The Radical Faeries are a network of queer men and allies, formed in the United States in the 1970s, whose integrated political, cultural, and spiritual philosophies reject mainstream norms defining human experience. CHE graduate Mark Tully explores the Radical Faeries’ history, links with Native American third-gender traditions, alliances with other radical political movements, and struggle to become more racially and culturally diverse in the 21^st century.

The cultural origins of the Radical Faeries span history. We are a group of queer men, along with quite a few queer and straight women, and some straight men, who have a particular mix of founding beliefs and behaviors.

We believe that many genders manifest in nature, and that queer men are a gender with a distinct temperament, consciousness, and role in society, including the role of developing justice and understanding through mediation, performance, and caretaking. We believe that all social justice causes are one united cause, and that all sexuality is inseparable from the sacred.

We gather together in wilderness sanctuaries on a seasonal basis, partaking in pan-cultural, nature-based rituals, and meeting in “heart circle,” where we share our intimate experiences of the world. We dress in flamboyant clothing associated with both genders and neither, and we take on “Faerie names,” often derived from the natural world, as an alias and true identity when amongst each other.

Early Queer Political Action

All of these traits are derived from the experience of radical activist Harry Hay. Beginning in 1930s Los Angeles, Harry was deeply involved in Hollywood-based anti-fascist groups. He was brought into the American Communist Party by his lover Will Geer (Grandpa Walton on The Waltons), with whom he organized immigrant farm workers and helped organize labor demonstrations. During the Second World War, Harry was active with many theater-based justice groups – an experience that would inspire a crucial component of queer men’s role in society.

Harry was deeply involved with the 1948 presidential campaign of the Progressive Party’s Henry Wallace. During this time, Harry became the first person to publicly conceptualize gay people as a “minority group” with vested interests in specific civil rights. He authored a proposed plank for Wallace’s campaign regarding sexual liberty, attempting an exchange of gay votes for gay rights. The proposal didn’t even make it to a vote – not surprising when the state of California considered homosexuality illegal, and many other states had laws against serving drinks to gays or to allowing them gather in public. The American Psychological Association classified homosexuality as a mental illness for another 25 years after Wallace’s campaign, but Harry was undeterred by the stigma and continued to rally for a gay-specific organization tied to progressive politics, putting forth ideas labeled “Bachelor’s Anonymous” and “Bachelors for Wallace.”

1950: Mattachine Society

It was during this campaign that Harry decided the closet wasn’t enough. By word of mouth he gathered five radical queers to form the Mattachine Society, the first American queer political organization. The formation and operation of this society contains many elements that were transferred to the Radical Faeries when the group was formed in the late 1970s. The group met in circles where they would share their intimate experiences of being gay in the world. For ultimate secrecy, they assumed aliases. The deeply radical roots of its founders meant they approached all social justice struggles as the same fight.

Even the name “Mattachine” channeled Faerie elements from throughout human history. Harry took the name from medieval France’s Société Mattachine, a secret society of “bachelors” that would travel through the countryside performing ballads and dramas highlighting social injustice. They represented issues on behalf of the peasants, and took the aristocracy’s retribution upon themselves. Always masked, they overtly hid their identities as a form of protest. Their main event was a series of ritualized performances during the vernal equinox’s Feast of Fools. They took their name from the figure Mattaccino in Italian theater – the court jester who could tell the truth to the king when no one else could. In turn, this name was derived from Moorish Spain, the Arabic mutavajjihin, who were sword dancers dressed in elaborate costumes and masks.

The year he founded the organization, 1950, Harry was ousted from the Communist Party in fear of the consequences that homosexuals might attract to the group. Harry’s Mattachine Society grew by word of mouth, and assumed a structure of separate “cells.” Its first overt political act was organizing a legal defense of one of its founders, Dale Jennings, after he was entrapped by a police officer soliciting sex. The charges were dismissed, and the Society publicized the first real gay-rights victory in history.

This publicity led to a vast increase in Mattachine members, and also brought scrutiny from a country driven mad by the Red Scare of the 1950s. As the Society’s ranks swelled, the membership grew into a conservative majority. They questioned gays’ status as a legitimate minority group, and wanted to seek assimilationist reforms – fighting to be “just like everyone else” rather than fighting for civil rights as a unique social group. Ironically, in 1954, Harry and the other radical founders were ousted from their organization in fear of the consequences that Communists might attract to the group.

