Monthly Archives: December 2019

Gay History: Wakefield Poole’s “The Boys In The Sand”

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Boys in the Sand is a landmark. American gay pornographic film released at the very beginnings of the Golden Age of Porn. The 1971 film was directed by Wakefield Poole and stars Casey Donovan. Boys in the Sand was the first gay porn film to include credits, to achieve crossover success, to be reviewed by Variety, and one of the earliest porn films, after 1969’s Blue Movie by Andy Warhol, to gain mainstream credibility, preceding 1972’s Deep Throat by nearly a year.

Produced on a budget of $8,000, the film is a loose collection of three segments depicting Donovan’s sexual adventures at a gay beach resort community. Promoted by Poole with an advertising campaign unprecedented for a pornographic feature, Boys in the Sand, which premiered in 1971 at the 253-seat 55th Street Playhouse (154 E. 55th Street, New York, New York 10022) in New York City, was an immediate critical and commercial success. The film brought star Donovan international recognition. A sequel, Boys in the Sand II, was released in 1986 but was unable to match the success of the original.

The film’s title is a parodic reference to the Mart Crowley play and film, The Boys in the Band.

Plot

Boys in the Sand is composed of three segments set on Fire Island.

• Bayside: The dark, bearded Peter Fisk walks along the wooded paths of the island until reaching a beach. He strips and sunbathes on a blanket. Suddenly, out in the water, the blond naked Donovan appears and runs up onto the beach to Fisk. Fisk performs oral sex on Donovan, who then leads Fisk into the woods. Fisk grabs the blanket and follows, catching up to Donovan in a clearing. They kiss and touch each other, then Donovan takes a studded leather strap from Fisk’s wrist and attaches it around Fisk’s genitalia. They continue the scene, with each performing oral sex on the other and Donovan penetrating Fisk. Following Donovan’s climax he returns to servicing Fisk orally and, as Fisk is climaxing, momentary flashes of previous scenes are intercut. The scene ends with Fisk taking the strap from his genitals and attaching it around Donovan’s wrist. Fisk runs into the ocean and vanishes, mirroring Donovan’s entrance. Donovan dons Fisk’s abandoned clothes and heads off down the beach.

• Poolside: The segment opens with Donovan on a pier, holding a newspaper. He returns to his house, strips by the pool and begins reading. Intrigued by an ad in the back of the paper, Donovan writes a letter in response. After a number of days pass (marked by the cliché device of fluttering calendar pages), he receives a reply in the form of a package. Inside is a tablet, which he throws into the pool. The water starts to churn and the dark-haired Danny Di Cioccio emerges to Donovan’s delight. The two couple by the pool, with each performing oral sex on the other and Donovan penetrating Di Cioccio in a variety of positions. Di Cioccio turns the tables and tops Donovan until Donovan’s climax. The scene closes with the two engaged in horseplay in the pool and then walking off together down a boardwalk.

• Inside: This final segment opens with shots of Donovan showering, toweling off and wandering idly around his room, intercut with shots of African-American telephone repairman Tommy Moore checking various poles and lines outside, Donovan spots Moore from his balcony. Moore sees Donovan as well. The remainder of the segment consists of Donovan’s fantasized sexual encounters with Moore throughout the house intercut with shots of Donovan sniffing poppers and penetrating himself with a large black dildo. The segment ends following Donovan’s climax with the dildo, with the real Moore coming inside the house and closing the door behind them.

Production

Poole was inspired to make the film after he went with some friends to see a film called Highway Hustler. After watching the film, he said to a friend, “This is the worst, ugliest movie I’ve ever seen! Somebody oughta be able to do something better than this. “Poole was convinced that he was that somebody; “I wanted [to make] a film that gay people could look at and say, ‘I don’t mind being gay – it’s beautiful to see those people do what they’re doing.’ Having enlisted the help of his lover, Peter Fisk, and another man, Poole first shot a ten-minute segment entitled Bayside.

The success of that initial shoot convinced Poole to plan two more segments and seek theatrical distribution for the completed work. He hired Tommy Moore and Casey Donovan for the third segment, Inside. When Fisk’s scene partner from Bayside heard about the potential distribution deal, he refused to sign release forms until he was guaranteed 20% of the profits. Instead, Poole decided to scrap the segment and re-shoot with Fisk and Donovan. The resulting footage was so good that Poole decided to use Donovan for the second segment as well, entitled Poolside, and construct the loose storyline around him. The three segments were filmed on a budget of $8,000 over three successive weekends in August 1971 in the gay resort area of Cherry Grove, New York, on Fire Island.

Popular and critical reception

Boys in the Sand had its theatrical debut on December 29, 1971, at the 55th Street Playhouse in New York City. Poole engaged in an unprecedented pre-release publicity campaign, including screening parties and full-page ads in The New York Times and Variety.

The line, for the first showing, reached 7th Avenue. The film made back most of its production and promotions budget the day it opened, grossing close to $6,000 in the first hour, and nearly $25,000 during its first week, landing it on Variety’s list of the week’s 50 top-grossing films. Positive word of mouth spread and the film was favorably reviewed in Variety (“There are no more closets!”), The Advocate (“Everyone will fall in love with this philandering fellator”), and other outlets, which previously had completely ignored the genre. While some critics were less impressed, others saw the film as akin to the avant-garde work of directors, like Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol. Within six months the film had grossed $140,000 and was continuing to open in theatres across the United States and around the world.

The film’s mainstream popularity helped usher in the era of “porno chic”, a brief period of mainstream cultural acceptability afforded hardcore pornographic film, having been cited as “very much a precursor” to the following year’s crossover success of Deep Throat. The film would continue to attract critical and scholarly attention from pornography historians and researchers for years after its release. The film is credited with beginning the trend of giving pornographic films titles that spoof the names of non-porn films.

With the success of Boys in the Sand, Casey Donovan became an underground celebrity. While he never achieved the mainstream film career for which he had hoped, he continued his career in pornography and translated his fame into some appearances on the legitimate stage, including a successful national tour in the gay-themed play Tubstrip and an unsuccessful attempt to produce a revival of The Ritz. His fame also allowed him success as a high-priced escort. He remained a bankable commodity in the adult industry, making films for the next fifteen years until his death from AIDS-related illness in 1987.

Legacy

Poole and Donovan had long wanted to make a sequel to Boys in the Sand. In 1984, they finally shot Boys in the Sand II. Also filmed on Fire Island, the film featured Donovan, the only cast member from the original to return. The original opening sequence, Bayside, was recreated for the sequel, with Pat Allen performing the run from the water. Litigation tied up the release of Boys in the Sand II until 1986 and with the advent of the home video market, there was a glut of gay porn titles available. Boys in the Sand II did not distinguish itself from the competition and was not particularly successful.

In 2002, TLA Releasing released The Wakefield Poole Collection. The two-DVD set includes Boys in the Sand and Boys in the Sand II along with a third Poole/Donovan collaboration, Bijou (1972), and other shorts and material shot by Poole. The collection won a 2003 GayVN Award for “Best Classic Gay DVD” and is now out of print.

In May 2014, filmmaker and writer Jim Tushinski’s full-length documentary I Always Said Yes: The Many Lives of Wakefield Poole which features extensive interviews with Poole, “Boys in the Sand” producer Marvin Schulman, and many contemporaries, began playing at film festivals. In June 2014, the DVD company Vinegar Syndrome restored “Boys in the Sand” from the remaining film elements and released this new version on DVD along with early short films by Wakefield Poole and several documentary shorts about the filming and reception of Boys in the Sand.

Who is Wakefield Poole and Why Haven’t You Heard of Him?

In late 1971, a little over two years after the Stonewall Riots, there were no out celebrities. That changed on December 27, when a respected Broadway choreographer/director and his business manager opened a low budget 16mm movie in a rundown art house theater on 55th Street. 

