I'm moving this whole thread here from Free Association
Faggots and Class Struggle. - 2006/09/05 05:03 This past Labor day marked the thirtieth anniversary of the first gathering called upon the Wolf Creek Radical Faerie Sanctuary, "Faggots and Class Struggle". 140 fags,sissies and pansies gathered at creekland on laborday 1976 shortly after George Jalbert first bought the farm. Out of this gathering grew the Radical Faerie tree of today. There is not much online of this seminal event for the Radical Faeries. I found two quotes from attendees, which echo the different interpretations of Faerie gatherings evident still to this day.
"5 of us were living in Mulberry House, 2 queer couples and me. We drove to Wolf Creek, Oregon in 1976 to the “Faggots and Class Struggle” conference in a mail jeep. Steering was right hand. We had a great time meeting other like-minded faggots at the conference in the country. I met many people from San Francisco who became friends – Larry, Michael, Rick and others. It was a very colorful and festive gathering as well as political."
And this from a Gay history circle
"Isensee: A number of us went to this conference called �Faggots in Class Struggle� in Wolf Creek, Oregon, in [the] summer of 1976. It was a very stormy conference. The sissy-identified men went on strike because the male-identified men weren�t doing any of the cooking.
[laughter all around]
And there was this big storm between the country faggots and the city faggots. The city faggots thought the country faggots were all just off being hippies. And the country faggots said that the city faggots were just exploiting the city and the environment. And then there was this heart circle kind of maze thing that they made everybody go through, which culminated in an orgy in the teepee, apparently. I missed out on the orgy. But the next day somebody took the Talking Stick.
[laughter all around]
And demanded to process the fact that he had felt very left out in the orgy at the tepee because of all the ageist and looksist and sexist attitudes of the orgy."
Gary
Re:Faggots and Class Struggle. - 2006/09/05 09:34 A discussion of class issues has been needed for awhile. When raised in the past some faeries deny that there are even any class differences at all. Not suprising since there is widly held myth that there are no classes in America. A handy myth for the rich to perpetuate since they are greatly out numbered by working people. Just as there is a class line in the world there is a class divide at the sanctuary. I think the divide can be seen in the competing visions for the land. One vision wants the land to be for homesteading and see a cash cow. The other vision is for a sanctuary. The homesteading expierment has been a total failure by any measure.
Getting back to the original vision should include a discussion of class issues. How can we make the land a place where faeries from different class backrounds can share the land? Equally.
Post edited by: Gary, at: 2006/09/05 09:36
David Kerlick
Re:Faggots and Class Struggle. - 2006/09/12 08:52 I didn't go, but there was a communique from that gathering, which I think I gave to Nomenus, some of that stuf may have ended up at the U of O in Eugene. Typical of the times, there were concerns about infiltration by the national security state &c.
The listed sponsor was the "Lavender and Red Union" at U of O.
I hadn't heard about the orgy (I guess that was off the record) or the issue of looksism raised that early, later nastily dubbed "David's Problem"
Vaughn
Re:Faggots and Class Struggle. - 2006/09/12 09:27 The best I've been able to locate from the "Faggots and Class Struggle" was a full report published in a movement publication of the day called "Morning Due."
I hope to get that issue when I go to San Fransisco soon, and plan to scan and post it here.
In talking with attendees, and having grown up on the West Coast, ( I came out 1979 ) I've heard of this event for decades. There still are a good amount of the original attendees.
This as far as I believe was the first "Faerie" gathering called. The structure, intent, and even drama +politics resemble those of today. These were the same hippies who were a part of the original Rainbow Gatherings, which also mirror much of the modern Faerie gathering. These hippies, back then usually meeting at Rainbow Gatherings in a "Gay Ghetto" in the San Fransisco Rainbow family camp,
dared to ask the most radical of queeries,
One that still challenges fierce today;
"What would happen if Gay men called a gathering for just Gay men in a safe space for Gay men."
