Qualia Folk is the virtual voice of Qualia Gay Folklife, a group of scholars and activists dedicated to the LGBTQ community.

Our mission at Qualia Folk is twofold: education and celebration. Evolving since 2003 from an annual festival in Columbus, Ohio, Qualia has transformed into a scholarship for folklore students based on academic performance-presentations (see POJO). In addition, we offer to everyone the Qualia Encyclopedia of Gay Folklife (QEGF), open access to all and free of charge. You don’t even need to register – we do ask that you cite us if you use articles for research. Please let us know when and how you use the information we provide. Encyclopedia articles are listed further down on this page.

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Articles in the Qualia Encyclopedia of Gay Folklife:

To find information on a subject, use the Search box in the right-hand corner at the top of this page. You can also click on any of the article titles listed below. Happy hunting!

Accessorizing
Activism
ACT UP
Emperor Ai
AIDS
Aikane (review pending)
Robert Aitken
Allies
A-mei
Angel Action
Buck Angel
Gloria Anzaldúa
Aravani Festival
Architecture
Ardhanari
Aswat
Azis
Bahuchara Mata
Ballad
Ballroom Scene
Bar, Nightclub
Bear
Bear Music
Alison Bechdel
Gladys Bentley
Bisexual
Bitch
Black and Blue
Body
Body Fascism
Boston Marriage
Kevin Bourassa and Joe Varnell
Camp
Camp Records
Carlos Las Vegas
Cartoons and Comics
Castro Theatre
Stacyann Chin
Meg Christian and Cris Williamson
Circuit
Closet
Code
Coming Out
Corrective Rape
Dance
Daughters of Bilitis
Gerald Davis
FolkWitness: Davis AFS Speech
Day of Silence
Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan
Michael Dillon
Dinah Shore Weekend
Disabled and Differently Abled
Disco
DJ
Documentary
Drag
Drag Ball
Drag King
Drag Queen
Dykes On Bikes
Bulent Ersoy
Erzulie Dantor
Ethics
FolkWitness: Ethics and Assisted Suicide
Ex-Gay
FolkWitness: Ex-Gay Therapy and Torture
Fa’afafine (review pending)
Fag Bomb and Gay Bomb
Fairy
Family
Feminine
Festival
Fire Island
Flag
Flagging
Flame
Folklore and Folklife
FolkWitness: Natalia Gaitán (review pending)
Gay
Gay American Heroes
Gay Games
Gender
Steve Greenberg
Sakia Gunn
Halloween
Mabel Hampton
Hanh Thi Pham
Hanky Code
Harm Reduction
Hatshepsut
Healthways
Hercules and Love Affair
Hi’iaka (work in progress)
Hijra
Hinaleimoana
HIS Kings
Homokaasu
Homophobia
Homosexual
Hu Tianbao
Humor
I Was Born This Way
Icon
Power Infiniti
Institute of Sexology
International Court System
Intersex
Invasion of the Pines
Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees
Grace Jantzen (author needed)
Jazz and Blues
Joke
Juana Inés de la Cruz
Ka’ahumanu (review pending)
Kaleo (review pending)
Kamehameha III (review pending)
Kathoey
Frankie Knuckles
Kvisa Shchora
Labrys
The Ladder
Ladies of Llangollen
Ladyfest (author needed)
Leather
Lesbian
Lesbian Avengers
Lesbian Herstory Archives
Lesbos
Larry Levan
LGBTQ
Li Yu
Lozen and Dahteste
Luster Lustivious
Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin
Machismo
Mahu
Mallinath
Irshad Manji
Man-Love Thursday
Marriage
Masculine
Mati Work (author needed)
Mattachine Society
Metropolitan Community Church
Dawn McKinley and Cathy Reynolds
Metrosexual
Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival
Military
Milk
Mishima Yukio
Mixing and Remixing
Mohini
Maryam Molkara
Molly
Mona’s
Susan Morabito
Murder Music
Music
Muxe and Nguiu
Myth and Legend
National Women’s Music Festival
Holly Near
Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep (review pending)
Melka Nilsa and Wetka Polang
Willi Ninja
Nzinga
Olivia
Kevin Omni
Orixá
Outing
Out of the Shadow, Into the Sun
Paradise Garage
Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton (author needed)
Pat Parker
Gretchen Phillips
Pilgrimage
Pink Triangle
FolkWitness: Pink Triangle and Problems With Verification
Place and Geography
Poetry
Polari
Pride
Project Lazarus
Pussy Palace Raid
Pussy Riot (review pending)
Qualia
Queer
Queering
Queers On Wheels
The Quilt
Rabbit God Temple
Rainbow
Ramakrishna
Kaleo Ramos (review pending)
Sultan Raziyya (author needed)
Toshi Reagon
Red Party
Red Ribbon
Religion
Revelations
Sylvia Rivera
Rodeo
Rosabel
Bayard Rustin
Sappho
José Sarria
Bert Savoy
Scarlet Oh!
Sex Garage
Sexology
Sex Wars
Shrine
Oliver Sipple
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
Smash
Sodom
Somewhere over the Rainbow
Spirituality
Sports
Sports Icon
Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas
Polly Stewart
FolkWitness: Polly Stewart’s “What Parson Weems Didn’t Tell You”
Stonewall
Stonewall Inn and Christopher Park
Sworn Virgin
Sylvester
Symbol
Takarazuka Revue
Tango
Dan Taulapapa McMullin (review pending)
Text
Theater
The Theater Offensive
Billy Tipton
Toronto Bathhouse Raids
Trans
Trembling Before G-d
Turkish Oil Wrestling
Two-Spirit
Urania
San Vicente
Village
Le Village
Village People
Louisa Wall
Mae West
We’wha and Nancy
Wigstock Riots
Oscar Wilde
Woman Chief
Women’s Land Movement
Women’s Music
Women’s Music Festival
Xena
Yagli Gures
‘Yan Daudu
Yaoi and Yuri
Zap

Below are brief depictions of each article. To continue browsing, click on Older posts. To find an article, type its title in the Search box or click on its name in the above list.

Grace Jones, an inspiration for LGTBQ artists (www.theworldofgracejones.com, December 2011)

Accessorizing refers to the use of something in such a way that it accents one’s appearance. In the LGBTQ community, accessorizing is a highly valued folk art, and reflects a camp ethos of hilarious exaggeration in which fashion is a force for the highest good, lack of style is the worst atrocity, and enemies are ridiculed for not living up to aesthetic standards.

Fashion Aesthetics

In the world of fashion, accessories are used in an outfit for two reasons: practical use and visual impact. The practicality of a thick coat in cold weather or an umbrella in rainy weather makes these accessories valuable for their usefulness. The other reason for accessories, visual impact, is a different kind of value: attracting the right kind of attention from a chosen audience.

In the gendering of fashion, accessorizing for visual rather than practical reasons has been associated with women rather than men, except for military and paramilitary parade dress (and in some societies, fighting gear), political and religious office, theatrical performance, and festivals. Obsession with accessorizing for visual impact has been the hallmark of the effeminate homosexual man since at least the seventeenth century in Western European discourse. In English, the terms dandy and fop refer to a man who is overly concerned with fashion, and whose masculinity is questionable.

Oscar Wilde: "One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art" (www.oscarwildesociety.co.uk/publications.html, February 2012)

One embodied example of accessorizing associated with same-sex orientation is the British author Oscar Wilde, who wore flamboyant (from Old French: flamboyer or “to flame”) clothes as accessories to draw attention to himself. Wilde also wore a green carnation in his outfits, which would become a coded accessory signifying homosexuality.

The most prominent feature of accessorizing in Gay folk history is the presentation of self in drag, and may be traced to the pansy shows, male illusionist performances, and drag balls of the early twentieth century in America. Notorious drag queen Bert Savoy wore flamboyant women’s outfits and would perch large hats on the side of his head during his stage performances.

Gladys Bentley (thebutchcaucus.blogspot.com/2010/10/gladys-bentley-worlds-greatest-sepia.html, February 2012)

At the Harlem drag balls, men in extravagant drag would be presented to throngs of onlookers, including female and male cross-dressers who accessorized clothing to present themselves in varying degrees of drag off-stage. The jazz/blues singer Gladys Bentley would perform in a man’s tuxedo as she sang ribald songs at the piano in clubs such as Mona’s in San Francisco and the Clam House in New York City. Bentley was also known to accessorize male dancers in drag to perform during her numbers in Harlem’s Ubangi Club.

Accessorizing as Code

Tolerance of orientation- and gender-variant people has fluctuated in the course of history. For the most part, Gay folk before Stonewall (1969) had to exercise extreme caution when revealing their orientation. Dress codes for women and men were sometimes policed by authorities with vigor, so subtle accessorizing became a means for finding prospective romance and like-minded companions. The accessory could be as simple as carrying a certain book or magazine recognizable by other members of the community.

A sister of Perpetual Indulgence. Adnan Sami Photos (http://12gg.com/modules/com_qcontacts/?the-sisters-of-perpetual-indulgence-886, January 2012)

Safe enclaves in the decades before Stonewall would often feature drag performers who would accessorize clothing worn by police, soldiers, sexy actresses, and 1950s rockers to dazzle and attract customers into the establishments. In the late 1970s, the Village People disco group accessorized costumes associated with machismo, such as the soldier, construction worker, Indian warrior, and cowboy. About the same time, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence loosely imitated the dress of Catholic nuns, adding whiteface and extreme drag queen makeup.

Drag king Elvis Herselvis, Phot by Carl Posey (http://idilvice.blogspot.com/2010/01/elvis-herselvis.html, January 2012)

At the end of the twentieth century, drag king troupes continued the tradition of cross-dressing for women, and presented themselves as masculine icons such as Elvis Presley, accessorizing elements of his iconography (hair, bell bottoms, and sideburns, as does Canada’s Carlos Las Vegas in the twenty-first century).

King of camp: Carlos Las Vegas of Winnipeg, also Emperor of the Winnipeg Imperial Court (mspurdys.fateback.com/carlos.html, January 2012)

Stonewall: accessorizing rage and violence

When analyzing the crucial moment of LGBTQ modern history, the Stonewall Uprising, elements of the story reflect the aesthetics of accessorizing. Popular versions of the story includes effeminate men, butch women, men in drag, and transpeople, thus portraying the riot as the reaction of a population marked by orientation and gender diversity. The violence against the police during the initial raid, and later against the riot squads, was mostly for show and not intended to harm the police officers. In addition to the accessorizing of violence, there was biting humor and lampooning of those same police by the rioters, turning the authorities into hapless participants in campy street performances. The riot police functioned as accessories in a show intended for broadcast across the world, and indeed that is what the riots and the protests afterward became: propaganda designed for the presentation of the Gay community-as-visible.