“Boys in the Sand” was a phenomenon and utterly new—an artistically photographed, sexually explicit narrative film, set to classical music and featuring only male actors. These actors had unsimulated sex with each other on the beach, by a pool, and in a glamorous Fire Island house.  It was presented and advertised as a legitimate film because it had no precedent. It wasn’t like the seedy loops that ran at the 42nd Street porno houses. It was gay sex positive, showing gay male sex and sexuality as something beautiful and to be admired. And the film made a lot of money. Variety took notice and trumpeted “Amateurs Bring in Bonanza.” Straight couples and women showed up. Rudolf Nureyev drove hundreds of miles to see the film. Going to a screening, you might see Angela Lansbury, Liza Minnelli, or Halston in the audience.

Director Wakefield Poole, well-known in Broadway circles, put his real name above the title in all advertisements and on the marquee of the 55th Street Playhouse. Proudly. Poole became one of the most famous gay men in the world along with “Boys in the Sand” star Casey Donovan. Pirated copies of the film played for years in Europe. Outside New York, people heard about the film through enthusiastic coverage in magazines like After Dark and The Advocate. 

Placing ads in these magazines, Poole and producer Marvin Shulman started selling “Boys in the Sand” to the home 8mm film market – making the film available on multiple reels for $99 with a suggested soundtrack insert sheet so folks in Oklahoma or Idaho could enjoy the film just as the New York theatergoers had. The money rolled in, even though sending “pornography” through the mail was punishable with a prison sentence. Actor John Gielgud arranged to buy a 16mm copy and take it back to the UK so he could show it to all his friends. Hugh Hefner and Sammy Davis, Jr, also purchased 16mm copies directly from Poole and Shulman for their film libraries. Even several Hollywood studios  asked for a copy, thinking they could hire Poole for something more mainstream.

Less than a year later, Poole and Shulman had another hit. “Bijou” was a dark, enigmatic, hardcore experimental narrative featuring actor and Robert Redford lookalike Bill Harrison, who shocked audiences when he unveiled the largest penis most people had ever seen on a movie screen or in real life. “Bijou” was such a success and had such a psychological effect that audience members by the hundreds went and talked to their analysts about it. Eventually, the head of the Columbia University Psychology department summoned Poole to his home on Easter Sunday to screen the film for some colleagues, his wife, his teenage children, and his mother. The National Organization for Women screened “Bijou” as an example of a non-degrading sexually explicit film.

Then “Deep Throat” opened, copying the advertising and promotional campaigns of “Boys in the Sand” and “Bijou.” When “Deep Throat” became a crossover phenomenon, mainstream media declared it as the start of porno chic, a brief period in the 1970s when hardcore films with stories, humor, and good production values suddenly were acceptable. In reality, it all started a year prior, ushered in by two gay men who had no idea if anyone would even come to see their little movie.

So why haven’t you heard of Wakefield Poole? Why isn’t he acknowledged by film historians and gay cultural gatekeepers as one of the true pioneers? Fandor just released an infographic highlighting the history of sex in film. “Deep Throat” is there, but no mention of “Boys in the Sand.” It’s not Fandor’s fault. They are repeating the well worn notions of official film history which states that gay cinema started in the 1990s. But when Out Magazine or one of the other mainstream gay magazines names the most influential LGBT people of the 20th Century, you’ll never find Poole listed. When an LGBT film festival in the US gives out a Lifetime Achievement Award, it’s not to Wakefield Poole (though he has received two from non-US film festivals). Some US festivals are brave enough to show his films, but many cower at the feet of their corporate sponsors, who do not want to be associated with “porn.”

There is an effort among LGBT cultural gatekeepers to de-sexualize our history. They want our pioneers to be G or PG-rated because they want LGBT people to be seen as just like everyone else – parents, husbands, wives, and respectable members of society. The sexual parts of LGBT history make most heterosexuals uncomfortable. They even make many LGBT people uncomfortable. So it’s best if these things are swept under the rug and forgotten. 

But this denial of sex started years before the gay mainstreaming movement. By the time AIDS ravaged the community, sex was suspect and dangerous. Gay men who survived didn’t want to talk about porn or the sexual component of gay history because they had an enormous amount of shame. Sexual hedonism killed their friends. Porn contributed. It didn’t help that Poole’s classic films were always released on home video as “pre-condom porn” by less than respectable adult film companies and in versions that made the gorgeous photography look like someone smeared mud all over the negative.  Poole and his films faded from collective gay memory, known only to vintage porn collectors and a few film fans.

In 2010, I accompanied Wakefield Poole to the Fire Island Pines, where two brave locals were doing benefit screenings of “Boys in the Sand.” The screenings were to help fund a 24/7 doctor living in the Pines, something the community didn’t have. Filmmaker Crayton Robey and artist Philip Monaghan were shut down by all official Fire Island Pines organizations m but forged ahead. When the two men started advertising the event, some locals were horrified, telling the organizers that porn had no place being screened at the Community Center and that the organizers were guilty of spreading AIDS because no condoms appear in the film. The loudest complaints came from gay men who owned property in the Pines—property that would not be worth nearly as much had it not been for “Boys in the Sand” making the Pines an international tourist destination in the early 1970s. The film is an integral part of the history of the Pines and yet some of the gay community there wanted the film demonized.

I hope this is changing. Five of Poole’s films have been completely restored from 2K scans of their original elements and released by the highly respected exploitation film DVD company Vinegar Syndrome, who is marketing them to cult film fans. The response so far has been exciting and unexpected. But mainstream film history and mainstream LGBT recognition still eludes Poole, his legacy, and his work. Without Poole’s work and its influence on other LGBT filmmakers, there would be no independent gay film, no big LGBT film festivals, and certainly, no accurate depictions of gay male sex on the screen. For most straight folk, that doesn’t seem like a big deal. For LGBT people, however, Poole is a key figure in their culture and art. Too bad most of them don’t have the slightest idea who he is.

Reference

Gay Guys…We Have A Problem! Its Name Is “Attitude”!

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Picture it; “Coastal Twist” Fair Day, Umina Beach, October 2019. This was one of a number of inaugural events for a yearly festival for the gay/LGBT/queer community on the Central Coast of NSW. I attended this friendly-feeling event with my housemate (an ex), and my most current ex. We have all moved out of the big city, and into the peace and quiet of life in this area almost 4 years ago. The gay community in this rather large area of NSW is there, but not blatantly obvious and “out there” like it is in the city. It is not easy to meet other gay people here, and the apps only really offer sex, not friendships. One would hope that events like this could change that scenario, but…

So, we are standing in the allocated area for alcohol, having a beer. This guy appears and greets my housemate, who knows him, and his partner, from earlier days in Darlinghurst, where they ran a restaurant. They have also dropped my housemate home from Woy Woy station on several occasions, on their way home to Umina Beach. In other words, they only live a very short distance away. My housemate has always made a point of telling me what a lovely couple they are.

Anyway…we are chatting to the one who appeared, obviously an extrovert. Really nice guy, very friendly, very chatty, and not a scatter brain. I automatically took to him, and the four of us were happily chatting away about life on the coast when his partner made an appearance. Despite my housemate insisting I knew them – he does this a lot…like I knew every single gay man in Sydney – but I certainly don’t remember them, so introductions all around. The partner stood next to me, and quite obviously wasn’t interested in getting involved in the conversation going on, which made me feel quite uncomfortable. He hung around for a couple of minutes, disappeared, returned a short time later, then disappeared again. Meanwhile, I found the one we were chatting to quite affable, and thought…nice guy to get to know. Finding out that he was also on a disability pension, and free during the day had me thinking about occasional coffees or lunches to break the home monotony. Towards the end of the chat, he mentioned they were having a barbecue the next day for some friends, and would we all like to come. Thinking this was a great opportunity to get to know and socialise with some other local gays, we said yes, and in return invited them to our annual home Christmas bash at the start of December. It did cross my mind that with the partner being less friendly and sociable, there could be a problem!

As it turned out…I was right. Got up the next day quite looking forward to meeting up again, only to be told by the housemate that he had received a message from the affable partner, saying the unfriendly partner was not feeling well, and the barbecue had been cancelled. We both exchanged a look that said…we know what’s happened there. Not a word since. It has been made pretty obvious – at least from one of the two – that we are supposed to ignore each other, despite a shared sexuality, and close proximity. Needless to say, I was very disappointed! It’s almost like being back on the scene in the city, where attitude reigns supreme!