Conservatives & Assimilationists

One major factor in the rise of large urban queer communities in the United States was the country’s armed services. Thousands of soldiers, after risking their lives in the Second World War, were dishonorably discharged for purported homosexual activity. These men could not return in disgrace to their home communities, so they stayed in the port cities (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc.) to which they had returned from overseas.

White men were disproportionately affected by this disgrace, losing a host of privileges granted to white soldiers only, including education and housing grants, which offered a mass democratization of white privilege. Abandoned to define their identities, they created various forms of solidarity with each other. Some formed motorcycle gangs (including the Blue Angels), some embraced bent-gender identities and built up the transvestite/transexual scene, and others went underground to establish heterosexual lifestyles and/or secret meeting places (bars, mostly).

Racial segregation, though broken down somewhat in the gay scene by the 1950s, remained the norm. Gay white men were removed from established norms of male privilege and white privilege. The associated sense of insult, rooted in sexism and racism, was a major source of the rage behind the gay rights movement. Assimilationist gay politics seeks the return of these privileges, and the modern-day assimilationist agenda poses the rights to marry and legally adopt children as the near-completion of the movement. The final right they seek is the one that started the movement: the right to remain in the military.

Return to Solidarity

The Mattachine assimilationists’ split with radicalism defined the gay liberation movement for a generation. Remnants of Mattachine Society and the lesbian Daughters of Bilitis pushed the social boundaries for queers in radical ways, for instance pressing for the 1958 Supreme Court decision that discussing homosexuality is not obscene. However, they remained separate from a wider analysis and solidarity with other social justice issues. This solidarity returned after the Stonewall riots of 1969 inaugurated a newly radicalised movement that emerged alongside the feminist and African-American civil rights movements.

The newly solidarity-based queer rights movement was what Harry Hay had worked for all his life. He had become deeply involved in anti-draft and anti-war campaigns, feminist and Native American activism, and helped found the Lavender Caucus of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition. He was dedicated to acting as a bridge between the queer movement and labour groups and other “third parties.” Yet once again, the major institutions representing gay issues drifted toward assimilationist identity and agendas – a movement that Harry and like-minded queers fought and still fight to this day.

Berdache: a Third Gender

Harry’s involvement with Native American culture led to a defining personal vision concerning gay identity. Many Native American societies recognise the “berdache” as a third gender. This third-gender assignment became, for Harry, the core of Radical Faerie consciousness. Many Faerie traits were inspired by the berdache and the Mattachine of European origin.

“Berdache” is a blanket term given by Europeans to the third gender, though each Native American society has used their own terms (at least 155 exist, by one accounting), and many modern berdache prefer the phrase “two-spirit.” Although Westernisation drastically reduced their visibility and appreciation, berdache have been part of Native American societies throughout time. They exist today in growing social recognition, especially in the queer community.

Berdache are biological males who, from childhood or through visions, assume the habits of women. Socially, they are recognised as a unique, separate gender, with a pattern of differences encompassing behaviour, temperament, social and economic roles and religious specialization. They wear the dress of both men and women, and some that is distinctively berdache. Although sexuality is not the emphasis of their identity, they mostly form emotional and sexual relationships with non-berdache men. Their gender-discordant relationships further emphasise their third-gender status, and place them is sharp contrast to the Western binary understanding of gender and the sexual-inversion understanding of homosexuality.

Same-gender sexual behaviour outside of berdache genders is common, though more discreet. It is worth noting that indigenous North American societies have traditionally considered sexuality to be sacred, and have not habituated sexual shame and repression in their children. Gender was not considered biological, but the result of social and ritual interventions throughout life. Boys displaying berdache tendencies were neither discouraged nor encouraged, and left to develop naturally. At adolescence, their gender status was ritually confirmed, including the adoption of a unique name.

Berdache Roles and Responsibilities

The berdache take on the social and economic tasks of both women and men, and some that are unique to themselves. Typical women’s work embraced by the berdache includes pottery, maintaining the household, and weaving (in Navajo societies). They often combine this with men’s work, including facilitation of religious ceremonies, farming, and weaving (in Zuni societies). The Navajo berdache (or nadleehes) Klah, pioneered the addition of ceremonial symbols into woven rugs around 1920, in a famous example of gender-integrated work.

