Colette, Joyce Carol Oates, Jean Giono, Walt Whitman, Genet, Diderot, and be Googling new discoveries: Michael Carroll, Saik Fait Abasiyanik, W.M. Spackman, Yiyun Li, tons more. White wears his trademark charm well, a sassily-placed boutonniere. His anecdotes, some of them relayed in earlier books, take on now the scent of legend. His jokes are playful—he once had me convinced he composed the national anthem of Burma—they contain no malice, White enjoys being naughty, provocative. The few times he tweaks an author’s work, he does so with a gleam in his Irish eye. The White wit leaves a lasting but a good scar on your funny bone. His abiding passion for writers tints every page, a beloved glove tossed to the coloratura. White claims he read and writes “very little and slowly” but as his official bibliographer, I have amassed almost 3000 items: books, essays, plays, poems, reviews, reviews, reviews, blurbs==the
volume of it staggers. White is a wonder. His tremendous mind never rests. I don’t think the man sleeps! Or if he does, it is only for the briefest charge needed to get his Energizer Bunny battery going again. One time, I bid him “goodnight” as he was embarking on reading Langdon Hammer’s mountainous James Merrill biography. When he greeted me at nine the next morning, he had finished all 944 pages! Ed is the soul of vigor—he seems, on the page, as well as in person, as essential, as everlasting as a sequoia; four strokes and a massive heart attack did not succeed (thank Zeus!) in toppling him. The Unpunished Vice illustrates how fertilely his mind percolates, and how entertainingly. His prose avoids any shade of purple: it has muscle, stride, is robust. You feel secure in its company. Damn, he is such good company! Forty years along, my love for Edmund White’s books remains in honeymoon phase; I can hardly wait for a new one to appear at my reading room door, eager to be unwrapped. Next up—a novel about Texas and a highly-anticipated sex memoir. The Unpunished Vice offers a cool cup of water on a quiet evening to weary daylong travelers. Its intelligence, its scope, its massaging charm merit a place alongside the great works about a creator’s interior development: Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings, Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Andre Gide’s If It Die, Nabokov’s Speak Memory. The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading already has the feel of a classic. RFD 177 Spring 2019 57
Stella Maris: and Other Key West Stories by Michael Carroll. Review by Leo Racicot
M
ichael Carroll’s writing balls are the size of mountains; they have to be to stride the tidal wave of ultra-conservatism currently holding this country underwater, seeking to erase fifty years of progress, conspiring to send us back to our caves. Stella Maris: and Other Key West Stories flips the bird at what has become a sterile, bloodless America. Sex (dirty raunchy, unapologetic sex) jumps off every page of these tales. You smell its deliciousness the way you smell it the second your nose hits Key West. Stella Maris is sexual medicine for the infuriating return to Puritanism we are seeing these days. In brave, flavorful, no-bullshit prose, Carroll’s stories shock delightfully with their lack of concern for what you might think, which judgments you might make. We are presented with memorial services for a fallen drag queen (funny as all fuck), with two ladies sailing on a cruise ship battling betrayal, booze and bad weather. In my favorite story, two guys, recently divorced, decide to lick their wounds by licking every cock on the island in utter abandon, a joyous flashback for a lot of us of the pre-AIDS generation who remember the days when licentious desire had us sinking beneath waves of orgiastic extravangance. Carroll does not though let us forget the decimation of AIDS, the price paid, the lovely lives lost, the horror of an uncaring government to help. He makes us remember what so many young gays now
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do not, that we were sacrificial in our losses, that most of an entire world came this close to being wiped out.
C
arroll, winner of the prestigious Sue Kaufman Prize for 2014’s Little Reef and Other Stories, has an owl’s ear for dialogue, and it is honest dialogue, uncontrived. You know or have known people who talk like this, or wish you did. Ditto the author’s skill with characterization. His characters are not cookie cutout fictions; they are recognizable, real. Again, you wish you could know them. Those you’d rather not are interesting just the same. They brim with legitimacy. They are self-aware, or are trying to be or, if they have lost hope in ever attaining self-awareness, make you ache with why. Some of them, the cruise ship dollies, for example, are a mess but they know it and in strange ways embrace it. These stories are so important, coming as they do to make battle with an insensitive national and cultural devolution. Carroll’s dirty mind radiates s refreshing candor, a frankness. He says out loud what people are thinking, doing, or long to do. His stories are raw, rare, beautiful. They remind me of Capote at the height of his powers, or a gay Eve Babitz. In Stella Maris, Carroll swims way out past the buoys and comes back triumphant. With only two books under his belt, he is a burgeoning short story master and hero.