I have heard from a number of Melbourne gay guys that Sydney gays are hard to get friendly with because of their attitude…and having lived in Melbourne, I tend to agree. What is it about Sydney men that makes them think they are better than anyone else! It was difficult enough when negotiating the scene in the 80s & 90s. There is a stand-offishness with Sydney guys, an attitude that makes approaching them difficult, and awkward. I always found picking guys up in Melbourne a lot easier than picking them up,in Sydney. It’s not that I lacked a sex life in Sydney, more that you had to work harder for it, and if guys weren’t interested, they were often quite rude about it. Everyone hung around in their cliquey groups – including me – and because the group was always there, in the pubs and bars, it was difficult to meet an individual. Going to a pub or bar on your own often meant that was how you remained for the night – single and alone. It was likewise within the scenes sub-groups, such as leather guys, bears, muscle Mary’s and so on. It seemed to be a like-for-like situation, and if you didn’t fit you were left on the outer. Despite sly looks, and eye meetings, attitude more often than not got in the way. Big parties like Mardi Gras and Sleaze became, after the late 80s, just about the gym bunnies dancing…off their faces…with other gym bunnies, and if you didn’t fit the mould then…too bad. I did wonder on occasion if these Peter Pans had any sex life at all, or did they just pose and flex as a substitute! It got really bad. Attitude ruled!

I remember only too well my run-in with AIDS in 1996. It was a very distressing and traumatic experience, and one I wasn’t expected to survive. However, it was a time of big advances in HIV medications, and I got through it against the odds. After 18 months of getting my mental and physical health back together, I thought it was time to make a move back onto the scene, and start having sex again. It had been a long drought. And in that interim period, even more friends had died, and it became very obvious that I knew very few people in Sydney at that time. I think my first night back out in a pub I had always been familiar with was…scary and alienating! I knew…nobody! And found myself standing on my own all night while these groups of people socialised around me. As always, guys looked, but no one approached. I recollect feeling very distressed about it. Not being someone who did beats, saunas or backrooms, I wondered if I was ever going to have sex again. It made me very aware of the devastation that wiped out most of my social circle, and despite me hoping that HIV/AIDS would bring us,…as individuals who existed within a sub-cultural community…closer together, that instead attitude had won out, and if you were on your own within the ghetto, you were likely to remain so. It gave me empathy for those who, in the days prior to my brush with death, I had observed wandering through the scene largely ignored.

I did eventually have sex, though it came with the knowledge…at least on one occasion…that people on the scene who were on the outskirts of HIV had no concept of what I was recovering from. I wanted a slow transition back into anal sex, but the attitude was…well…why! You’re gay…you should be ready and willing to do this HIS way! That didn’t work for me…though my second encounter was a lot more reciprocal and inventive. I fortunately ran into a friend when out one Friday night, who I hadn’t had contact details ,for, and thanks to him I then had someone to go out with. Shortly after that, I ended up in a relationship for the next 16 years. Through him, I ended up circulating in his social circle, so until we moved to Brisbane, our social life was quite good. Yeah…Brisbane…

I admit to being a bit of an introvert, but not to the point where I don’t socialise or enjoy the company of other people. My partner was my opposite – he was a true extrovert, and as often happens, the opposites that we were worked. However, Brisbane defeated both of us. What is it about capital cities that make gay men develop attitude – that ability to look down their noses at other gay men, to be stand-offish, or just talk through you. There was a lot of that in Brisbane, and in the almost 4 years we lived there, we had no friends on the local scene. It was like an unbreachable barrier. In early 2014, we mutually called an end to our relationship. The next lesson in gay attitude was about to come to a head. This branch of attitude was called…social media!

I love how we give names to things that aren’t what the name implies. I first started using Facebook around 2012. There wasn’t a lot of use back then, but I then discovered that a lot of people I knew from the scene in the 80s & 90s…and assumed many were dead as they had disappeared from the scene…were actually on FB, and much to my delight I reconnected with them. Now, this is the “social” part of social media that I enjoyed then, and continue enjoying even now! I have to say that of my 150-odd “friends” on there, in reality my friend list could be reduced to about 40, as they are the only ones who respond to, and comment on, posts and status updates. As for the rest of them…I don’t know why they bothered sending a friend request in the first place! In many (most?) cases, it is a matter of commenting on friends posts, and somebody from their list checking out your profile (picture, mainly), and thinking they’d send you a request.

I used to look at the friends requests, see how many mutual friends we had, and either accepted or declined from there. However, even that method of “friends in common” hasn’t proved successful, and I’ve ended up with a friends list of mainly people who may as well not exist at all, as they neither like, nor comment on, any of the activity coming from my profile…except for the serial pests! Yep…those guys who send friends requests for no other reason than to try to hook up through FB Messenger. They seem to think because you are friends with so-and-so, you are automatically available for some dirty talk or otherwise. As soon as I accept a friends request, and seconds later a Messenger pings with a “Hi handsome” or “Hi sexy” message I think…here we go! I know it appears rude, but these days I ignore them. Back in earlier days, when it really annoyed me that they didn’t want to know anything more about me than the size of my cock, I used to bore them with long tirades about myself to see if they’d stick it out! They rarely did! In my defence, I’m not adverse to some dirty talk (as several can attest)…but I like a stranger to get to know at least a little bit about me first!

Which brings us to the modern curse of self-censorship. These days, everyone seems to be so easily offended…though I do wonder if a lot of it isn’t being offended for the sake of being offended. As I’ve stated, I know most of my friends list, but there are those in there I don’t!’t know (friends of friends) so I always have to think before reposting something…is this going to offend anyone, even if it’s a tongue-in-cheek meme.

Instagram has become, in many respects, a narcissist heaven. Every person…gay and straight…who goes to a gym has to put up daily photos with shirts off, and undies on…just! Men love to show off their cocks/cock bulges and it has become so prolific that it borders on being a yawnfest now, and it’s noticeable that none of them are unattractive. Conversations of any description are light on too…though I do check regularly to see what reactions the posts generate. ❤️😍🔥🍆💦 are all most admirers have to say!

Of course, the next step from social media were the sex apps! Fuck me…can we talk a whole new dimension to hollow, and shallow! Now we can REALLY talk attitude…and how! My experiences in my short 12-month sprint on these apps could fill a book! And virtually none of it positive! The only way I have ever been able to describe my experiences there are as…demeaning, humiliating and frustrating! It seems to be the one medium where users can be totally rude, ignorant pigs…and get away with it!

At the height of my sex app/web usage, I was logging onto Gaydar, Scruff, Grindr, Manhunt, and BBRT. It’s like a drug addiction! You’d find yourself logging on over breakfast just to see what humiliation was in store for you that day. Of all the dozens of men I had contact with over 12 months, my total scoring sex encounters amounted to…5. Of those…1 was satisfactory. Thankfully, there were no second dates. So, here are some of my (true) encounters on the apps. Take into account that I discovered early not to give your true age…but I only knocked 5 years off…I was upfront about being HIV+, (and had an undetectable viral load for many, many years), and that I was severely vision-impaired, and as a result of this, I didn’t have a car. No names mentioned to protect the guilty;