Faggots and Class Struggle. - 2006/09/05 05:03 This past Labor day marked the thirtieth anniversary of the first gathering called upon the Wolf Creek Radical Faerie Sanctuary, "Faggots and Class Struggle". 140 fags,sissies and pansies gathered at creekland on laborday 1976 shortly after George Jalbert first bought the farm. Out of this gathering grew the Radical Faerie tree of today. There is not much online of this seminal event for the Radical Faeries. I found two quotes from attendees, which echo the different interpretations of Faerie gatherings evident still to this day.
"5 of us were living in Mulberry House, 2 queer couples and me. We drove to Wolf Creek, Oregon in 1976 to the “Faggots and Class Struggle” conference in a mail jeep. Steering was right hand. We had a great time meeting other like-minded faggots at the conference in the country. I met many people from San Francisco who became friends – Larry, Michael, Rick and others. It was a very colorful and festive gathering as well as political."
And this from a Gay history circle
"Isensee: A number of us went to this conference called �Faggots in Class Struggle� in Wolf Creek, Oregon, in [the] summer of 1976. It was a very stormy conference. The sissy-identified men went on strike because the male-identified men weren�t doing any of the cooking.
[laughter all around]
And there was this big storm between the country faggots and the city faggots. The city faggots thought the country faggots were all just off being hippies. And the country faggots said that the city faggots were just exploiting the city and the environment. And then there was this heart circle kind of maze thing that they made everybody go through, which culminated in an orgy in the teepee, apparently. I missed out on the orgy. But the next day somebody took the Talking Stick.
[laughter all around]
And demanded to process the fact that he had felt very left out in the orgy at the tepee because of all the ageist and looksist and sexist attitudes of the orgy."
Gary
Re:Faggots and Class Struggle. - 2006/09/05 09:34 A discussion of class issues has been needed for awhile. When raised in the past some faeries deny that there are even any class differences at all. Not suprising since there is widly held myth that there are no classes in America. A handy myth for the rich to perpetuate since they are greatly out numbered by working people. Just as there is a class line in the world there is a class divide at the sanctuary. I think the divide can be seen in the competing visions for the land. One vision wants the land to be for homesteading and see a cash cow. The other vision is for a sanctuary. The homesteading expierment has been a total failure by any measure.
Getting back to the original vision should include a discussion of class issues. How can we make the land a place where faeries from different class backrounds can share the land? Equally.
Post edited by: Gary, at: 2006/09/05 09:36
David Kerlick
Re:Faggots and Class Struggle. - 2006/09/12 08:52 I didn't go, but there was a communique from that gathering, which I think I gave to Nomenus, some of that stuf may have ended up at the U of O in Eugene. Typical of the times, there were concerns about infiltration by the national security state &c.
The listed sponsor was the "Lavender and Red Union" at U of O.
I hadn't heard about the orgy (I guess that was off the record) or the issue of looksism raised that early, later nastily dubbed "David's Problem"
Vaughn
Re:Faggots and Class Struggle. - 2006/09/12 09:27 The best I've been able to locate from the "Faggots and Class Struggle" was a full report published in a movement publication of the day called "Morning Due."
I hope to get that issue when I go to San Fransisco soon, and plan to scan and post it here.
In talking with attendees, and having grown up on the West Coast, ( I came out 1979 ) I've heard of this event for decades. There still are a good amount of the original attendees.
This as far as I believe was the first "Faerie" gathering called. The structure, intent, and even drama +politics resemble those of today. These were the same hippies who were a part of the original Rainbow Gatherings, which also mirror much of the modern Faerie gathering. These hippies, back then usually meeting at Rainbow Gatherings in a "Gay Ghetto" in the San Fransisco Rainbow family camp,
dared to ask the most radical of queeries,
One that still challenges fierce today;
"What would happen if Gay men called a gathering for just Gay men in a safe space for Gay men."
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