That same rage and humor would be summoned in zaps, unannounced performances of activist groups such as the Gay Activist Alliance (later on, the Gay and Lesbian Activist Alliance), ACT UP, and the Lesbian Avengers. ACT UP would even incorporate accessories into one of their chants:

Your gloves don’t match your shoes
They’ll see it on the news

Accessories are often the key for LGBTQ activism, such as waving underwear during the Toronto Panties Picket Protest in 2002 in response to a raid against a women’s bathhouse event, or the red ribbon for AIDS activism.

An activist and scholar in gender studies, Luster Lustivious (Sile Singleton) will blur the line between king and queen (www.truthserum.org/images/2006.05.13_youthpride/pages/2006.05.13_015.htm, January 2012)

One year after Stonewall, protesters held the first marches that would eventually become Pride parades, now held around the globe. Pride parades are venues for accessorizing on a grand scale, with Dykes on Bikes in leather motorcycle gear, Leathermen and women in Leather gear designed for sex play, paramilitary uniforms, rifles, and flags of marching bands, and rainbow accessories throughout the parade and in the crowd.

Activist and intellectual, transman Pat Califia accessorizing leather vest, tattoos, and facial hair in his presentation of self as a Leatherman. Photo: Mark Chester (examiner.com/glbt-erotica-books-in-national/interview-with-patrick-califia-part-one, February 2012)

Erotic and Festival Accessorizing

In the performance of erotic presentation, accessorizing has been coded for both stage and for cruising (looking for romance and/or sex) at a bar. The Leather community has accessorized various items that mark the Leatherman and Leatherwoman, such as leather and chrome harnesses, leather vests, leather caps, chaps, pants, kilts, boots, and spike heels.

Clothing associated with the Leather community is considered by dedicated members not to be accessories. Rather, leather is a second skin and implies dedication to a set of principles and guidelines for ethical behavior in the search for BDSM pleasures. (http://tribes.tribe.net/gayleathermen/photos/71b521a7-45b2-49c5-9c8b-1d946ce532f8, January 2012)

The hanky code is a color-coded system in which people can signal what kinds of erotic acts they prefer by adroit placing of a colored handkerchief upon their person, usually a back pants pocket. Burlesque performers at Lesbian clubs utilize bustiers, pasties (tassels attached to circles glued on the nipples), feather boas, and high heels.

Accessorizing vampire and burlesque: Rosie Lugosi of Britain (thelowry.com/event/Burlesque-March2010, June 2012)

Lack of clothing may also be an accessory in LGBTQ festivals. For Pride events and women’s music festivals, many women will go without shirts and display their breasts. Similar display of the torso can be found in the muscles-as-accessory display at Gay men’s Circuit parties in which men will take off their shirts as they dance.

White Party-Palm Springs. Photo: Jesse Kreitzman, EDGE Publications (www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=parties&sc=&sc3=&id=89781, January 2012)

The most significant and creative use of accessorizing remains with the camp performance of drag, and remains a major feature of drag queen pageants, drag king performance, organizations such as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and the regal pomp of the International Court System.

Emperor Junior Viadinho, Imperial Court of Massachusetts (impcourt.org/massachusetts/peerage/male_junior.php, March 2012)

Ethics of Accessorizing

One of the important features of accessorizing in Gay folklife is the baseline principle that anything can be accessorized, especially if it is controversial or nonsensical. The dynamics implicit in this principle have the symbolic power to raise anything to aesthetic heights while simultaneously reducing the implicit sanctity of the accessorized. For example, Jesus on the cross is a sacred icon for many Christians. But a drag show may incorporate a well-built Jesus in a silver loincloth and glowing stigmata singing a show tune with Roman soldiers and/or Hebrew temple priests as back-up dancers.

2011 Hunky Jesus contest in Dolores Park, San Francisco (baycitizen.org/blogs/culturefeed/hunky-jesus-contest-2011-1, January 2013)

The incorporation of military gear in Circuit events privileges the man in uniform as sexy, but trivializes the seriousness associatd with military identity by relegating it into the category of a sexual fetish.

For the LGBTQ community, the importance of accessorizing those who are its most visible opponents is not only done for scandalous humor but also an ethical imperative to show homophobic organizations and individuals that they are not above ridicule.

– Mickey Weems
QEGF Authors and Articles
QEGF Introduction
Comments? Post them on our Encyclopedia facebook page.

Further reading:

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Creekmur, Corey K. and Alexander Doty. Out in Culture: Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Essays on Popular Culture. Durham: Duke University, 1994.

DiLallo, Kevin and Jack Krumholtz. The Unofficial Gay Manual: Living the Lifestyle, or at Least Appearing to. New York: Main Street, 1994.

Simpson, Mark. Male Impersonators: Men Performing Masculinity. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Dan Choi, activist protesting discrimination against LGBTQ people in Moscow (2011, Getty Image, queermeup.com/gay-pride/gay-activist-arrested-in-violence-at-moscow-gay-march, January 2012)

Activism is public performance for the rights of a specific group of people. It encompasses activities such educational seminars, distribution of information (paper and online), fundraising, protests, and rioting. LGBTQ activists have played an important role in Gay folklife, and activism is an important Gay folkway that intersects with many other folkways in the community. Among the many strategies developed by Gay folk activists since the late 1800s, rarely has violence been used by LGBTQ people, although violence is used against LGBTQ people in some countries.

Russian LGBTQ activist being punched in the face during unsactioned Pride Parade, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2011. Photo: Reuters/Stringer (russianforum.org/tag/civil-unrest, January 2012)

Early Activism in Western Europe

The first form of activism was done from a quasi-institutional medical basis when homosexuality was framed as a physiological defect rather than a crime or a sin. Sexologists such as Magnus Hirschfeld and Karl Heinrich Urlichs used terms like homosexual (same-sex) and invert (a person with traits of the so-called opposite sex) to speak up in favor of rights for orientation- and gender-variant people. In 1897, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee was founded in Germany. The organization published a yearbook and gathered signatures to end Paragraph 175, the section in the German Penal Code that punished homosexuality as a crime. Some of the people who signed the petition were Albert Einstein, Hermann Hesse, Leo Tolstoy, and Emile Zola.

But the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee would face major setbacks with the rise of National Socialism (Nazism) in Germany, and was terminated by the Nazis in 1933. Its geographical center, the Institute for Sexology in Berlin, was looted and its archives burnt.

In addition to early German activists was the French writer André Gide, who advocated for the rights of prisoners and colonized peoples, and wrote a series of articles from 1911 to 1920 defending homosexuality. These treatises were compiled into a book, Corydon.

As well as burning the books of Magnus Hirschfeld, founder of the Institute of Sexology in Berlin, Nazi youth organizations plundered the institute and burned its archives in the street (www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/MHINS.HTM, January 2012)

During the twentieth century in the USA, Gay men and women gathered in secret to discuss the troubles that came with being homosexual. The first American activist group was the Society for Human Rights in Chicago, founded in 1924, which was shut down by police within months. In 1950, the Mattachine Society for homophiles (same-sex loving people) was started in Los Angeles, which eventually branched out into smaller chapters across the United States (the Society was overwhelmingly male, and concerned itself with men more so than women).

The anti-communist atmosphere of the post-war era forced the organizations to be extremely secretive. It was illegal across the United States to be homosexual, and a majority of the founders of the Mattachine Society were members of the Communist Party. If the secrecy were broken, the homophile movement would have been demolished before it began.

Just because homosexual rights were associated with communism in the USA, this did not mean that homosexuality was accepted in communist countries. Mongolia, for example, did not have its first LGBTQ activist organization (Tavilan, Mongolian for “Destiny”) until 1999, nine years after the communist regime fell.

Picture of unidentified Gay Mongolian man, from Beyond the Blue Sky (2009), an exhibit of photographs presenting life in Mongolia for LGBTQ people (www.beyondthebluesky.com/portraits/inframe/a.htm, December 2011)

Before the Stonewall Uprising in New York City that mark the beginning of Gay Liberation movement as a worldwide phenomenon, a handful of students at Columbia and Cornell Universities in New York began the Student Homophile Leagues, the first college level homosexual student organization. The student organizations were originally designed as a way for homosexual students to meet – they also were centers for local activism. Out of the Mattachine Society also came ONE, a magazine dedicated to homosexual rights. The magazine and its parent organization, ONE, Inc., were notably inclusive, with both men and women involved in the production of the magazine.

Plaque in New Orleans in front of what was the Upstairs Lounge, a Gay bar that was destroyed when an arsonist set fire to it. The plaque has the names of those killed in the flames, and the following inscription: "At this site on June 24, 1973 in the Upstairs Lounge, these thirty-two people lost their lives in the worst fire in New Orleans. The impact went far beyond the loss of individual lives, giving birth to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights movement in New Orleans." huffingtonpost.com/erik-ose/gay-weddings-and-32-funer_b_110084.html, 2012

Pre-Stonewall San Francisco: Daughters of Bilitis

The Lesbian community was politically active over a decade before Stonewall. The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) were founded in San Francisco in 1955. Like the Mattachine Society, The DOB was assimilationist, trying to work with society and conform to society’s mores as much as possible rather than confront and challenge. The Daughters were initially careful not to identify as “gay” and were not always willing to publicly call themselves “lesbian” (one option was to use the word “variant”). Members would dress in standard clothing for their gender. The DOB also published The Ladder, which called for more rights for homosexual women.

Activist Barbara Gittings and her partner, Kay Lahausen. They met at a meeting for the Daughters of Bilitis. In 2007, Gittings died from breast cancer (ang-ladlad.livejournal.com/21315.html#cutid1, January 2012)

In 1960, the DOB sponsored the first national Lesbian convention in San Francisco, which included a debate about whether Gay bars were legal or moral, a sermon condemning homosexuality by a male preacher, and awards given to the men who helped the DOB (including some members of the Mattachine Society), declaring those men to be “Sons of Bilitis” or “SOBs.” The FBI was also present, making sure no women were dressed in men’s clothing.

SIR, Vanguard, Street Orphans, and ICS

The Society for Individual Rights (SIR) in San Francisco (founded in 1963), was more confrontational than Mattachine and DOB. SIR also had community programs, including drag shows, that made it much more visible to the public eye. Other San Francisco organizations, such as Vanguard for Gay youth and the Street Orphans for Lesbian street people, helped the most vulnerable.