  • The guy who had hot tatts, and messaged me, whenever I was online on Saturday night, that he would drop in TONIGHT. He never made one appearance…but I would say that due to the long gaps in answering messages, others were perhaps more lucky!
  • The guy who wanted to call in at 8.00am on his way to work for a quickie, then got his nose out of joint when I said no, as I had to get up at 7.00am to walk the dogs, and that was my have- breakfast-and-wake-up-properly time…and I just wasn’t horny at that hour! No mention of alternative times from him, so bye!
  • The guy whose photo was always right next to mine on Scruff, and lived in the same suburb. After 6 months of this happening, I thought I’d just send him a message to say hi from another local…was intended to be quite innocent! I got the most abrupt message back, wanting to know what I was after! He did calm down when I explained it was intended to be nothing more than a hello from a neighbour, but it made me realise how judgemental people on these sites were.
  • The guy who kept sending me teasing messages, then messaged me one Saturday night saying that he and 4 other guys were having a party, were off their faces…and needed tops!
  • The much older guy who thought he was so desirable that he had a “stable” of guys. He visited me at home…non-sexually…and explained that he would pick and choose his sexual partner depending on his mood. Evidently, if you were lucky enough to be selected for an encounter, you were expected to drop everything and be available to satisfy his sexual requirements. Needless to say, the three times he rang me, to an unanswered phone, must have eventually given him the idea that…we’ll…I wasn’t available!
  • The guy who was in a relationship, but his partner was working, and he travelled for about an hour to get to my place, arrived at around 3.00am, then proceeded to sit and drink a bottle of wine (even I’d stopped drinking way before that hour), then at 4.00am when we hit the sack, wondered why I couldn’t keep a hard-on…could it have been that I had been drinking much earlier, and that I was REALLY tired?
  • The guy who had been messaging me for months to have an assignation. He had a profile picture of an attractive, well-groomed guy, and had there that he was into fitness. My profile stated that amongst my PREFERENCES were smooth guys, into fitness and health, as I was. Well…when he turned up, it was evident the profile picture was quite old. Wasn’t totally unattractive, but had unkempt hair and beard, was overweight…and very hairy. We did have sex, as he was actually quite a nice guy, and we lined up another date. As it turned out, I had to move back to Sydney before that came around, and messaged him to let him know. He messaged back asking who I was…that he couldn’t place me. Obviously just as well I wasn this hanging out for the second date!
  • Then there was my one quite satisfying encounter. Nice looking guy, great personality. Came over for dinner, and seduction, all achieved quite enjoyably. By this stage in my personal life, I had just split up with a partner I had been with for 16 years. We hadn’t had sex together for a number of years at this time…he had assignations behind my back (or so he thought), and I was monogamous inside a relationship…so I hadn’t had a good fucking for quite some time. Not surprisingly, my guest wasn’t a small boy, and there was some…not unexpected…discomfort after. However, the next day…it never rains but it pours…another guy messaged me could he come over. This guy was also in a relationship, but had fantasies about fucking guys raw (no condoms, that is). Not believing my luck, I agreed. He turned up for what was basically a “blow ‘n go”, but having some slight damage from the night before, there was a bit of blood when he drew out. Well…he freaked. I kept trying to reassure him that I was undetectable, had been for a long, long time, and that I couldn’t pass anything on…not even a good old-fashioned std! Anyway, after much showering and scouring, he left. I think he was having second thoughts about his sexual fantasies at this stage.
  • Then the strangest one of all! Met two guys on the Barebackers site. One was interested sexually…so I thought…and one was in a rather odd relationship, but just wanted friendship. They both knew each other quite well from the site, and both came over for a “check you out” visit. We hit it off really well, and I was quite attracted to the guy who I thought was sexually interested in me. Later that night, he dropped the other guy home and came back. We had a couple of glasses of wine, and a chat. There was a bit of touchy-feely, then he said he had to get home, so I said okay. The visits continued, and what appeared to be a friendship developed. Now, the guy informed me he used to be a gay male escort in Sydney back in the 80s. We had both already ascertained that we’d lied about our ages on the site, and as it turned out, there was only five years between us. So I got a real surprise one night when I progressed things from just tit play and tongue kissing…to oral. That was fine, but then I pulled him up off the lounge, and headed him to the bedroom. He freaked…and fled! I really couldn’t work out what was going on at all. The next time we chatted, it was like nothing had happened. A chat with our other mate revealed that he had invited his 80-odd-years-old parents to live with him…and that they (who were living in the flat of their 55-year-old son) and they actually dictated what time he should be home by! Anyway, for some unknown reason he got very stand-offish, and we lost contact just before I moved back to Sydney. At my first dinner party with friends back in Sydney, I must have accidentally pocket-dialled him. I received a rather abrupt message from him, informing me that he really didn’t appreciate me ringing him to show what a good time I was having back in Sydney! WTF!

Unlike other guys I know, by admitting my HIV+ status on these sites, I never had anyone ask me if I was “Clean”! What ignorant arseholes these people are! What gives them the right to embarrass and demean people in this way…it is just internalised homophobia/AIDSphobia. Many of the recipients of this “request” were guys who lived through the horror years of HIV/AIDS, fought the battles for access to medical care, sat back…defenceless…as their social circles – friends, acquaintances, relatives, partners – were obliterated from the face of the earth, fought their own battles with AIDS and associated illnesses, coming out the other end of it burnt out, emotionally and psychologically devastated…YET embracing new treatments and therapies, many of which had not been thoroughly trialled. They are here because they took control, found treatments that worked, thus increasing their CD4 counts, and are now living with undetectable viral loads. It is now proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that having unprotected sex with an HIV+ person with an undetectable viral load will NOT put you at risk to contract HIV! Yet there are low-lives on sex apps who have the rudeness and audacity to ask these guys if they are “Clean”? Seriously? Fuck off! And get a fucking education, you ignorant prick! I can assure you…it’s just as well you never confronted me with that!

Before I moved back to Sydney, I deleted the apps, and closed online accounts. I really had had enough. I just don’t get why guys are so dishonest, and make having sex such a difficult thing! It’s like everything that goes on through social media, and sex sites. People can hide behind profiles, and they seem to think that because there is no person-to-person contact, they have a licence to throw all decency, morals and ethics out the window…that it is just open slather to be rude, demean people, lead people on, and to hurt people with no consequences coming back on them! It is one of several big drawbacks of using these forms of media. This sort of irresponsible behaviour would never have been tolerated in the days of face- to-face meetings in bars. It is sad that gay men have cheapened themselves so much in these days of contemporary media!

I am reconciled to a sexless life these days…well, apart from what I can do myself! The gay scene in Sydney is pretty well dead. Ageism was always alive and well anyway, and that is something that has moved over into social media, and the sex/dating apps. There are no gay bars in the area I live in, and despite the odd occasional eye contact in my local clubs, there is little opportunity to meet other gay people. Most of my social life these days revolves around straight people in my own age group. It’s not that this concerns me, as they are wonderful, inclusive people…but not likely to provide a 66-year-old who still has a high libido a sex life! That some of the gay people we’ve met here have an attitude problem, doesn’t help.

A lot of gay men need to get over it! That somebody wants to chat to you doesn’t mean they want to pick you up! More often than not, they just want to interact with someone who shares their sexuality, to be able to talk”gay”. These are, in many respects, remote areas that don’t have rows of gay nightclubs and pubs, and we need to learn respect for each other, irrespective of age, disability or gender. We can be our worst enemy, and it’s time to move on from attitude and snobbery.

Next time you pass someone in your local village or town who you think might be gay…we are more often than not still obvious…throw them a smile and a “Hi”. It’s not going to cause you any harm (even if they are not gay), and it could well make that persons day.

Tim Alderman ©️ 2 019

 

 

Gay History: Timeline Of An Acronym – LGBT

Article, Gay Interest, History, Political, , , , ,

The Stonewall Inn in the gay village of Greenwich Village, Manhattan, site of the June 1969 Stonewall riots, the cradle of the modern LGBT rights movement and an icon of LGBT culture, is adorned with flags depicting the colors of the rainbow.[1][2][3]
LGBT (or GLBT) is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the term is an adaptation of the initialism LGB, which was used to replace the term gay in reference to the LGBT community beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s.[4] Activists believed that the term gay community did not accurately represent all those to whom it referred.