Berdache have been vital mediators, due to their ability to walk in both male and female settings, even during ritual gender segregation. Beyond gender mediation, they have been called upon to help resolve conflicts, and to play both warrior and healer roles on the hunt and in battle. They have also been considered vital to raising children, passing on arts traditions, and defining issues within the society. This latter function often took theatrical form – commonly a “sacred clown” bringing laughter to serious issues and attention to neglected matters of importance. This tradition survives in North America through the institution of the rodeo clown, traditionally played by a Native American man in women’s dress, who saves the life of a fallen cowboy by distracting the animal, as well as lightening the mood at a serious time.

Their mixture of male and female traits has often been considered a religious manifestation, through the belief that the self is manifested both as a higher, spiritual self, and as an earthly, physical self – and that one’s spiritual self is the opposite gender from the physical (hence the term, “two-spirit”). The berdache are considered bridges between the physical and spiritual worlds, and their role in conflict resolution has been spiritual as well as practical.

Radical Faeries and Diversity

During the 1970s, Harry and his life partner John Burnside moved to New Mexico, where he ran the trading post at San Juan Pueblo Indian reservation and sought spiritual guidance from berdache. In 1979, the first Radical Faerie gathering was organized by Harry and a few friends, and attracted over 200 attendees. It was held in the Zuni territory of Arizona, incorporating “chanting, dancing, streamers, drag, ritual music, mud pits, sweat lodges, fire dances, drumming, running through the woods naked, Sufi twirling, spiral dancing...” (quoted by Philip Hoare, 2002).

There has always been a cultural connection between Radical Faeries and Native American traditions, particularly berdache inspiration, two-spirit involvement, and the sharing of dance and arts traditions. Additionally, the “quasi-Pagan” Faeries practice a variety of nature-centric rituals drawn from many cultures. However, the Faeries have arisen from white-specific cultural pockets, and continue to converge there. These pockets include rural-dwelling queers, those seeking to get “back to the land,” queer rainbow children, and neo-Euro-Pagans – and many represent lifestyle choices based on privileged status.

The faeries’ multicultural politics were formed in a culturally-specific (white) vision of diversity. True integration means working with a diversity of visions, which is an awkward process. Cultural appropriation is a more comfortable task, and often precedes real integration. In the history of Faerie gatherings, the first appearances by men “of colour” were reportedly met with some controversy and discomfort as the white-supremacist tendencies present even in radical multiculturalists were agitated to the surface. Similar controversy has surrounded the inclusion of women and straights, though the community has largely matured into open inclusion.

White Supremacy and American Radicalism

These dynamics mirror a wider American phenomenon. Modern times has brought an embrace of indigenous  culture, while there are deeply unresolved issues with people of African, Asian, and Latin-American descent. The height of white/indigenous conflict occurred generations ago, and the “reservation compromise” (genocide and ghettoisation of indigenous peoples) was settled before many states were even incorporated. This puts an historical and geographic distance between white-settler atrocities and the current native-liberation movement, which present-day white radicals can comfortably support with minimum guilt.

This comfort zone does not exist for other current racial issues. America’s historically atrocious treatment of African, Asian and Latin American populations is more raw because of the tensions in dense urban areas that they’ve shared with whites for generations. The ghettoisation, enforced poverty, under-education, segregation, and continued assumption of inferiority plaguing non-white America is a system into which white Americans are intricately woven, whether they prefer it or not. Forced participation in the institution of white supremacy contorts the progressive identity of white radicals, leading to maintenance of segregation and arms-length solidarity driven by guilt, shame, and painful confusion.

Barriers to participation for people of colour and women are difficult to perceive below a certain threshold consciousness developed through racial integration work. Radical Faeries are not exclusionary in ideology – quite the opposite – but the barriers exist. White blindness to these barriers is frustrating, and pervasive. In the Northeastern United States, the problematique becomes entrenched and solidified, due to a historical denial of racism as a strictly Southern phenomenon, and a lack of multicultural exposure in predominantly white rural areas, such as the areas around the Northeast sanctuary in Vermont.