Perhaps the most spectacular organization to arise before Stonewall was the Imperial Court System (ICS, later changed to the International Court System) in 1965. The strategy espoused by the ICS was to win over the community through dazzling pageantry of drag royalty. Its first empress was activist and local celebrity José Sarria (Empress José I, the Widow Norton), a man who help found SIR. Sarria was also instrumental in creating the Tavern Guild, a consortium of Gay bars that banded together to protect their rights and end police harrassment. In addition, Sarria was the first openly Gay person on record to run for office.

Empress José I and friends (andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bios1/sarria01.html, January 2012)

Cafeteria, Stonewall, and White Night Riots

In 1966, a group of protesters led by angry transwomen rioted at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco, an event remembered today as the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot. Three years later, the three-day Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969 occured with participation from a multiplicity of orientations and gender variations. Neither the Compton Cafeteria nor Stonewall riots were organized, although organized protests occurred after both events, including the first Gay Liberation marches held one year after Stonewall. Since then, Pride parades have been held in all over the USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Western Europe, and in countries as diverse as South Africa, Mainland China, Taiwan, India, Turkey, Brazil, Guatemala, and Croatia.

Toward the end of the 1970s, openly-Gay Harvey Milk was elected city supervisor for San Francisco, California. Fellow supervisor Dan White assassinated Milk in 1978, and 50,000 mourners spontaneously formed a candlelight march to City Hall after sunset that same day. In 1979, Dan White was convicted of manslaughter, the lightest conviction possible. Citizens rioted at City Hall, and police retaliated by attacking Gay men in the Castro District, raiding the Elephant Bar and beating its patrons. Once again, the riot was followed by protests and increased activism.

Harvey Milk (lgbtempowerment.blogspot.com, January 2012)

AIDS and Activism

One of the most significant things to inspire further activism since the early 1980s has been the effect of AIDS on the Gay community. Even though AIDS has hit primarily Gay men and transwomen within the LGBTQ collective, every facet of the community has been active in countering the homophobia resulting from public hysteria, and has helped raise money for treatment and prevention. Organizations such as the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) have taken drastic action in order to force awareness upon the public at large. Different organizations involving artistic communities including dancers, musicians, painters, and actors, have come together to raise money and awareness.

Physical symbols of AIDS activism were created to give movements visibility and cohesion. The Visual AIDS Artists Caucus In New York designed the red single-loop AIDS ribbon, an internationally recognized symbol. The AIDS Quilt, begun by Cleve Jones in San Francisco and currently perhaps the world’s largest single folk project, is also an example of material-culture activism resulting from AIDS. Harm reduction advocates such as ACT (AIDS Committee of Toronto) and Montreal’s RÉZO regularly launch innovative campaigns with posters, pamphlets, and workshops in bathhouses. Behaviors associated with HIV transmission (drug use, certain sexual practices are not condemned, but options on how to avoid seroconversion are presented. The Theater Offensive in Boston has gone to public areas where men seek out other men for sex to give mini-performances and impromptu workshops.

AIDS ribbon in Lesotho, South Africa. Photo: Peter Van Agtmael/Polaris (www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/weekinreview/25mcneil.html, January 2012)

Bathhouse Raids, Wigstock Riots, and Reduction of Violence

Public resistance to homophobia after Stonewall would take different forms in different places. In Toronto, police made an unprecedented sweep of men’s bathhouses in 1982, destroying property and handcuffing near-naked clients outside in freezing temperatures while directing homophobic remarks at them. This led to a public protest considered by some Canadians to be their “Stonewall moment.” Angry marchers overturned police cars, and activists inspired Gay and Straight citizens to push for the decriminalization of homosexuality. Similar activism would happen in Quebec’s “Stonewall moments” after the police raided Montreal’s Truxx Gay bar in 1977, and the Sex Garage raid in 1990, where Montreal police were recorded on video beating and harassing attendees leaving a popular after-hours party.

But not all “Stonewall moments” have been violent. In 1998, police in Tel Aviv, Israel forced Wigstock, a public drag show, to close an hour early for Shabbat, the weekly Jewish holy day that starts at sunset Friday and ends sunset Saturday. Protesters blocked a major intersection and flew the rainbow flag at city hall, leading to few arrests and little if any violence.

In 2000, there was a raid by Toronto police on the Pussy Palace, a special bathhouse event for women, in which five male officers inspected the premises while clients were still in various stages of undress. Public protest of the raid was designed to be as humorous as it was confrontational. The Pussy Palace Panty Picket Protest featured protesters waving their undergarments and posters in front of the police station, and chanting slogans such as “Keep Your Hands/Off Our Panties” and “What Do We Want? Pussy! When Do We Want It? Now!” in front of an amused crowd, including amused police officers.

Religious Activism

http://thewildreed.blogspot.com, January 2012

One of the earliest examples of successful religious activism is the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), founded in Los Angeles by Troy Perry in 1968 to give LGBTQ people a place to worship and organize. Perry’s church had a strong activist ethos from its inception, and Perry himself would go to places where atrocities against Gay people were committed to show his support for survivors and members of the community. Under Reverend Brent Hawkes, The MCC in Toronto helped bring about the legalization of same-sex marriages in Canada. In 2001, Hawkes conducted Gay weddings while wearing a bulletproof vest and under the watchful eye of a police escort, a reversal of the police-as-oppressors to police-as-protectors.

Since the founding of the MCC, there have been movements to champion the rights of Gay people in every major religion, such as the Al-Fatiha Foundation for Gay Muslims, the Gay Buddhist Sangha, and the Zoroastrian GLBT-Straight Alliance. Growing visibility and acceptance of Gay people have inspired anti-Gay religious activism and ex-gay movements, especially among Fundamentalist Christians worldwide, which in turn has brought forth ex-ex-gay organizations.

Two Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (http://www.zombietime.com/walk_for_life/part_2, January 2011)

In terms of religious parody with a foundation in a deep sense of ethics and spirituality, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (founded in San Francisco and currently are found throughout the United States as well as Australia, Colombia, England, France, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, and Uruguay), accessorize nuns’ habits and use hilarity in their public performance of activism for LGBTQ causes.

Gentle Activism, Creative Approaches

Girl group Electrik Red posing for NOh8 campaign against marriage discrimination in California, photo: Adam Bouska (www.noh8campaign.com, December 2011)

Forms of gentle activism, appealing more to aesthetics, fashion, and humor, have become popular as mainstream acceptance of LGBTQ causes increases. The NOh8 photo campaign against California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage (enacted in 2008) recruited people, many of them celebrities, across the political and orientation spectra to pose for professional photographers with silver duct tape across their mouths.

www.santogay.com, December 2011

Innovative approaches to activism include outreach in the form of larger than life heroes, such as Santo Gay (Spanish: “Saint Gay”) an openly Gay Mexican American luchador (professional wrestler in the lucha libre tradition) who is a champion for LGBTQ people in Dallas and Mexico City.

Two Canadian activists, Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan. They have engaged in humorous activism in the twenty-first century that confronts homophobia, sexism, and classism with wit. They have created the Consideration Liberation Army, accessorizing militant language and dress in the promotion of civility. On their website, www.considerationliberationarmy.ca, Dempsey and Millan state the following:

Are we fascists? Do we insist upon kindness and relentlessly punish those who are unkind? Yes. We spank mean adults until they remember what they know to be true. We lock mean adults in rooms filled with challenging reading material. We deprive mean adults of food and drink until they cry out for community…

We are the Consideration Liberation Army. We are dedicated to forcing rampant engagement with ideas. Our goal is to take back the terror and place it once again in the rightful hands of artists, who confuse, mystify, and take up your valuable time… For those who do not join our cause there is no pity: we seek to shame the rude, alienate the greedy, and frighten the complacent. You, the narcissistic, the ignorant, and the bland: the time for change is now. Stupidity is no longer an option; “Whoops,” no longer an excuse; indifference no longer tolerated. Examples will be made, metaphor will be made, rehabilitation will occur. The indifferent will be tattooed with troubling questions. The thoughtless will be flogged with compact lines of verse. And the cruel and condescending will held captive in waterparks until they learn to laugh like children. So be forewarned. Consider repentance, consider each other, consider anything, but consider it now. It is your only salvation from the long arm of Consideration Liberation Army.

Part of Dempsey and Millan's activism is awareness through campy humor, including a guide to Lesbian flora and fauna, and Handbook of the Senior Lesbian Ranger (www.fingerinthedyke.ca, December 2011)

Activism and Mainstream Acceptance

On the national level in the USA, there are organizations such as Lambda Legal and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) that are well organized and fairly well funded. It is becoming less obvious, however, that such organizations are folk movements because of their acceptance by the public at large.

At the local level, grassroots organizations are the organizations with which people have direct and often daily contact with communities, such as the many Stonewall organizations across the world and Pride Parade committees.

Advertisement sponsored by Stonewall Britain (www.stonewall.org.uk, December 2011)

National organizations that prize grassroots involvement, such as the Gay American Heroes Foundation (dedicated to memorializing LGBTQ people who have been murdered), have a nationwide mandate but connect closely with local communities. An organization at the local and national level with membership that is mostly Gay allies is Parents, Friends and Families of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

Non-national grassroots organizations for each locale are different, and information can be found at local Gay community centers, each center being a grassroots activist organization in itself. Many organizations at the local level deal with problems that are best addressed one-on-one with activists who are familiar with local conditions, such as the Buckeye Region Anti-Violence Organization (BRAVO) in Central Ohio that works to raise awareness of homophobic and domestic violence.

Activism in Post-Colonial Countries

LGBTQ activists in other countries besides Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and the USA have had notable success. Sometimes Gay activism in former colonial powers results in better conditions for LGBTQ people in former colonies that have maintain close cultural ties.

Both photographs: 2011 Pride parade in Caracas, Venezuela (www.demotix.com/photo/751846/gay-pride-march-sweeps-caracas-venezuela, December 2011)

In Spanish-speaking continental Latin America, for example, legalization of same-sex marriage in Spain (2005) inspired activists to push for landmark changes in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Gay marriage and civil unions have been legalized in places such as Argentina and Uruguay (Argentina legalized same-sex marriage in 2010). Between 2007 and 2009, Gay activists in organizations such as Colombia Diversa convinced the Colombian government to remove almost all legal forms of discrimination against LGBTQ people. This was a dramatic turn of events, following the violence of the 1980s and 1990s, in which Gay Colombians were killed as part of social cleansing in response to Gay Liberation and the AIDS crisis. Paraguay’s official tolerance of homosexuality pre-dates Stonewall and Gay activism—homosexual acts have been legal since 1880, and there is no legal discrimination in its armed forces.