The initialism has become adopted into the mainstream as an umbrella term for use when labeling topics pertaining to sexuality and gender identity. For example, the LGBT Movement Advancement Project termed community centres, which have services specific to those members of the LGBT community, as “LGBT community centers”, in a comprehensive studies of such centres around the United States.[5]

The initialism LGBT is intended to emphasize a diversity of sexuality and gender identity-based cultures. It may be used to refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.[6] To recognize this inclusion, a popular variant adds the letter Q for those who identify as queer or are questioning their sexual identity; LGBTQ has been recorded since 1996.[7][8] Those who add intersex people to LGBT groups or organizing use an extended initialism LGBTI.[9][10] The two acronyms are sometimes combined to form the terms LGBTIQ [11] or LGBT+ to encompass spectrums of sexuality and gender.[12] Other, less common variants also exist, motivated by a desire for inclusivity, including those over twice as long which have prompted criticism.[13]

A six-band rainbow flag representing LGBT

History of the term

The first widely used term, homosexual, now carries negative connotations.[15] It was replaced by  homophile in the 1950s and 1960s,[16][dubious – discuss] and subsequently gayin the 1970s; the latter term was adopted first by the homosexual community.[17] Lars Ullerstam [sv] promoted use of the term sexual minority in the 1960s, as an analogy to the term ethnic minority for non-whites.[18]

As lesbians forged more public identities, the phrase “gay and lesbian” became more common.[19] A dispute as to whether the primary focus of their political aims should be feminism or gay rights led to the dissolution of some lesbian organizations, including the Daughters of Bilitis, which disbanded in 1970 following disputes over which goal should take precedence.[20] As equality was a priority for lesbian feminists, disparity of roles between men and women or butch and femme were viewed as patriarchal. Lesbian feminists eschewed gender role play that had been pervasive in bars, as well as the perceived chauvinism of gay men; many lesbian feminists refused to work with gay men, or take up their causes.[21]

Lesbians who held the essentialist view, that they had been born homosexual and used the descriptor “lesbian” to define sexual attraction, often considered the separatist opinions of lesbian-feminists to be detrimental to the cause of gay rights.[22] Bisexual and transgender people also sought recognition as legitimate categories within the larger minority community.[19]

After the elation of change following group action in the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, some gays and lesbians became less accepting of bisexual or transgender people.[23][24] Critics[Like whom?] said that transgender people were acting out stereotypes and bisexuals were simply gay men or lesbian women who were afraid to come out and be honest about their identity.[23] Each community has struggled to develop its own identity including whether, and how, to align with other gender and sexuality-based communities, at times excluding other subgroups; these conflicts continue to this day.[24] LGBTQ activists and artists have created posters to raise consciousness about the issue since the movement began.[25]

From about 1988, activists began to use the initialism LGBT in the United States.[26] Not until the 1990s within the movement did gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people gain equal respect.[24] This spurred some organizations to adopt new names, as the GLBT Historical Society did in 1999. Although the LGBT community has seen much controversy regarding universal acceptance of different member groups (bisexual and transgender individuals, in particular, have sometimes been marginalized by the larger LGBT community), the term LGBT has been a positive symbol of inclusion.[6][24]

Despite the fact that LGBT does not nominally encompass all individuals in smaller communities (see Variants below), the term is generally accepted to include those not specifically identified in the four-letter initialism.[6][24] Overall, the use of the term LGBT has, over time, largely aided in bringing otherwise marginalized individuals into the general community.[6][24] Transgender actress Candis Cayne in 2009 described the LGBT community “the last great minority”, noting that “We can still be harassed openly” and be “called out on television”.[27]

In response to years of lobbying from users and LGBT groups to eliminate discrimination, the online social networking service Facebook, in February 2014, widened its choice of gender variants for users.[relevant? – discuss][28][29][30]

In 2016, GLAAD‘s Media Reference Guide states that LGBTQ is the preferred initialism, being more inclusive of younger members of the communities who embrace queer as a self-descriptor.[31] However, some people consider queer to be a derogatory term originating in hate speech and reject it, especially among older members of the community.[32]

LGBT publications, pride parades, and related events, such as this stage at Bologna Pride 2008 in Italy, increasingly drop the LGBT initialism instead of regularly adding new letters, and dealing with issues of placement of those letters within the new title.[14]

Variants

Many variants exist including variations that change the order of the letters; LGBT or GLBTare the most common terms.[24] Although identical in meaning, LGBT may have a more feminist connotation than GLBT as it places the “L” (for “lesbian”) first.[24] LGBT may also include additional Qs for “queer” or “questioning” (sometimes abbreviated with a question mark and sometimes used to mean anybody not literally L, G, B or T) producing the variants LGBTQ and LGBTQQ.[34][35][36] In the United Kingdom, it is sometimes stylized as LGB&T,[37][38] whilst the Green Party of England and Wales uses the term LGBTIQ in its manifesto and official publications.[39][40][41]

The order of the letters has not been standardized; in addition to the variations between the positions of the initial “L” or “G”, the mentioned, less common letters, if used, may appear in almost any order.[24] Longer initialisms based on LGBT are sometimes referred to as “alphabet soup”.[42][43] Variant terms do not typically represent political differences within the community, but arise simply from the preferences of individuals and groups.[44]

The terms pansexual, omnisexual, fluid and queer-identified are regarded as falling under the umbrella term bisexual (and therefore are considered a part of the bisexual community).

Some use LGBT+ to mean “LGBT and related communities”.[12] LGBTQIA is sometimes used and adds “queer, intersex, and asexual” to the basic term.[45] Other variants may have a “U” for “unsure”; a “C” for “curious”; another “T” for “transvestite“; a “TS”, or “2” for “two-spirit” persons; or an “SA” for “straight allies“.[46][47][48][49][50] However, the inclusion of straight allies in the LGBT acronym has proven controversial as many straight allies have been accused of using LGBT advocacy to gain popularity and status in recent years,[51] and various LGBT activists have criticised the heteronormative worldview of certain straight allies.[52] Some may also add a “P” for “polyamorous“, an “H” for “HIV-affected“, or an “O” for “other”.[24][53] Furthermore, the initialism LGBTIH has seen use in Indiato encompass the hijra third gender identity and the related subculture.[54][55]

The initialism LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual) has also resulted, although such initialisms are sometimes criticized for being confusing and leaving some people out, as well as issues of placement of the letters within the new title.[42] However, adding the term “allies” to the initialism has sparked controversy,[56] with some seeing the inclusion of “ally” in place of “asexual” as a form of asexual erasure.[57] There is also the acronym QUILTBAG (queer and questioning, intersex, lesbian, transgender and two-spirit, bisexual, asexual and ally, and gay and genderqueer).[58]

Similarly LGBTIQA+ stands for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, asexual and many other terms (such as non-binary and pansexual)”.[59]

In Canada, the community is sometimes identified as LGBTQ2 (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Two Spirit).[60]Depending on the which organization is using the acronym the choice of acronym changes. Businesses and the CBC often simply employ LGBT as a proxy for any longer acronym, private activist groups often employ LGBTQ+,[61] whereas public health providers favour the more inclusive LGBT2Q+ to accommodate twin spirited indigenous peoples.[62] For a time the Pride Toronto organization used the much lengthier acronym LGBTTIQQ2SA, but appears to have dropped this in favour of simpler wording.[63]

Transgender inclusion

The term trans* has been adopted by some groups as a more inclusive alternative to “transgender”, where trans (without the asterisk) has been used to describe trans men and trans women, while trans* covers all non-cisgender (genderqueer) identities, including transgender, transsexual, transvestite, genderqueer, genderfluid, non-binary, genderfuck, genderless, agender, non-gendered, third gender, two-spirit, bigender, and trans man and trans woman.[64][65] Likewise, the term transsexual commonly falls under the umbrella term transgender, but some transsexual people object to this.[24]

When not inclusive of transgender people, the shorter term LGB is used instead of LGBT.[24][66]

Intersex inclusion

Main article: Intersex and LGBT

The relationship of intersex to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans, and queer communities is complex,[67] but intersex people are often added to the LGBT category to create an LGBTI community. Some intersex people prefer the initialism LGBTI, while others would rather that they not be included as part of the term.[10][68] LGBTI is used in all parts of “The Activist’s Guide” of the Yogyakarta Principles in Action.[69] Emi Koyama describes how inclusion of intersex in LGBTI can fail to address intersex-specific human rights issues, including creating false impressions “that intersex people’s rights are protected” by laws protecting LGBT people, and failing to acknowledge that many intersex people are not LGBT.[70] Organisation Intersex International Australia states that some intersex individuals are same sex attracted, and some are heterosexual, but “LGBTI activism has fought for the rights of people who fall outside of expected binary sex and gender norms”.[71][72] Julius Kaggwa of SIPD Uganda has written that, while the gay community “offers us a place of relative safety, it is also oblivious to our specific needs”.[73]