Faeries of All Colors Together: Barriers and Opportunities

It is from within the Northeast Radical Faerie community that FACT – Faeries of All Colors Together – was conceptualised. FACT was put together by urban Faeries with the intent of manifesting direct outreach and involvement with radical queers of color. FACT worked with FIERCE, a group of homeless queer youth in New York City, as a solidarity gesture some years ago, but hasn’t gone much farther. We are now reviving FACT to pick up the efforts of outreach and inclusion. One tactic is fundraising for training resources that we can bring to gatherings as a structured space to address inter-ethnic dynamics, white cultural supremacy within progressive/radical movements, and to promote understanding and healing.

Faeries have a head start on welcoming this kind of process. We regularly establish heart-space, where we learn to speak and listen to the vocabulary of the heart, and address internalised oppression on all levels. Our cultural politics makes us a group which explicitly yearns for multicultural bridges and healing and is, conceptually, willing to go to unusually difficult places to address and achieve radical goals.

However, there are dynamics of Radical Faerie culture which present barriers to explicit programmes. For instance, in the case of structured trainings, many have indicated that paid workshops are entirely inconsistent with Faerie culture and process. They argue that anyone with a talent to facilitate these kinds of discussions should be willing to join the community and offer their talent for free, as others offer their talents in drumming or facilitating heart circles.

Our relative lack of cultural diversity is seen as quite natural considering our origins. Some argue that we gather in a white-majority area of the country – yet most of us come from the ethnically diverse cities of Boston and New York. However, for many urban people of colour, the very idea of wilderness camping is strange and culturally distant.

Greeting the idea of explicit outreach is the long-held understanding that Faeries do not “recruit,” but instead befriend and invite newcomers. Any growth of diversity is seen ideally as a passive evolution, waiting as the word spreads and working to create an environment of inclusion when people discover an interest in the Radical Faerie belief system and philosophy.

These observations and attitudes are certainly real, and the passive-evolution preference is validated by a growing trickle of diversity manifesting at sanctuary gatherings – particularly in the more established ones. And of course, neo-Pagan wilderness camping is a very white cultural manifestation, though I’ve witnessed Faerie convergences absorb multicultural influences very naturally when present. But these realities of Faerie culture do grate against the preference of some Faeries (including myself and some of my peers) to also address issues of racism through direct outreach, overt training, and explicit group invitations and assistance.

Perhaps those of us involved in FACT will dispense with the negotiations and simply raise the funds to pursue action as we see fit. A half-compromise might be targeted invitation of radical queers of colour to city-based Faerie functions and monthly heart circles, and letting human nature manifest from there. The important consequence, if successful, would be an expedited evolution of Radical Faerie culture toward a more fully and overtly representative pan-cultural phenomenon, more able to tackle challenges and manifest healing within ever-more fundamental layers of oppression and liberation, as our founders – despite their own supremacist tendencies – envisioned.

Mark Tully (Flood) earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Ecology in 1993 from College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, and received his Letter of Completion for the Centre for Human Ecology’s MSc programme in 1995. (S)he spent 13 years doing inner-city community and youth organizing in Boston, the Bronx, and San Francisco. During his stint in San Francisco, 1998 – 2006, he worked with white progressives on the issues of uncovering and addressing white supremacy. Tully was an arts organizer during the 1999-2001 world trade movement, and remained a community arts organizer until 2005. Flood now resides in New England, and  is active in the Radical Faeries’ east-coast community. Myshele Goldberg also contributed editing to the above piece.

Sources:

• Faerie tribal memory.
• Film: Hope Along The Wind: The Life of Harry Hay. Copyright 2001, Eric Slade Productions.
• www.Harryhay.com (also where to order the above film)
• Wikipedia entries for “Harry Hay” and for “Mattachine Society”.
• A Native American Perspective on the Theory of Gender Continuum, by DRK, html document.
• Native American Berdache as Mediator: Towards a Culturally Specific Understanding, by Kathy Allen, html document.
• How To Become A Berdache: Toward A Unified Analysis of Gender Diversity, essay by Will Roscoe, html document.

Further Reading:

• The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement, book by Stuart Timmons.
• Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the Words of Its Founder, book by Harry Hay, edited by Will Roscoe.
• Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America, book by Will Roscoe.
• The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture, book by Walter L. Williams.

Essential Companion Herstory:

• Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement, book by Marcia M. Gallo.