An Nou Allé, an LGBTQ group in the French Antilles (Martinique and Guadalupe) and French Guyana (annoualle.france.qrd.org, January 2013)

Although LGBTQ rights have been significantly hindered by the Roman Catholic Church in many South American countries, Ecuador included sexual orientation as a protected category in its constitution in 1998, the Peruvian military and police decriminalized homosexuality in 2009, and significant steps have been taken in Venezuela to promote equality for Gay people in 2010 with the encouragement of its dictator, Hugo Chávez. Gay Pride marches have been held in Chile and Bolivia despite a close relationship between church and state that has undermined reform.

São Paulo Pride (brazilportal.wordpress.com/2011/08/04, January 2012)

Portuguese-speaking Brazil has also been making progress, inspired in part by Portugal, which recognized same-sex unions in 2001 and legalized same-sex marriage in 2010. Brazil has granted same-sex unions the same status as common-law marriage since 2004. In terms of festive activism, the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil have some of the biggest Pride parades in the world.

– Jon Hake and Mickey Weems
QEGF Authors and Articles
QEGF Introduction
Comments? Post them on our Encyclopedia facebook page.

Further reading:

Clendinen, Dudley and Adam Nagourney. Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. New York: Touchstone, 1999.

Loughery, John. The Other Side of Silence: Men’s Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century Reader. New York: Henry Holt, 1998.

Teal, Donn. The Gay Militants: How Gay Liberation Began in America, 1969-1971. New York: St. Martin’s, 1971.

http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/againsttheodds/get_involved/conversation3.html, January 2012

AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP or ACT-UP) is an LGBTQ activist group that promotes direct action (dramatic performance of public confrontation) as a folkway for getting its message spread through news media outlets on behalf of people with AIDS. ACT UP arose in response to the silence of the American government and religious leaders concerning the growing AIDS crisis. The group was founded in 1987 in New York City and quickly spread to other cities, such as Paris, Sydney, Chicago, Oberlin (Ohio), Salt Lake City, and Asbury Park (New Jersey).

March 2009: In front of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, ACT UP-Paris protesters staged a die-in to protest the homophobia and anti-condom rhetoric of Pope Benedict XIV (formes-vives.org/histoire/?post/act-up, January 2013)

Performance of the Transgressive

ACT UP is primarily known for its protests. Many of their early actions against drug companies and the National Institute of Health had a direct impact on AIDS policy and changed the way in which drugs receive Food and Drug Administration’s approval. The group also held direct action events in the New York Stock Market, The NYC General Post Office, and in front of the NYC offices for Cosmopolitan magazine for publishing an article assuring women they could not get AIDS from men while having unprotected sex.

One event in particular caught the attention of people across the USA: ACT UP’s direct action at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1989 as part of their Stop the Church protest. ACT UP protested during Sunday mass. Members chanted and lay in the aisles of the cathedral, and a disgruntled Catholic protester threw a consecrated host (wafer transubstantiated into the body of Christ, sacred to Roman Catholics) to the floor. Over a hundred activists were arrested.

Using a bed as an accessory for protest (clatl.com/atlanta/aids-redux-in-atlanta/Content?oid=4043249, January 2012)

For a more humorous and campy street theater performance, the freedom bed, was developed in Chicago. A bed would be brought to the site of a protest, and various skits involving same-sex erotic behavior on the bed surrounded by stereotypical villains such as Bible-wielding ministers, local politicians, and the Pope.

ACT UP Folkways

Most meetings would begin with the facilitator (if a woman, this person was also sometimes called facilitrix) announcing “ACT UP is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis.” The meetings themselves were designed to be anarchic in nature, and most chapters do not have leadership in any permanent sense. To outsiders, they might seem chaotic, with agendas set as the meetings progress, and people yelling “Focus!” when the group gets off-subject or too many people start talking at once.

www.openingceremony.us/entry.asp?pid=979, January 2012

Slogans figure prominently in any description of ACT UP folkways. Here are some examples:

ACT UP, fight back, fight AIDS

Hippa, hippa, hypocrite
Full of, full of, full of shit (usually directed at a specific person)

Other chants were less confrontational and even campy, demonstrating the performance of humor as well as anger:

We’re here
We’re queer
We’re not going shopping

Your gloves don’t match your shoes
They’ll see it on the news

Zaps

Direct action strategies included an established activist folkway known as the zap, a protest event quickly put together to aggravate a chosen target, in contrast with an ordinary protest in which preparations may take place many months in advance.

Kiss-in, July 2009, in front of the Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City (pridedepot.com/?p=740426, January 2013)

One favorite zap was the die-in, a variation of the sit-in (takeover of buildings by protestors who sit down and refuse to leave). On cue, activists would silently collapse and lie prone as other activists outlined the bodies with chalk. The kiss-in was a more blatantly Queer variant, with same-sex couples kissing en masse. Kiss-ins would be used by other LGBTQ activist groups to protest organizations such as the Promise Keepers (a Christian men’s group) in 2001, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in 2009, after two men were arrested on the grounds of the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City for kissing each other in public.

Zaps include phone zaps and fax zaps. Phone zaps are designed to tie up the phone lines with callers making demands on the targeted person or group. Some fax zaps are modeled on the phone zap (tying up the system without damaging it) but others were more destructive. It was possible, for example, to send a fax of a black sheet of paper and loop it in such a way as to continuously jam the receiving fax machine and use up the recipient’s ink.

Material Culture

ACT UP picture by artist Keith Haring: Ignorance Equals Fear (1989, www.miketidmus.com/blog/2008/12/01/how-to-start-an-act-up-chapter, January 2012)

Probably the way most recognized symbol of ACT UP was the black t-shirt that read “silence=death” in white below a pink triangle. The design was created before ACT UP was founded, and was offered by its creators to the group. In contrast to the “silence=death” motto, another popular motto was “action=life.”

AIDSGATE reflected anger with the silence concerning the crisis during the Reagan Administration (www.actupny.org, January 2012)

Most groups had their own artists who created t-shirts and posters. Some of these posters were printed, while others were handwritten. The art cooperative Gran Fury during the late 1980s to mid-1990s was a visible public face of ACT UP and AIDS protest graphics even though it was a separate entity. Gran Fury’s works include its “Read My Lips” poster, featuring two people of the same-sex (with male and female versions) kissing, and the poster “Kissing Doesn’t Kill, Greed and Indifference Do” showing three couples kissing of different races: one all-male, one all-female, and one male and female. It was a deliberate visual pun on a popular 1980s Benetton clothing line ad campaign of the time.

Legacy

Other direct action LGTBQ organizations trace their origins back to ACT UP, including the Lesbian Avengers, Bash Back!, and Queer Nation.

– David Azzolina and Mickey Weems
QEGF Authors and Articles
QEGF Introduction
Comments? Post them on our Encyclopedia facebook page.

Further reading:

Bright, Deborah. The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Crimp, Douglas and Adam Rolston. AIDS Demo Graphics. Seattle: Bay, 1990.

Gould, Deborah Bejosa. Sex, Death, and the Politics of Anger: Emotion and Reason in ACT-UP’s Fight Against AIDS. Diss. University of Chicago, 2000.

Lestrade, Didier. Act-Up: une histoire. Paris: Denoël, 2000.

Willett, Graham. Living Out Loud: A History of Gay and Lesbian Activism in Australia. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2000.

www.china-mike.com/chinese-history-timeline/part-4-han-dynasty, January 2012

The Han Emperor Ai (27 BCE– 1 BCE) is famous in Chinese LGBTQ folklore due to an account of his same-sex love affair with his official, Dong Xian, which was recorded in Ban Gu’s Records of Han.

Ai, Dong, the Cut Sleeve, and Wang

According to Ban Gu, the Emperor was not interested in women because heterosexuality was not natural to him. Ai noticed the tall, handsome official, Dong Xian, in the court and requested him to stay in the palace for company. As Ai’s passion for Dong grew, the Emperor wanted to keep him in the palace permanently. He summoned Dong’s wife to the palace so Dong had no reason to leave.

Emperor Ai of Han + Dong Xian by Eshto (www.eshto.deviantart.com, January 2012)

The Emperor’s affections to Dong became legendary because of an incident that occurred when he was sleeping with Dong one afternoon. Ai was called to the court, but he did not want to wake up Dong, who was sleeping on the Emperor’s sleeve. The Emperor cut off the sleeve and got up. The courtiers inquired the missing sleeve, and the Emperor revealed the story. The style of the abbreviated sleeve became fashionable among the courtiers, and cut sleeve was recognized as a common term for same-sex love.

Emperor Ai died at the age of twenty-five without an heir. Before his death, the Emperor passed the Imperial seal to Dong and appointed him to be his successor. The extraordinary privilege, however, led to Dong’s political persecution, which cost him his life. The Empress Dowager Wang, Emperor Ai’s aunt, was influential in the court and was ambitious to extend her power when the Emperor passed away. Dong, who lacked political allies, was compelled to step down from his post. Wang forced Dong and his wife to commit suicide on the same day.

Attitudes towards Homosexuality in Han Dynasty

The Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (156 BCE–87 BCE) adopted the principles of Confucianism as the mainstream doctrine to rule his state. Confucianism emphasizes stability of social structure. Family is considered the foundation of society, so Confucius’ ethical codes promote hierarchy in which the subject is subordinate to the ruler, the disciple to the master, the son to the father, and the wife to the husband. In Chinese tradition, marriage is a union of two households, a means to sustain or elevate one’s social status and to produce a new generation. Marriage was arranged entirely by the male head of the household.

Expansion of patriarchal authority resulted in the indulgence of male sexual interests. If a man was not satisfied with the woman he married, he could find alternate partners. In contrast, a woman was expected to tolerate her husband’s love affairs while she was prohibited from seeking emotional and sexual outlets outside of marriage.

Students dressed in Han Dynasty clothes bow to teachers on Confucius' birthday, Confucius Temple in Jinan (2010). Photo/Xinhua (english.sina.com/china/p/2010/0928/341560.html, January 2012)

Confucianism was little concerned with sexual relationships between men so long as the fundamentals of social structure and responsibilities were not compromised. Close male friendship was highly valued, in part because it could facilitate men to improve their social status in the patriarchal society. Several Han emperors were reported to show unusual affection for their male courtiers. In Ban Gu’s Records of Han, Emperor Wen (202 BCE–157 BCE) was noted for favoring an incompetent courtier, Deng Tong, without an apparent reason. The aforementioned Emperor Wu was also criticized for his close relationship with his subject, Han Yan, a skillful rider and archer. No evidence indicates these two emperors and their subjects had sexual relationships. Nevertheless, the patronage the emperors bestowed on their favorites caused the courtiers to die in tragic ways. Deng had his fortune was confiscated and was then starved to death, and Han was charged with treason and executed.