Numerous studies have shown higher rates of same sex attraction in intersex people,[74][75] with a recent Australian study of people born with atypical sex characteristics finding that 52% of respondents were non-heterosexual,[76][77] thus research on intersex subjects has been used to explore means of preventing homosexuality.[74][75] As an experience of being born with sex characteristics that do not fit social norms,[78] intersex can be distinguished from transgender,[79][80][81] while some intersex people are both intersex and transgender.[82]

2010 pride parade in Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, which uses the LGBTIQ initialism.[33]

Criticism of the term

The initialisms LGBT or GLBT are not agreed to by everyone that they encompass.[84] For example, some argue that transgender and transsexual causes are not the same as that of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people.[85] This argument centers on the idea that being transgender or transsexual have to do more with gender identity, or a person’s understanding of being or not being a man or a woman irrespective of their sexual orientation.[24] LGB issues can be seen as a matter of sexual orientation or attraction.[24]These distinctions have been made in the context of political action in which LGB goals, such as same-sex marriage legislation and human rights work (which may not include transgender and intersex people), may be perceived to differ from transgender and transsexual goals.[24]

A belief in “lesbian & gay separatism” (not to be confused with the related “lesbian separatism“), holds that lesbians and gay men form (or should form) a community distinct and separate from other groups normally included in the LGBTQ sphere.[86] While not always appearing of sufficient number or organization to be called a movement, separatists are a significant, vocal, and active element within many parts of the LGBT community.[87][86][88] In some cases separatists will deny the existence or right to equality of bisexual orientations and of transsexuality,[87] sometimes leading public biphobia and transphobia.[87][86] In contrasts to separatists, Peter Tatchell of the LGBT human rights group OutRage! argues that to separate the transgender movement from the LGB would be “political madness”, stating that: 

Queers are, like transgender people, gender deviant. We don’t conform to traditional heterosexist assumptions of male and female behaviour, in that we have sexual and emotional relationships with the same sex. We should celebrate our discordance with mainstream straight norms.[…] [89]

The portrayal of an all-encompassing “LGBT community” or “LGB community” is also disliked by some lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.[90][91] Some do not subscribe to or approve of the political and social solidarity, and visibility and human rights campaigning that normally goes with it including gay pride marches and events.[90][91] Some of them believe that grouping together people with non-heterosexual orientations perpetuates the myth that being gay/lesbian/bi/asexual/pansexual/etc. makes a person deficiently different from other people.[90] These people are often less visible compared to more mainstream gay or LGBT activists.[90][91] Since this faction is difficult to distinguish from the heterosexual majority, it is common for people to assume all LGBT people support LGBT liberation and the visibility of LGBT people in society, including the right to live one’s life in a different way from the majority.[90][91][92] In the 1996 book Anti-Gay, a collection of essays edited by Mark Simpson, the concept of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ identity based on LGBT stereotypes is criticized for suppressing the individuality of LGBT people.[93]

Writing in the BBC News Magazine in 2014, Julie Bindel questions whether the various gender groupings now, “bracketed together” … “share the same issues, values and goals?” Bindel refers to a number of possible new initialisms for differing combinations and concludes that it may be time for the alliances to be reformed or finally go “our separate ways”. In 2015, the slogan “Drop the T” was coined to encourage LGBT organizations to stop support of transgender people; while receiving some support from feminists as well as transgender individuals, the campaign has been widely condemned by many LGBT groups as transphobic.

Alternative terms

Many people have looked for a generic term to replace the numerous existing initialisms.[87] Words such as queer (an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities that are not heterosexual, or gender-binary) and rainbow have been tried, but most have not been widely adopted.[87][102] Queer has many negative connotations to older people who remember the word as a taunt and insult and such (negative) usage of the term continues.[87][102] Many younger people also understand queer to be more politically charged than LGBT.[102][103] “Rainbow” has connotations that recall hippies, New Age movements, and groups such as the Rainbow Family or Jesse Jackson‘s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. SGL (“same gender loving“) is sometimes favored among gay male African Americans as a way of distinguishing themselves from what they regard as white-dominated LGBT communities.[104]

Some people advocate the term “minority sexual and gender identities” (MSGI, coined in 2000), or gender and sexual/sexuality minorities (GSM), so as to explicitly include all people who are not cisgender and heterosexual; or gender, sexual, and romantic minorities (GSRM), which is more explicitly inclusive of minority romantic orientations and polyamory; but those have not been widely adopted either.[105][106][107][108][109] Other rare umbrella terms are Gender and Sexual Diversities (GSD),[110] MOGII (Marginalized Orientations, Gender Identities, and Intersex) and MOGAI (Marginalized Orientations, Gender Alignments and Intersex).[111][112]

The National Institutes of Health have framed LGBT, others “whose sexual orientation and/or gender identity varies, those who may not self-identify as LGBT” and also intersex populations (as persons with disorders of sex development) as “sexual and gender minority” (SGM) populations. This has led to the development of an NIH SGM Health Research Strategic Plan.[113] The Williams Institute has used the same term in a report on an international sustainable development goals, but excluding intersex populations.[114]

In public health settings, MSM (“men who have sex with men“) is clinically used to describe men who have sex with other men without referring to their sexual orientation, with WSW (“women who have sex with women“) also used as an analogous term.[115][116]

References

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  • ^ Becker, Ron (2006). “Gay-Themed Television and the Slumpy Class: The Affordable, Multicultural Politics of the Gay Nineties”. Television & New Media. 7 (2): 184–215. doi:10.1177/1527476403255830. ISSN 1527-4764.
  • ^ DeTurk, Sara (2011). “Allies in Action: The Communicative Experiences of People Who Challenge Social Injustice on Behalf of Others”. Communication Quarterly. 59 (5): 569–590. doi:10.1080/01463373.2011.614209. ISSN 0146-3373.
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    • Gay History: Police RAID at Hares & Hyenas Building

    Article, Gay Interest, Political, , ,

    For Melbourne’s LGBTQIA community, the police raid above the Hares & Hyenas bookstore – and subsequent serious injury of queer party organiser Nik Dimopoulos – has triggered memories of darker times. By Nic Holas.

    Nik Dimopoulos, who was arrested by Victoria Police in a raid that is being investigated.

    Nik Dimopoulos is surrounded by flowers. It’s a fitting flourish for the humble man behind some of Melbourne’s most beloved queer parties. There’s no techno pumping through the speaker here though, no throb of shirtless gay men in varying stages of undress and debauchery.

    Dimopoulos is in St Vincent’s Hospital in Fitzroy, just a short walk from Melbourne’s queer hub of bars, sex clubs and one very iconic bookstore, Hares & Hyenas. It was there, in the early hours of last Saturday morning, he was arrested by Victoria Police during a raid on his home in what police have described as a case of mistaken identity. Dimopoulos’s arm was torn from its socket, broken so badly it required hours of surgery just so he didn’t lose the limb.

    When I visit him, Dimopoulos isn’t in a partying mood. Amid all the chatter of visiting gay friends, he pauses for a moment, overwhelmed by it all again. We let him catch his breath. Doctors say it’s still too early to know whether he will recover full use of his arm.

    Four days earlier, about 2am on May 11, members of Victoria Police’s Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) entered Dimopoulos’s home, a residence connected to Hares & Hyenas, through the alley behind the bookstore. The officers were seeking to apprehend an “armed member of a Lebanese gang” linked to a May 5 home invasion and carjacking in Melbourne’s southern suburbs.

    Dimopoulos is not Lebanese. Nor is he a member of any gang. He is Greek Australian – his hair is dark, he has a beard. He’s also well built. In the eyes of the CIRT though, he matched the description of their suspect, at least enough to warrant pursuit as he attempted to flee the residence.

    Dimopoulos and his housemates, Hares & Hyenas owners Crusader Hillis and Rowland Thomson, all emphatically state that at no point did any member of the CIRT announce their presence or say they were police. Dimopoulos tells me he believed these men – storming into his home, shining torches in his face, loudly demanding he “not move” – were there to commit an anti-queer attack. So he ran.

    By the time Crusader Hillis realised the men were in fact police and made his way to the front of the building, Dimopoulos’s arm was already broken. “Nik was already completely slumped,” Hillis explains. “He was screaming. At that point, my only concern was to get across to police that it was a case of mistaken identity. There was no one showing any concern for his level of pain.”

