The Radil Faeri are a centralized unter-culture movement wh a foc on gay nsc and spirualy. The movement's foc started out on gay men particular, but has sce expand to clu LGBTQIA+ people general. Before the fdg of the Radil Faeri, Harry Hay was the...
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WHY THIS CHARMG GAY FAIRYTALE HAS BEEN LOST FOR 200 YEARS
* gay fairy gatherings *
The first ll to ‘radil faeri’ was ma the late 1970s by veterans of the gay liberatn movement cludg Harry Hay, his lover John Burnsi, and activists Don Kilhefner and Mch Walker. Though the history of the radil faeri is closely tied to that of gay liberatn, faeri have grown to wele queers of all genrs and all sexuali at faerie gathergs and sanctuari.
Hay (1912–2002) is a major figure gay Amerin history, havg found the Mattache Society, along wh several other gay men, Los Angel 1950. Every year or two durg the 70’s, and we would always rve out a chunk of time together to talk about the burgeong gay liberatn movement. Stg on the banks of the R Gran for long hours at a time, we engaged vigoro and far-reachg discsns about what was workg and what was not workg wh the ten-year-old gay liberatn movement.
We both saw the slow encroachment of bourgeois gay assiatn—wh s lack of visn, imagatn, and dacy—as havg a suffotg effect on the movement. After much discsn, Hay and I cid to ll a nference of like-md gay men to nfer about the suatn and to chart a new urse for gay liberatn. We did not want to hold the gatherg at a nference center or universy settg but stead out nature, whout the ual urban, heterosexual rtrats, a place where gay men uld have the maximum opportuny to be themselv.
It’s long been prumed by historians and folklorists that heroic LGBTQ characters simply didn’t exist. But when one ancient gay fairytale was disvered, one amic has explas they were actually eded out of history as recently as the 1960s. * gay fairy gatherings *
The gatherg was nceived as a g together of gay men only, at a time when lbian separatism was full swg and women were formg mun unr the aegis of buildg a “lbian natn.