In the case of the Ai-Dong affair, the Prime Minister, Wang Jia, presented the examples of Deng and Han to persuade the Emperor Ai against giving the wealth and power unrestrainedly to Dong Xian. The object lessons, unfortunately, were lost on Ai.

Tang Dynasty image of the Buddha, pouriya2007 (www.flickr.com/photos/21562976@N07/3735228488, January 2012)

The biographies of Deng Tong, Han Yan, and Dong Xian were recorded under the category of “Favored Obsequious Courtiers” in Ban Gu’s Records of Han. These courtiers were accused either of incompetency or flawed behavior. The censure was not for their personal relationships with the emperors, but rather their character, an indication (at least in the case of Ai and Dong) that blatant homophobia may not have been an important factor during the Han dynasty. The notion of regarding homosexuality as a sin did not emerge until Buddhism prevailed in the Tang dynasty.

- Chen Yilin
QEGF Authors and Articles
QEGF Introduction
Comments? Post them on our Encyclopedia facebook page.

Further reading:

Ban, Gu. Qian Han Shu. Taipei: Zhonghua, 2000.

Crompton, Louis. Homosexuality and Civilization. Boston: Belknap of Harvard University, 2006.

Haggerty, George E. Gay History and Cultures. London: Routledge, 2000.

Hinsch, Bret. Passions of the Cut Sleeve. Los Angeles: University of California, 1992.

The last moments of AIDS activist David Kirby's life, 1990, LIFE Magazine, photographer: Therese Frare, Pater Noster House, Columbus, Ohio (posterpage.ch/exhib/ex262aid/ex262aid.htm, February 2012). Top image: worldaidscampaign.org/country-reports, February 2012

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a medical condition that is characterized by severe suppression of the immune system, often resulting in numerous opportunistic infections. AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus that attacks white blood cells responsible for preventing infections. Since its emergence in the late 1970s, AIDS has grown into a global pandemic.

Activism was already a LGBTQ folkway before the AIDS epidemic, and AIDS activism followed many of the same tactics as earlier forms. AIDS awareness and activism continue to be important aspects of Gay identity and community. Many of the LGBTQ AIDS activist folkways that began in the USA have inspired similar organizations and movements across the globe, with an ethic of inclusion that extends across ethnicity, gender, race, religion, and orientation.

Protester in front of the government office of the Secretaría de Economía in Mexico City, 2008, demanding lower prices for AIDS-related medication. The group delivered a message written in human blood: "Precios más bajos medicamentos VIH" ("Much lower prices (for) HIV medicine" (www.nydailynews.com/latino/20-000-gather-aids-conference-mexico-city-article-1.317450, January 2012)

Origins of the Epidemic, Giving It a Name

HIV infections appear to have originated in equatorial Africa. One of the first European victims of the as yet un-named illness was Danish Dr. Grethe Rask, a surgeon who had done extensive work in the hospitals of Zaire.

The illness initially manifested in the United States amongst members of metropolitan Gay communities, particularly in San Francisco and New York. In 1979, numerous doctors began noticing young men coming into clinics with inexplicable illnesses such as Kaposi’s sarcoma, pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), and toxoplasmosis. Other than their same-sex orientation, the only thing these men had in common was high-risk sexual behavior (particularly anal intercourse without a condom) and recreational drug use. As the number of cases increased, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Cancer Institute began to take an interest in 1981. Although many officials held on to the hope that the immune suppression causing these bizarre diseases could be traced to poppers (amyl nitrate, an inhalant used by homosexual men to generate feelings of intoxication and to relax sphincter muscles during anal sex), more scientists realized that sexual transmission was a better explanation.

Due to its presumed exclusivity to the Gay community, names like “gay cancer” and “gay-related immune deficiency” (GRID) were used to describe the condition in the late 1970s and early 1980s. By 1982, it had become apparent that to some officials that the disease could likely be spread to hemophiliacs and transfusion recipients through contaminated blood. At a special meeting in Washington, DC between members of the CDC, blood industry, hemophiliac groups, the Gay community, and other government health organizations, the neutral AIDS acronym was coined.

Three Indonesian waria (an Indonesian transwoman identity) at the funeral for a friend who died from AIDS complications. Photo: Oliver Purser (vice.com/read/warias-come-out-and-plaaayayay-0000007-v18n10?Contentpage=2, March 2012)

Slow Response

In the 1980 USA presidential election, Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter with the help of Christian Fundamentalist groups like Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and advocates of fiscal conservatism. The result of this victory was the advent of an administration that would slash domestic spending. The political climate in America fostered a federal government reluctant to spend money on a group of people that many citizens believed were undermining the morality of America. Initially, the Reagan Administration held that there was no compelling evidence that AIDS was a serious health priority. Since there was minimal funding for research that would prove the scope of the AIDS epidemic, the government waited until the late 1980s to take significant action. By the time President Reagan would make his first speech on the epidemic in 1987, there would be 36,058 diagnoses and 20,849 deaths in America.

Image of Ronald and Nancy Reagan with friend and fellow actor Rock Hudson, lampooning President Reagan's reluctance to acknowledge the AIDS crisis (http://reagan-was-a-horrible-president.tumblr.com/post/3322007979/ronald-reagan-and-aids-read-the-truth, December 2011)

Responsibility for the care of AIDS patients and prevention efforts in the early years of the epidemic largely fell upon the Gay community, and only a few members within the community were prepared to take action to curb the rate of infection. The strong connection between identity and free sexual expression made preventative measures difficult to implement. Folk discourse of the Gay men’s movement held that having an active and uninhibited sex life was a central component to Gay liberation. Sexual behaviors such as cruising (looking for sexual partners) and visiting bathhouses were conceptualized as part of Gay male identity. Anyone who advocated curtailing these practices in the name of public health was lambasted in the Gay press as a sexual fascist and often accused of homophobia. High-risk sexual behavior involving unprotected sex largely continued unabated through the early 1980s, even as infection rates began to soar.

When Legionnaires disease took 29 lives in 1976, there was daily coverage of the crisis, resulting in millions in federal funding. On the issue of AIDS, however, media coverage was sparse, even though AIDS was claiming significantly more lives at a pace that showed no signs of abating. Not until the late 1980s did major newspapers take notice of the AIDS epidemic, and by then it was too late for the media to act as a source of AIDS awareness and prevention. During the early days of the epidemic, researchers and doctors across the nation had waited in vain for the media to catch the story and apply pressure on the government to release much needed funds.

Activists demonstrate in fron of the Food and Drug Administration in DC, 1988 (hab.hrsa.gov/livinghistory/voices/legacy-photography.htm, January 2012)

Rise of AIDS Awareness

By 1985, too many Gay men and transwomen had lost friends and lovers to AIDS for the Gay men to ignore the severity of the epidemic and not change their ways. An unprecedented change in Gay male folklife had occurred within the community. According to a survey by the AIDS Foundation in 1985, four in five San Francisco Gay men claimed to avoid all high-risk sexual behavior. There was a trend towards safer sex within committed relationships. Gay male identity would no longer revolve around the free and frequent pursuit of sexual partners. For all the populations within the larger collective of Gay-related identities, to be Gay meant to be a part of a loving and caring community that took care of its own when no one else cared. Members of the Lesbian community were especially supportive of Gay men and transpeople as well as women who became HIV-positive.

In the summer of 1985, Rock Hudson (a masculine and presumably Straight Hollywood sex symbol) openly admitted to having AIDS. Although many famous people had already succumbed to the illness, few obituaries identified AIDS as a factor in their deaths due to the stigma of the disease. The media became interested when Hudson collapsed in Paris and was rushed to a hospital. After Hudson acknowledged his diagnosis, AIDS went from a taboo subject to front-page news, and AIDS-related fundraising efforts and support groups increased.

Continued Denial

Despite the best efforts of activists to raise awareness of the severity of the problem, misinformation, silence, and outright denial of the epidemic continued well into the first decade of the twenty-first century. One stark example was Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, Minister of Health in South Africa from 1999 until 2008, who questioned the link between HIV and AIDS. She also was critical of what she saw as Western medical solutions for Africa’s health problems, and recommended that AIDS be treated by folk remedies, such as one made with garlic, lemon juice, and beetroot, rather than antiretroviral medication. For this recommendation, AIDS activists called her “Doctor Beetroot.”

Mural in South Africa promoting safer sex (southafrica-for-dummies.com, January 2012)

GMHC and the Shanti Project

An early grassroots organization that dealt with the AIDS epidemic was the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York City. GMHC was formed in 1982 by a group of Gay men, including Paul Popham, Larry Kramer, and Enno Poersch, who lost friends and lovers to AIDS. Its primary goals were to spread up-to-date information on the epidemic and to provide various services to People with AIDS (PWAs). One of the organization’s earlier endeavors was to set up a hotline that Gay men could call to ask questions, seek social support, and request assistance. Eventually, GMHC set up a “Buddy Program” that offered basic services to ailing people and coordinated numerous support groups for PWAs.

Volunteers from New York Cares who serve dinners at GMHC in Chelsea, Manhattan are honored by GMHC for their work (blog.newyorkcares.org/?p=2630, December 2011)

The San Francisco-based Shanti (Sanskrit: “peace”) Project was another crucial grassroots effort. This organization was founded at the University of California-Berkeley seven years prior to the government’s acknowledgement of the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic as a community-based effort to help PWAs deal with the emotional and spiritual aspects of terminal illness. Both GMHC and Shanti were criticized for not being firm enough in condemnation of practices like unprotected sex and bathhouse cruising as causes for increased infection.

Project Lazarus, ACT, and Rézo

Similar organizations to GMHC and Shanti arose across North America. In response to the growing number of homeless people with AIDS, shelters and hospices were opened in major cities, including Project Lazarus in New Orleans (1983), a collaborative effort between the city, the Gay community, and the Roman Catholic Church to set up a refuge for PWAs with no other place to go. In Canada, urban organizations would work to help PWAs and educate the public, such as ACT (AIDS Committee of Toronto, 1983) and R´EZO in Montreal (formerly known as Séro-Zéro, “Zero Seroconversions,” with origins in the mid-1980s).