for his love, mourning ,i wake more than any man it was bad for me then thou are wood and the world bend to the hour and should i sleep longer into the evening I shall wake and see the sunrise and would i think deeper into giving I shall break and see the evening tide for his love, morning ,i wake more than any man ever,should it is bad for me thou are drift wood and the beach tend to the hour while i sleep longer, this is our sheet? while i grasp, cling and shift it is sand and i can’t keep from thinking a’time on this beach fleet and ever shifting i cling it is sand and i am madden and foolish with grief thinking a’time there will be…
—Tolth
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Where I’m From, April 1997 A poem inspired by George Ella Lyon’s Where I’m From
Before Wednesday A frightened animal scampers away or strikes back. That’s the rule. Or he hides. For too many years (too many too many years) I crouched, cubbyholing myself, afraid of the mirrors all around me, denying my name above the door, peering only through the crack with the chain on. No more. So ready. So ready to be ready. Wednesday Four days on the phone and email plus a drive to Louisville plus dinner (Italian and butterflies) plus a bottle of wine I picked out like a grownup plus walking and hey nice couch and smooth music and candles and a sly smile and
After Suddenly mapless, I don’t know my route, but then I never did, really. Too much of my life is my desk at work, file foldered into neat order – too many lists of things to do, someday. Maps are efficient, and file folders clean, but they make lumpy lonely beds. It’s better to have kissing on the couch, to be willing to be hurt and not to be hiding, not hiding, not hiding not hiding not hiding Nothidingnothidingnomorehiding Let me be man in motion embracing evenings and mornings, singing again – I had lost my song. Let me sing of myself like Walt – my compadre, after all. Let me sing to and with men I love. See me here, the revealed singer, poet, man. This is me.
as easy as that.
I live in a house, not a hole. In my house, clothes live in the closet, not me.
looseningmytienoshirtsbitingmebedhandsinhairtongueohyeahohmygodilovekissingyouoh
This is me, where I am and where I’m from.
As easy as that.
—Robert Meadows
Yeah.
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Transmigration
[trans-mahy-grey-shuh n, tranz-] |noun 1. the act of transmigrating. 2. the movement of consciousness into another body after death; metempsychosis.
Transmigration I wanted to travel So I cut up my body Divided into eleven continents and eleven islands Every hair became a shoreline Chest ridge. Mountain ridge Veins of vulnerable waters Vernal ponds. Dehydrated valleys Suns and moons I wanted to travel So I ejected my consciousness Into new semblance Began to perform The dualist dance of illusion-form I’ll be two You be one The hairs split and the shores rose Red light and smoke Then barring horns Beep beep. “you can’t stay here” move to the periphery edge. outer edge. margin. fringe. boundary. boarder. perimeter. circumference. rim. I’m a baby again with a bib trying to find you in my crib —Blackbird
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Have You Told Your Parents? —a metaphor
This is the child who looks up and beseeches, “Please look at the picture I drew.” This is the parent who no longer reaches, scolding, “I’m disappointed in you.” This is the picture—torn, tattered or hidden-or thrown to the wind where it’s lost. This is the longing, concealed and forbidden to be discarded—at any cost. The colors of summer are sweeter than honey, but they come with a bitter remorse. Gold coins seem to spill from a sky bright and sunny. We don’t save them, and we don’t look for the source. Time can’t restore, and we cannot uncover those paintings with their pastels that blend. It’s the rainbow you need just as much as a lover-and the sun that returns like a friend. The apple tree flowers and rivulets flow. You tend the soil, and you clear away weeds. You remember how your mother fashioned each row, and how your father brought you packets of seeds. The earth casts its spell—a mysterious essence, in roses and irises tall. In sleep and in dreams, it’s a sweet effervescence-bright crayons held in fingers so small. Together we feel it, this soft steady hum. Deeply rooted, it is not really far. Once again, we begin. We belong. We become. And, like a treasure, we accept who we are. —Alan Sugar
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Site of the first Spiritual Conference for Radical Faeries in 1979
Property can be available for hosted gatherings and events.
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Issue 179 / Fall 2019
BETTER ANARCHY! Submission Deadline: July 21, 2019 www.rfdmag.org/upload
Can we do anarchy better? As we celebrate Stonewall 50, we are reminded that ten years later the first “official” gathering of Radical Faeries met on Labor Day weekend at an ashram in the Arizona desert. Recognizing that many circles had already formed and explored fey consciousness earlier, this date is a marker in creating large gatherings and sharing new vistas of consciousness. Where have we come since then? Circle process and consensus politics are the cornerstones of anarchist communities. As we have used these technologies to grow and nurture our communities, urban and rural, permanent and transitional, how have we molded these approaches to meet our own needs? Where have we failed each other and these ideals through these past four decades? What have we learned along the way? We are seeking an honest and robust discussion that shares experiences within our sanctuaries, urban co-housing spaces and collectives. How have we used circles to advance our cause—and/ or hurt each other? Do we really know how consensus works? As our community grows, welcoming members from new generations of qweer folk who have grown up in a manner different from old-timers, how do we honor and pass on our legacy while folding in new ways of thinking brought by fresh faces. How do we walk while holding hands as we work together to build a brighter future?
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a reader created gay quarterly celebrating queer diversity
RFD Vol 45 No 3 #177 $11.95
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