    According to Hillis, the “bigger brass” soon started to arrive at the shop and realised the CIRT had the wrong man. But Dimopoulos’s arms, one severely broken, were still cable-tied behind his back. According to Hillis and Thomson, no one in the CIRT had a way to remove the cable ties. Dimopoulos remained bound until the ambulance arrived. At the hospital, medical staff explained the severity of his injuries. “I don’t know if we can fix this,” they told him.

    On Monday, Victoria Police assistant commissioner Luke Cornelius addressed the media, telling reporters it is “very clear to us that police stuffed this one up. Very clear to us that the injuries occasioned by the individual who was arrested by police. Very clear to us that those injuries are very serious and the nature of those injuries demand explanation.”

     Hares & Hyenas has been a fixture of Melbourne’s queer community since 1991. More than a bookstore, it is also a licensed performance venue that hosts queer theatre, cabaret and storytelling along with an endless stream of community launches, events and support groups.

    Ro Allen, Victoria’s first gender and sexuality commissioner, was “appalled” by the raid at the Hares & Hyenas building. Allen described Crusader Hillis, Rowland Thomson and Nik Dimopoulos as “Victorian LGBTIQ royalty”.

    For Melbourne’s queer community, the violence of the incident has triggered not-too-distant memories of a time when the gay rights movement often found itself brutalised at the hands of a homophobic police force. Of the Tasty nightclub raid in 1994, during which Victoria Police detained the patrons of the gay nightclub in Melbourne’s CBD and subjected them all to a demeaning stripsearch over the course of seven hours.

    Hillis and Thomson both acknowledge Saturday’s incident was not motivated by the homophobia for which the police force was once known. But they remember those days all too well.

    “We had issues with police at various times in the ’80s before we opened the shop, and then in the ’90s,” Hillis tells me. The pair were gay bashed in front of Hares & Hyenas’ original store, in South Yarra, in 1993. Hillis describes the attack as a “hate crime”, just one of a spate of homophobic bashings in the neighbourhood. When Victoria Police attended the scene, Thomson explains, they “initially refused to drive us to The Alfred [Hospital], which was a block away, because we were bleeding”.

    Thomson says Hillis stood up to the police back then, as he did during last weekend’s raid. “Crusader, in his usual way, confronted them,” Thomson says, “and told them [in the 1993 incident] they had to educate themselves on HIV and that they had to take us [to hospital], which they ended up doing but it shows the level of ignorance of the police at that stage. They thought it was dangerous to have queers bleeding in the car.”

    According to Lee Carnie of Equality Australia and the Human Rights Law Centre, “There have been many positive steps that Victoria Police has taken to build bridges with the LGBTQ communities, but the sad reality is that the legacy of past negative experiences lives on today.” The raid has also renewed the polarising debate from within the LGBTQIA community about the presence of police marching in uniform in pride parades such as Mardi Gras.

    On Monday, Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission announced they would be taking over the investigation into Nik Dimopoulos’s arrest.

    “Police should not be investigating police, it’s as simple as that,” Carnie says, supporting an independent investigation into the incident. “Victorians deserve a police force they can trust – a police force that is transparent and accountable when it does wrong.”

    Hillis and Thomson are also pleased the botched raid will be investigated independently and acknowledge the lobbying power of the queer community helped make it happen. “When the police take on the queer community, we’ve got that history. We’ve got that fear,” Hillis says. “But we’ve also got incredible fightback”.

    They hope this event can be a flashpoint “to drive this towards bigger cultural change” within Victoria Police. But Hillis believes this change “has to extend to other groups of marginalised people, who get far too much attention from the police and are arrested at far greater rates”.

    Nayuka Gorrie is a Gunai/Kurnai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta writer and member of Melbourne’s queer community. They tell me they weren’t shocked to hear about the raid, citing many examples of police raids and excessive force on their community.

    “We have a premier like Daniel Andrews who relies on the gay community to appear progressive but at the same time is expanding prisons and giving police more powers. We’re seeing the militarisation of police, and also quashing civil action and protest. So, it’s not shocking to me. We’re not shocked to see this happen,” Gorrie says.

    “It’s just another day, if you’re a queer black person. Part of me is a little bit frustrated that it takes this much for white queers to recognise what the relationship really is and how quickly the supposed contract between queer communities and police can be broken.”

    In his hospital room, Nik Dimopoulos is trying to finish a statement to send to friends and supporters with Crusader Hillis’s help. Both say the community’s response has been overwhelming. Yet another gay male friend wanders into the room to visit. There is now an official guest list, such is the demand. Much like one of Dimopoulos’s parties.

    Hillis intercepts the new visitor, and for a moment it’s just Dimopoulos and me in the room. He tells me why he ran that night.

    “I’ve always had a thing in the back of my mind that there would be a likelihood that [Hares & Hyenas] would be targeted. I’ve already had this concept in my head of what I would do if we were broken into, and it was understood to be a gay hate crime. What would I do, how would I react?

    “That kicked in immediately as soon as I realised there were men with torches who – without introducing who they were – yelled at me, ‘Don’t move!’ and started running towards me. By the time I got downstairs, fumbling, they caught up with me, I saw there was a group outside. It was so quick. It went from thinking there were two intruders to a gang. A hate gang.”

    Dimopoulos stops. The trauma of what happened has grabbed him by the throat and he can’t speak anymore. It took six hours for surgeons to reattach the severed muscles in his arm and, using a leg graft and metal pins, reconstruct his shoulder socket. And so we leave it there.

    On Thursday, during an interview on 3AW radio, Police Association of Victoria secretary Wayne Gatt told host Neil Mitchell that he was “proud” of the actions of the officers involved in Dimopoulos’s arrest.

    He said he didn’t think any of the CIRT had been suspended over the incident. “I would certainly hope that they are not, to be honest,” he said.

    Gatt said members of the police association had told him the CIRT clearly identified themselves when entering the property. “They do that clearly and they are recorded doing that, that’s what they tell us,” he said.

    No such recordings have been made public as yet. 

    This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 18, 2019 as “Troubled memories”.

    Reference

    Gay History: Why Be LGBT When You Can Be LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA? The story of an escalating acronym

    Article, Gay Interest, Political, , , , , ,

    Enrolling at Parsons College in New York the other day, a friend was asked to state her name, subject and PGPs. Her what? Her preferred gender pronouns. In other words, did she want to be referred to as ‘she’ and ‘her’, or ‘he’ and ‘him’, or ‘it’, or ‘they’, or none of the above, and was she a Mr, Miss, or Mx? If she wasn’t sure, a support group was on hand to help, called the LGBTQIAGNC. There was no need — she said her name was Clare and ‘she’ would do fine. And the rest of the class? ‘No one stated a PGP other than the obvious,’ she reports, ‘although we do have a large LGBT community.’

    Your reaction to that story might be to think how marvellously inclusive Parsons is — an institution so evolved that people can live gender-neutral lives without prejudice. Or it may be to ask: what on earth does LGBTQIAGNC stand for? And to wonder whether some people in the gay rights movement haven’t veered off course. As one activist sighed when I asked if he could spell out the acronym, ‘Matthew, there are so many letters now that nobody can keep up.’

    A little light googling reveals that it stands for ‘Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual and gender-non-conforming’. Go a little deeper and you discover that there are dozens of different acronyms, and that nobody can agree on what the official one should be. Well, how do you find a name for individuals who are united by being different? Other terms being tacked on to the LGBT movement include ‘questioning’, ‘pansexual’, ‘ally’ or ‘allied’, ‘straight’, ‘leather’ and ‘fetish’, though nobody has found a way of stringing them together to make a snappy word, which I always thought was the point of an acronym. Someone did come up with ‘Quiltbag’, though perhaps understandably, it hasn’t caught on. A more sensible suggestion is ‘Glow’ — ‘gay, lesbian or whatever’.

    Peter Tatchell, who has done more for gay rights than almost anyone, is bewildered by the proliferation of incomprehensible acronyms. ‘It’s great to be inclusive,’ he says, ‘but the new alphabet soup is a confusing and alienating mess — made even worse when people get into spats over missing initials or the inclusion of initials they disagree with. The longest I’ve ever seen is LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA. This is absurd. It makes us a laughing stock and devalues serious issues around sexuality and gender.’