ACT UP

In 1987, former GMHC chairperson Larry Kramer helped found the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) in New York City, a confrontational organization dedicated to the rights and lives of PWAs, regardless of their sexual orientation. Branches soon formed across the nation. By utilizing often controversial public protest, civil disobedience, and theatrical performance (often in the form of zaps, sensational and sudden disruptions), ACT UP sought to put pressure on the Food and Drug Administration to rush approvals and cut the cost of drugs, such as Gancyclovir and AZT, which were deemed essential to prolonging the lives of AIDS patients.

The Quilt

chsweb.lr.k12.nj.us/eregn/std/pictures.htm, December 2011)

During a memorial service for Harvey Milk in 1985, Gay activist Cleve Jones envisioned what would become the AIDS Quilt, 3’X6’ panels of cloth made by friends and family of those who had died of AIDS, that would be sewn together in large 12’ blocks and displayed publicly to bring home the severity of the epidemic. In 1996, the Quilt in its entirety was displayed on the Mall in Washington, DC, covering the Mall’s expanse. Weighing over fifty tons, the Quilt is one of the largest continuous folk projects in existence, with panels sent in from countries all over the world.

Red Ribbon

AIDS ribbon on White House, Obama administration, 2011 (signsbytomorrow.com/franchisee/news/default.aspx?id=416&d=rockville, December 2011)

The single-loop red ribbon was designed by the Visual AIDS Artists Caucus in 1991 to symbolize compassion for PWAs. Since its creation, the red ribbon has become an internationally recognized symbol for AIDS awareness, and inspired a variety of ribbons in different colors to represent various causes. This particular symbol has never been exclusively for the Gay community, and has been embraced by many people in the Straight community since its beginning. It may best be considered an example of collaborative Gay and Straight folk art.

The Circuit

In addition, the GMHC sponsored fundraiser entertainment and dances, including the Fire Island Morning Party, which became part of the Circuit (large-scale weekend-long dance events for Gay men and their allies). Other AIDS organizations would sponsor Circuit events, such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (White Party and Winter Party in Miami, Ascension on Fire Island), the Sapphire Fund in Philadelphia (Blue Ball), Bad Boy Club Montreal (Black and Blue), Halloween’s In New Orleans, and Dallas Purple Foundation (Purple Party).

Winter Party, Miami (www.gay.net/travel-escapes/2011/12/15/miami’s-winter-party-festival-2012-february-29-march-5, January 2012)

The Morning Party, however, lost its GMHC sponsorship in 1998 due to a death from irresponsible GHB drug use that occurred in 1998, bringing accusations of gross irresponsibility against the GMHC for sponsoring events that appeared to not only foster drug abuse, but also irresponsible sexual behavior.

– Jaime Hartless
QEGF Authors and Articles
QEGF Introduction
Comments? Post them on our Encyclopedia facebook page.

Further reading:

Deverell, Katie. Sex, Work, and Professionalism: Working in HIV/AIDS. London: Routledge, 2001.

Edwards, Jeffrey. 2000. “AIDS, Race, and the Rise and Decline of a Militant Oppositional Lesbian and Gay Politics in the US”. New Political Science. 22: pp. 485-506.

Goldstein, Diane. Once Upon a Virus: AIDS legends and Vernacular Risk Perception. Logan, UT: Utah State University, 2004.

Shilts, Randy. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. New York: St. Martin’s, 1987.

earthobservatory.nasa.gov, December 2011

Aikane is a term used in classical Hawaiian culture for an intimate male friend of lower rank involved with a man of ali’i (noble) rank. In contemporary Hawaiian folklife, it now refers to a close masculine male confidante to another masculine man, and with whom the masculine man might or might not have a sexual relationship. It may also refer to a dear friend of any sex or gender.

Classical Hawaiian references

Classical Hawaiian tradition honors the aikane, with aphorisms such as he aikane, he punana na ke onaona (“an aikane is a nest of fragrance”). King Kamehameha had aikane with whom he was erotically intimate, as did many of the rulers before Christian missionaries undermined the official status of aikane-as-lover.

Kamehameha I, Hawai'i State Archives (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kamehamehaportrait.jpg, December 2011)

In the story of the great chief Lonoikamakahiki, a commoner from Kaua’i, Kapa’ihiahilina, became his aikane, after telling him “Aloha au ia ‘oe, ukali mai nei” (“I love you, so I followed you here”) when Lonoikamakahiki went into exile. Perhaps the most famous aikane in Hawaiian history since Contact is Keoniana (John Young II), trusted counselor to Kauikeaouli, Kamehameha III (see article, “Kamehameha III”).

Keoniana (John Kaleipaihala Young II), aikane to Kamehameha III, Hawai'i State Archives (hawaii.gov/dags/archives/centennial/keoni%20ana.jpg/image_view, December 2011)

There is also a tradition of naming intimate Platonic relationships after romantic-sexual ones: ho’okane (from kane, meaning man or husband) for a man who is as close as a husband to a woman but without the implicit sexual bond, and ho’owahine (from wahine, meaning woman or wife) for a woman who is like a wife to a man but without the sexual bond. Aikane as non-sexual, non-sex/gender-based friendship can be seen as an indication of how important and how highly valued the loving and implicitly sexual (or at least possibly sexual) relationship was between a superior elite man of ali’i status and as inferior aikane in the classical Hawaiian network of personal relationships.

Printed title of Ka Hoku o ka Pakipika, 1861 (nupepa.org/gsdl2.5/cgi-bin/nupepa?e=d-0nupepa--00-0-0--010---4----text---0-1l--1en-Zz-1---20-about---00031-0000utfZz-8-00&a=d&cl=CL1.10.1&d=HASH0190b7da7cfe4727e1cb69ed&gg=text, January 2012)

Signs are that such a relationship was a reference point in polite conversation. In a letter to the editor of the Hawaiian language newspaper E ka Hoku o ka Pakipika (The Star of the Pacific), the author uses the following courtesy in the introduction:

E ka Hoku o ka Pakipika. –Aloha oe:

Allow me to make love to you, “my aikane, nest of fragrance,” concerning a topic that I thought to make public about something that has happened in the Royal City.

This introduction indicates that it was acceptable for pre-Christianized (and recently Christianized) Hawaiians to frame the sexually-implicit aikane relationship as an ideal that was applicable to all loving relationships, much as traditional English language letters begin with “Dear ____,” as an acceptable means for showing nonspecific affection in the introduction.

Contemporary Use in Hawai’i and Polynesia

Although there appear to be no references to aiwahine (a close feminine woman confidante to a feminine woman) in the historical record, the term is used in current Hawaiian LGBTQ discourse. The absence of aiwahine could be due to the lack of interest in women’s folklife by non-Hawaiians who recorded the earliest histories. Or aiwahine could be a new word, created in response to awareness of worldwide LGBTQ identities, and the adaptation of Gay folk identity discourse to Hawaiian traditional language. The same may be true with transperson-refined identity markers mahuwahine and mahukane (see article, “Mahu”). The relationship of same-sex lovers and transpeople in Native Hawaiian society should be understood within an attitude of tolerance for various configurations of gender and erotic expression. Overall, aikane and mahu identities were considered acceptable and unremarkable.

Among the Maori of Aotearoa/New Zealand, a community that is culturally close to Native Hawaiian and Tahitian societies, there does not appear to be the same emphasis on mahu as found among Native Hawaiians and Tahitians. Maoris do have, however, the gender-neutral term takatapui (“partner of the same sex”) for aikane/aiwahine.

– Mickey Weems
QEGF Authors and Articles
QEGF Introduction
Comments? Post them on our Encyclopedia facebook page.

Further reading:

Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa, Native Land and Foreign Desires, Pehea La E Pono Ai? Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1992, pp. 116, 145, 180, 191-2, 263-4, 266, 274, 276, 284, 365n.6, 379, 388.

Robert J. Morris, “Aikane: Accounts of Hawaiian Same-Sex Relationships in the Journals of Captain Cook’s Third Voyage (1776-80).” Journal of Homosexuality 19(4) 1990:21-54.

Robert J. Morris, “Same-Sex Friendships in Hawaiian Lore: Constructing the Canon.”

Stephen O. Murray, ed. Oceanic Homosexualities. New York: Garland Publishing, 1992. pp. 71-102.

Curt Sanburn, ” ‘Men of the First Consequence’ The Aikane Tradition: Homosexuality in Old Hawaii.” Honolulu Weekly 3(19) May 12, 1993:4-6.

Portrait of Aitken Roshi a year before he died (robertaitken.blogspot.com, January 2012) Top photo: Tom Haar (www.eyeoftheislands.com/RLSGalleries/AitkenRoshi, January 2012)

Robert Aitken, a retired lay Zen Buddhist priest in Honolulu, Hawai’i, was a Straight ally and an icon to socially-engaged Buddhists and Gay Buddhists worldwide. In 1995, Aitken gave written testimony supporting same-sex marriage to a commission authorized by the Hawai’i State Legislature, and instituted same-sex marriage within his own congregation. Aitken is also attributed having said the following: “You can’t find enlightenment in the closet.” He died in Honolulu on August 5, 2010.

Background

Robert Baker Aitken was born in 1917 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in Hawai’i, moving to the islands at five years of age. While working construction in Guam, he was detained by the Japanese during World War II and held in internment camps until the end of the war. During this time, he met Zen scholar Reginald Blyth in 1944 while interred in Kobe, Japan. A few years after he was released, he met Nyogen Senzaki in Berkley, California, and studied Zen with him in Los Angeles. At that time, Aitken was also involved in social causes such as pacifism and the rights of workers, activities that got him investigated by the FBI.

Robert Baker Aitken and Anne Hopkins Aitken, founders of Diamond Sangha in Honolulu (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Baker_Aitken_and_Anne_Hopkins_Aitken.JPG, January 2012)

Aitken returned to Japan in 1950 with a grant to study haiku poetry. In 1959, he and Ann Hopkins Aitken began a meditation group in their Honolulu home, which became the Koko-an Zendo (meditation hall). They named their community the Diamond Sangha (Sanskrit/Pali word for “community” or “assembly”). The Diamond Sangha espouses socially-engaged Buddhism, interfaith dialogue, peace, prison reform, AIDS awareness, and gender/sexual orientation equality.

Aitken with Japanese Zen scholar D.T.Suzuki, Koko An Zendo, Honolulu, 1964. Photo: Francis Haar (http://www.turningwheelmedia.org/797, January 2012)

Performance as Roshi

In 1985, Aitken was certified as roshi (“master,” title for a person authorized to teach Zen) in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. As such, he could confirm for Zen practitioners that they have reached states of spiritual awareness that result from intense discipline, meditation, and mind-to-mind transmission of the dharma (teaching of the Buddha) from their teachers. According to tradition, the dharma is passed on from teacher to student in a chain of transmission that goes all the way back to the Buddha himself when he silently held up a flower and his disciple Kashyapa smiled at him, an unspoken expression of enlightened understanding.

Aitken Roshi kept his status as a layperson, and continued to engage in activism for peace, protesting the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons, promoting interfaith dialogue, and supporting women’s rights. As roshi, he would give public lectures in plain but intellectually-engaging language, presenting a form of American Zen Buddhism that was accessible to those who may never have encountered Buddhism before. Buddhism adapts, he said, and there is nothing wrong with it taking on its own indigenous form within the United States. He also had a strong sense of humor. When asked by Mickey Weems if the question “Why is there suffering?” (a problem that drove the Buddha to seek enlightenment) was the first koan (a short story or phrase that can bring one to enlightenment), Aitken Roshi smiled and said, “The first koan was when Eve looked at Adam and [pointing crotch level] said, ‘What’s that?’”

Aitken was an activist for nonviolence as well as roshi (www.turningwheelmedia.org/797, January 2012)

Same-Sex Marriage

In October 1995, Aitken presented written testimony concerning Buddhist views on same-sex marriage for the Hawai’i State Commission on Sexual Orientation and the Law:

Over a twenty-year career of teaching, I have had students who were gay, lesbian, trans-sexual and bisexual, as well as heterosexual. These orientations have seemed to me to be as specific as those which lead people to varied careers… In the same way, some people are attracted to members of their own sex. I am not particularly attracted in this way. But we are all human, and within my own container, I can discern homosexual tendencies. I keep my checkbook balanced too. So I find compassion – not just for – but with the gay or lesbian couple who wish to confirm their love in a legal marriage … I urge you to advise the Legislature and the people of Hawai’i that legalizing gay and lesbian marriages will be humane and in keeping with perennial principles of decency and mutual encouragement.

The Closet

Aitken’s public support for LGBTQ people predated his written testimony by over a decade. He is especially remembered for going to a conference in San Francisco in 1981, and asking point-blank what was being done for Gay Zen practitioners. During that conference, he supposedly made two remarks to Richard Baker Roshi: “If you are not in touch with your sexuality, you are not practicing Zen” and “You can’t do zazen [Zen practice] in the closet” (alternate version: “You can’t find enlightenment in the closet”).

Robert Aitken’s son, Tom Aitken, is openly Gay, and is active with organizations such as Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG).

Buddhist Tolerance

Thich Nhat Hanh (www.parallax.org/about_tnh.html, January 2012)

Aitken is not the only supporter of the LGBTQ community and same-sex unions in the Buddhist world. Vietnamese Zen leader Thich Nhat Hanh, who supports same-sex wedding ceremonies in his congregation, has publicly declared, “God is a lesbian”:

When I look at a rose, a tulip, or a chrysanthemum, I know, I see, I think, that this flower is a creation of God. Because I have been practicing as a Buddhist, I Know that between the creator and the created there must also be some kind of link, otherwise creation would not be possible. So the chrysanthemum can say that God is a flower, and I agree, because there must be the element “flower” in God so that the flower could become a reality. So the flower has the right to say that God is a flower … So when a lesbian thinks of her relationship with God, if she practices deeply, she can find out that God is also a lesbian … God is a lesbian, that is what I think, and God is gay also. God is no less. God is a lesbian, but also a gay [man], a black, a white, a chrysanthemum. It is because you don’t understand that, that you discriminate. [from a Dharma talk [discussion of Buddhist law] given in Plum Village, France, July 1998]

Other Buddhist Denominations

Zen is not the only Buddhist denomination with leaders who support full equality for Gay people. Japanese Jodo Shinshu Buddhism is another. Based on the belief that the Buddha Amida (Sanskrit: Amitabha) made a vow millions of years ago to save all beings by creating a Pure Land for easy enlightenment in the next life, some ministers in Jodo Shinshu do not feel that homosexuality or same-sex marriage disrupts the saving power of Amida’s Vow. In addition, Soka Gakkai International-USA, a denomination based on the teachings of the thirteenth century Japanese Buddhist reformer Nichiren, authorized conducting Gay marriage ceremonies in 1995.

Other leaders and denominations are somewhat supportive of LGBTQ people. According to Tenzin Gyatso (the fourteenth Dalai Lama, in exile from Tibet), homosexuality is sexual misconduct. But after engaging in dialogue with Gay Buddhists and activists, Gyatso declared in 1997 that homosexuality is no worse than heterosexuality (at least for non-Buddhists), called for equal rights for the LGBTQ community, and welcomed more dialogue concerning scriptural interpretation. In the Theravada Buddhist community, homosexuality may be seen as karmic punishment for heterosexual misconduct in a past life, which also means that LGBTQ people should not be persecuted for a condition that they must endure until their next incarnation.

Thomas Kasulis on Robert Aitken

Thomas Kasulis, Comparative Studies professor at The Ohio State University and renowned specialist in Japanese Buddhism, said the following for the Encyclopedia of Gay Folklife:

Probably more than any other American Zen master, Aitken Roshi has worked to connect Zen Buddhism to the moral issues of today, making American Zen Buddhism as inclusive and relevant as possible.

– Mickey Weems
QEGF Authors and Articles
QEGF Introduction
Comments? Post them on our Encyclopedia facebook page.

Further reading:

Aitken, Robert. The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumonkan). San Francisco: North Point, 1990.

“Dharma Talk Given by Thich Nhat Hanh on July 20, 1998 in Plum Village.” http://www.abuddhistlibrary.com/Buddhism/G%20-%20TNH/TNH/Questions%20and%20Answers%20July%2020th%201998/Dharma%20Talk%20given%20by%20Thich%20Nhat%20Hanh%20on%20July%2020.htm. Accessed May 2010.

Harvey, Peter. An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values, and Issues. New York: Cambridge University, 2000.

Prebish, Charles S. Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America. Berkeley: University of California, 1999.

http://sait.usc.edu/lgbt/involvement/undergraduate-student-organizations/jewish-alliances-for-glbts-straights-jags.aspx, February 2012

Allies are people who do not identify as LGBTQ, and who offer support to LGBTQ causes and communities. Although there is some dispute as to whether allies are members of the Gay community, some classifications give them honorary membership within the umbrella category of “Queer.”

Native Taiwanese superstar A-mei, staunch ally to the LGBTQ community (www.chinatownconnection.com/amei.htm, February 2012)

Pre-Stonewall Allies

Several prominent activists, educators, scholars, scientists, and entertainers have defended Gay people and Gay-related identities before Stonewall, including the Roman historian Plutarch, Chinese playwright Li Yu, British pub owner Molly Clap, British philosopher Jeremy Bentham, radical American activist Emma Goldman, French writer Émile Zola, psychologist Sigmund Freud, Canadian-British singer and actress Beatrice Lillie, American actress and playwright Mae West, German-American physicist Albert Einstein, German writer Hermann Hess, and Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.

Beatrice Lillie (www.askactor.com/actress/Beatrice_Lillie/galleries, February 2012)

PFLAG

One of the earliest and most prominent groups of allies supporting LGBTQ communities is Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). The organization began after a woman named Jeanne Manford marched with her son in New York’s Pride parade in 1972 and started meetings with other parents of LGBTQ children the following year.

After a network of these supportive groups formed over the following decade, PFLAG was formally incorporated as a non-profit organization in California in 1982. In its local and national incarnations, PFLAG has provided a place for allies to meet with each other, but has also been a voice for allies and supporters of LGBTQ rights in demonstrations. With over 500 chapters and 200,000 affiliates, the organization is a vocal presence in the media, political lobbying, and public opposition against efforts to repeal LGBTQ rights ordinances as well as end hate speech, hate crimes, bullying, and high rates of LGBTQ teen suicide.

PFLAG, Argentine version (www.familiaresdegays.org, February 2012)

Gay-Straight Alliances

A number of efforts spearheaded by allies have grown into well-publicized campaigns. Since the first group was founded in 1988, groups that formed to offer support to Gay students were known as Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs), often operating in connection or collaboration with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) after it formed in 1995. GLSEN has grown to be a vocal coalition of allies and LGBTQ people in schools, and runs campaigns like ThinkB4YouSpeak, No Name Calling Week, and the annual Day of Silence – a day where students around the country keep silent for a day to draw attention to the effects of bullying, harassment, and violence on the basis of gender and sexuality. With over 4000 GSAs connected to GLSEN and running events locally, these coalitions have become one of the fastest-growing student organizations in the United States.

Day of Silence advertisement in Washington State (www.sgn.org/sgnnews35_16/index.cfm, February 2012)

Allies as Bridges

In the USA and elsewhere, allies have provided support in places where LGBTQ communities are discouraged from forming their own groups. Private universities in the United States that refuse to allow LGBTQ students to form their own organizations have been more lenient about allowing groups supporting LGBTQ students to assemble. For example, LGBTQ issues and inclusion at Notre Dame are handled by the Core Council for Gay and Lesbian Students, and Boston College has a group called “Allies” that helps LGBTQ students, but no group that is specifically for LGBTQ students.

National or transnational activists working in environments that may be hostile to explicitly LGBTQ organizations have often made inroads by working within inclusive organizations that focus on gender, women’s rights, reproductive rights, public health, HIV/AIDS, and human rights. Even when LGBTQ groups do organize separately, there are labor, feminist, anti-racist, religious, and other social movements that offer tactical or symbolic support. On bills like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), for instance, key supporters included the National Coalition for the Homeless, the National Black Justice Coalition, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the AFL-CIO’s Pride at Work.

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio, first African American woman to represent her state, was a strong advocate for LGBTQ rights and championed legislation for Gay equality (blog.pflag.org/2008_08_01_archive.html, February 2012)

Advocacy work done by Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, a young Gay man who had been tortured and murdered in Wyoming in 1998, was important in eventually getting hate crime legislation protecting much of the LGBTQ community through the US Congress. Since her son died, Judy Shepard has testified repeatedly in the face of insulting remarks made about her deceased son by politicians eager to voice their opposition to the bill, and who did so by trivializing the death of Matthew Shepard to her face.

In Canada, it was a collective Gay-Straight effort to getting same-sex marriage legalized, incorporating faith-based groups affiliated with Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Sikh communities. Gay-Straight cooperation helped bring about Project Lazarus in New Orleans, which provides living space and support to those with AIDS by means of a coordinated effort uniting the Gay community, the city of New Orleans, and the Roman Catholic Church.

Mariela Castro (www.inquisitr.com/158277/raul-castro-daughter-twitter-cuba, February 2012)

Gay people in Cuba were persecuted before and after the 1959 Revolution. In the first decade of communist Cuba, effeminate men were sent to labor camps because male homosexuality was seen as a form of capitalistic decadence. But its dictator Fidel Castro appeared to have a change of heart some years later, and spoke in favor of homosexual people in the early 1990s, although police raids of Gay nightclubs and arrests of Gay people continued. Members of Castro’s family have become important allies to the Gay community as well. His brother Raúl authorized free sexual reassignment surgery in 2008, and Raúl’s daughter Mariela (who marched with the Gay community in its International Day Against Homophobia parade in May 2010) has been at the forefront of promoting LGBTQ rights and education.

Post-Stonewall Allies

Some of the most prominent allies in recent years have been individuals. A number of figures who do not necessarily identify as Gay have been outspoken advocates for LGBTQ causes and communities. Often, these individuals begin as icons in LGBTQ communities – like singers A-mei, Eartha Kitt, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Cher, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Patti LaBelle, Kylie Minogue, Kelly Osbourne, and Lady Gaga – who vocally support their Gay fans. Straight politicians such as Bela Abzug (New York), John Conyers (Michigan), Ted Kennedy (Massachusetts), Luis Lula de Silva (Brazil), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), George Moscone (San Francisco), Diane Feinstein (California), Dan Inouye (Hawai’i), and Gavin Newsom (San Francisco) have laid the groundwork for positive legislation and been ardent supporters of LGBTQ communities.

Senator Dan Inouye earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery during WWII, despite seeing people of his ethnicity forced into internment camps. Inouye earned the Medal of Honor for the following event: after being shot in the stomach, he lobbed two grenades and took out two enemy machine gun nests before a German soldier almost shot off his arm, with the hand holding a third grenade. Inouye used his good hand to take the grenade out of his useless hand, and threw the grenade at the enemy, not allowing his fellows to rescue him until he got the third grenade safely out of the way, then continued to attack until shot in the leg. Inouye was a staunch LGBT ally who voted against DOMA, and for the repeal of DADT. From Carolyn Golujuch, founding member of PFLAG-Oahu: “During the 2012 Hawaii Reception for Senator Dan Inouye in Charlotte, North Carolina last September, I was touched when the Senator held my hand and told me that he was friends with a brave Gay soldier in the battlefields of WWII who he considered the bravest man he ever knew… Senator Inouye said that he had made arrangements to be buried next to this soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. Then he said with a twinkle in his eyes, 'You know I can arrange things like this.' I smiled as I was so surprised at his message for me. Others were standing around but I don’t know if they were as touched as I was and remain to this day. Senator Dan Inouye was an amazing person on so many levels.” (edgeboston.com/news/national/news/139955/hawaii’s_inouye, _pro-gay_senator_and_war_hero,_dies_at_88_, December 2012)

The Circuit community has its own Straight, mostly African American, female supporters who do vocals for dance music and perform at circuit parties. These include Martha Wash, Inaya Day, Pepper Mashay, Ultra Naté, Donna Summer, Dawn Tallman, Cindy Lauper, and Deborah Cox.

Desmond Tutu (www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/desmond-tutu-75.php, February 2012)

Religious leaders like Episcopal Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Vietnamese Buddhist leader Thich Nhat Hanh, and Robert Aitken-Roshi of the American Zen community have also supported the Gay community. The United Church of Christ became the first mainstream Christian denomination to officially support Gay marriage. Quaker communities in Australia, Canada, and Britain have been supportive, as have Reform and Reconstructionist Jewish authorities internationally. Some Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian communities have also opened up to Gay people.

Thich Nhat Hanh (wkuplondon.org/about/our-teacher-thich-nhat-hanh, February 2012)

Folk Terms for “Ally”

While the term “allies” is a generic signifier for supportive individuals or groups, there are also specific terms for allies of various LGBTQ communities. A supporter of the Trans community may be called a SOFFA (Significant Other, Friend, Family or Ally). More controversially, Straight supporters who primarily socialize with LGBTQ individuals are known as fruit flies, and women who socialize extensively with Gay men are often labeled fag hags – a folk term which has spawned offshoots like fag stags (Straight men who socialize extensively with Gay men) and lesbros or dyke tykes (Straight men who socialize extensively with Lesbians).

Questioning and Supporting Inclusion

There have been extensive debates about the extent to which allies can and should be included in LGBTQ activism. Separatism was a staple of many of the early demands for Gay liberation, with proponents arguing that Straight allies could not understand the marginalization of the LGBTQ community, or that liberation would only occur when queerness displaced heterosexuality and the nuclear family. The most prominent vein of separatism within feminism and LGBTQ communities was Lesbian separatism, which involved the rejection of both male and heterosexual privilege by maintaining relationships only with other women.

Within Queer communities, there have been a number of contentious debates about who should be included under the LGBTQ umbrella – especially the extent to which the many subgroups under this umbrella are allies of each other. Critics point to divisions between Gay men and Lesbians on the basis of sex, biphobia and transphobia within LGBTQ communities, or whether the movement should fracture along the lines of gender, orientation, or biological sex, thereby reconfiguring Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Queer groups in different combinations.

glbtqjamaica.blogspot.com/2011/10/interses-awareness-day-october-26th.html, February 2012

Many LGBTQ folk groups, however, welcome Straight people as part of the Gay ethos of inclusion and diversity. Women’s music festivals accept all women-born women (and often open to women of all genders and sexualities), Leather events tend to be for all Leatherfolk, and Circuit parties are open to everyone, as are the Gay Games, the International Gay Rodeo Association, the opulently regal drag-centered International Court System (started by Empress José [Sarria] I in 1965), and other events and organizations.

– Ryan Thoreson
QEGF Authors and Articles
QEGF Introduction
Comments? Post them on our Encyclopedia facebook page.

Further Reading:

Shepard, Judy. The Meaning of Matthew. New York: Hudson Street, 2009.

Woog, Dan. Friends and Family: True Stories of Gay America’s Straight Allies. New York: Alyson, 1999.

www.wallpaperpimper.com/wallpaper/download-wallpaper-A_Mei-size-1024x768-id-31895.htm, January 2012. Top image: www.photo4asian.com/Taiwanese-female/Amei-Chang-Hui-Mei.html?page=3, January 2012

Zhang Hui-Mei (also known as A-mei) is a Taiwanese pop music singer, Straight ally, and icon for the Gay community. She has achieved superstar status all over East Asia and portions of Southeast Asia. She is also known by her Taiwanese Aboriginal name: Gulilai Amit.

Background

A-mei was born the seventh of nine siblings on August 9, 1972 in Taitung, Taiwan. From the Puyuma tribe in eastern Taiwan, she was exposed to Puyuma folk music at an early age. Her mother sang to her and her sisters, recording some songs for them on tape, and she was encouraged to sing.

The Aboriginals in Taiwan have suffered a similar fate as the Native Americans in the USA and First Nations in Canada. They were treated as inferior peoples and placed on reservations. It was a major point of pride for the Aboriginal community when A-mei became a superstar, and soon she became a favorite of the LGBTQ community as well. Her very first single of the debut album Sisters was “Sisters” or “Jie Mei.” The song’s chorus, “You are my sister, you are my baby,” helped it become a Gay classic (similar to Sister Sledge’s “We are Family” in North America) with Gays singing it in karaoke discos. When asked about the Gay community’s love for her song, A-mei said she was touched that the community would choose it as an anthem.

Iconic Status, Political Controversy

www.chinatownconnection.com/amei.htm, January 2012

A-mei is known as a diva in the Mandarin pop scene. All of her albums have sold over a million copies, and she appeared numerous magazine covers such as Time, Newsweek, and Asiaweek. She was named the most popular singer in Asia by Billboard Magazine.

heroux.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_archive.html, January 2012

A-mei raised the ire of the mainland Chinese government when she sang at the inauguration of Taiwan’s President Chen Shui Bian, who was in opposition to the eventual unification of Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China. Within Taiwanese political rhetoric, there is the understanding of Taiwanese identity as unique and separate from Chinese identity, in part due to the distinct Austronesian roots of the Taiwanese Aborigine community. As a result, A-mei was boycotted for a period of time in China until she released a statement clarifying her position. Even this statement caused controversy because it was a carefully worded retraction that did not explain her particular viewpoint on the subject.

ent.sina.com.cn/y/2009-07-02/09212592562.shtml, January 2012

Support for the Gay Community

A-mei has been steadfast in her support of Gay rights. In a video, “Love is the Only Thing” that aired in 2004, there is a scene where people are getting ready for a wedding. It is not revealed until the last 30 seconds that two men are getting married, not a man and a woman. The video depicts the two grooms and their families openly celebrating their union. When asked about it, A-mei said that she believed that the song spoke for itself and that Gay men and Lesbians should have the right be married.

Perhaps her greatest achievement for the community is that she publicly stood with the Gay community during the 2008 Taiwan Pride celebration. A-mei plays to sold-out stadiums worldwide, yet she performed at the 2008 Taiwan Gay and Lesbian Pride Festival for free. She was one reason why over 10,000 people marched in the streets.

The first parade started in 2003 and garnered 100 people or so, wearing masks to cover up their faces so that they would not shame their families. At the 2008 festival, thousands upon thousands of people did not wear masks, and they marched with banners proclaiming their pride. Visitors flew from Japan and Korea to be part of the festivities and to see A-mei. Her presence at the event catapulted it from a small political march to a worldwide pride celebration. By endorsing the event, A-mei significantly reduced the stigma associated with it.

At the event, she showed up on time, talked about the importance of being proud of one’s identity, and sang a few songs. She had front-page coverage the next day in many East Asian newspapers, which showed her proclaiming her support for the civil rights struggle.

– Chang Pei
QEGF Authors and Articles
QEGF Introduction
Comments? Post them on our Encyclopedia facebook page.

Further reading:

Chen Kuan-Hsing, Chua Beng Huat. The Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Kort, Michael. The Handbook of East Asia. Brookfield, CN: Twenty-First Century, 2003.

Kraus, Richard Curt. The Party and the Arty in China: The New Politics of Culture. Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 2004.