    The problem seems to be that the western world is only just coming to terms with transgenderism. For even the most enlightened liberal, the idea that we are anything other than just men and women is unfamiliar territory. Perhaps that’s because incidence of intersexuality is rare. Accurate figures are hard to come by, though the Intersex Society of North America puts the number of people born with neither XX nor XY chromosomes at one in 1,666. Is that really enough to merit institutions asking for our PGPs? Or for the Whitney Museum to install gender-neutral toilets, in addition to male and female ones? Or for some British schools to insist that teachers no longer address classes as ‘boys and girls’, for fear of offence?

    This might all sound silly — and the rush to take offence does undermine the LGBT movement. But surely it is important to create a society in which trans people can live without fear and prejudice? According to Stonewall, nearly half of trans people under 26 have attempted suicide. That perhaps puts a few odd pronouns into perspective.

    Personally, I wonder if the trans movement isn’t now at the beginning of an arc that gay rights and anti-racist campaigns were at a generation ago. In the 1950s, we prosecuted Alan Turing for homosexual acts but now recognise this as such a terrible injustice that he has been given a posthumous royal pardon. In the 1970s, we used to laugh at racist jokes in Rising Damp – now they appal us. I still doubt that, in 50 years’ time, terms like Mx will have caught on. But by then, it will perhaps be entirely irrelevant what gender or sexuality you are, and we’ll look back on the PGP as a relic of a long-gone fretful age.

    There is now a K in LGBTQQICAPF2K+

    This is a new one for us but welcome the Ks

    There is now a K to add to the ever-growing LGBT+ acronym – and apparently, it stands for “kink”. The acronym which has grown since the 90s, out of a need to move away from the limiting “gay community” adds letters to encompass any community that defines itself as anything but heterosexual or cisgender.

    The LGBT initialism was coined in the late 80s / early 90s.

    So what do all the letters mean?

    L – lesbian

    G – gay

    B – bisexual

    T – transgender

    Q – queer

    Q – questioning

    I – intersex

    A – asexual

    A – agender

    A – ally

    C – curious

    P – pansexual

    P – polysexual

    F – friends and family

    2 – two-spirit

    K – kink

    However, the addition of the K has been met with some reservation from many on the question website, Quora. Users were quick to dismiss Kink as part of the LGBT+ community.

    Sarah remarked, “Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t believe that fetishes belong in the same acronym as sexualities and gender identity”.

    While Caitlin added, “However, I and others believe that it shouldn’t be included in the acronym. Kink is not inherently non-cis or non-straight, and including it can feed into the stereotype of queer people being “sexual deviants”. BDSM is fine in a community of its own but it’s strange and unnecessary to include it with sexual orientations and gender identities”.

    John wrote, “I’m gay, and I do not and will not use this silly LGBTQLAPK sh*t. They keep adding a silly letter for inclusion. You are just labelling yourselves, and that is a silly thing to do.”

    References

    Gay History: Council on Religion and the Homosexual

    Article, Gay Interest, History, Political

    The Council on Religion and the Homosexual was a San Francisco-based organization founded in 1964 for the purpose of joining homosexual activists and religious leaders.

    Clockwise from upper right:  Partygoers on their way to the Council on Religion and the Homosexual Mardi Gras Ball at San Francisco’s California Hall under the watchful eyes of the San Francisco police, January 1, 1965. Credit: San Francisco Examiner. Evander Smith photographed by the police outside California Hall (the police photographed everyone entering the building using sequentially numbered cards), January 1, 1965. Credit: Evander Smith—California Hall Papers (GLC 46), LGBTQI Center, San Francisco Public Library. Herb Donaldson photographed by the police outside California Hall, January 1, 1965.  Credit:  Courtesy Herbert Donaldson.

    The CRH was formed in 1964 by Glide Memorial Methodist Church, as well as Daughters of Bilitis founders Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. It included representatives of Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran, and United Church of Christ denominations.[1]

    In the early 1960s, as social change accelerated across the U.S., progressive clergymen increasingly took to the streets to minister to marginalized persons. The Rev. Ted McIlvenna, who worked for the Glide Urban Center, a private Methodist foundation in downtown San Francisco, witnessed the oppression and violence homosexuals faced, and to improve the situation sought a dialogue between clergy and homosexuals.

    With the support of the Methodist church, McIlvenna convened the Mill Valley Conference from May 31 to June 2, 1964, at which sixteen Methodist, Protestant Episcopal, United Church of Christ, and Lutheran clergymen met with thirteen leaders of the homosexual community.

    Following the initial meeting, the participants began plans for a new organization that would educate religious communities about gay and lesbian issues as well as enlist religious leaders to advocate for homosexual concerns. In July 1964, the participants, along with several other clergymen and homosexual activists, met and formed the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (CRH), which was incorporated in December of that year. The CRH was the first group in the U.S. to use the word “homosexual” in its name.[2]

    1965 Fundraiser

    On January 1, 1965, CRH held a costume party at California Hall at 625 Polk Street in San Francisco to raise money for the new organization. When the ministers informed the San Francisco Police Department of their intentions, the SFPD attempted to force the rented hall’s owners to cancel the event.[3] After a further meeting between the ministers and police, which resulted in an agreement not to interfere with the dance, guests arrived to find police snapping pictures of each of them as they entered and left, in a blatant attempt to intimidate.[3]

    When police demanded entry into the hall, three CRH-employed lawyers explained to them that under California law, the event was a private party and they could not enter unless they bought tickets. The lawyers were then arrested, as was a ticket-taker, on charges of obstructing an officer.[4]

    Seven of the ministers who were in attendance that night held a press conference the following morning, where they described the pre-event negotiations with police and accused them of “intimidation, broken promises and obvious hostility.”[3][4] One minister compared the SFPD to the Gestapo.[4]

    When the arrested lawyers came to trial, they were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which saw the lawyers’ arrest as an attempt to “intimidate attorneys who represent unpopular groups.”[3] Charges were dropped before the Defense had presented its case.[3]

    The incident and its aftermath are often regarded as the starting point of a more formally organized gay rights movement in San Francisco.[5]

    Candidate’s Night

    In 1965, CRH held an event where local politicians could be questioned about issues concerning gay and lesbian people, including police intimidation. The event marks the first known instance of “the gay vote” being sought, which led lesbian activist Barbara Gittings to say “It was remarkable. That was something that [gay] people in San Francisco were way ahead of the rest of the country in doing.”[1]

    References

       Licata, Salvatore J.; Robert P. Peterson (1982). Historical Perspectives on Homosexuality. Routledge. p. 175. ISBN 0-917724-27-5.

    1. ^ Squatriglia, Chuck; Heredia, Christopher; Writers, Chronicle Staff (2003-09-25). “Donald Stewart Lucas — gay rights pioneer / He helped build foundation for later activists”. SFGate. Retrieved 2019-10-08.
    2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e D’Emilio, John (1998). Sexual politics, sexual communities: the making of a homosexual minority in the United States, 1940-1970. University of Chicago Press. pp. 193–195. ISBN 0-226-14267-1.
    3. ^ Jump up to: a b c Shilts, Randy (1982). The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. St. Martin’s Press. pp. 53–60. ISBN 0-312-56085-0.
    4. ^ Smith, Kristin (November 4, 2011). “Tears for Queers”. The Bold Italic. Archived from the original on August 27, 2017. Retrieved 2017-06-04

    The 17 Most Interesting Micronations

    Article, Gay Interest, General Interest, History, Humour, Political, , , ,

    The concept of a Micronation is a crazy one. Tiny nations, rarely recognized by anyone, they claim territorial independence but are mostly ignored by the rest of the world. Some are pretty legit, some are jokes, and some are scams, but they’re all interesting. These 17 Micronations all have individual claims to fame that make them intensely cool, in one way or another.

    17. Republic of Molossia

    Molossia is probably one of the most well known Micronations, with just the right blend of tongue-in-cheek humor and seriousness be wonderful and awesome. Molossia is based on two properties in Nevada and Pennsylvania, stretching over 58,000 acres owned by President Kevin Baugh (dictatorial). He issues their own money, they recognise other micronations, and if you give him enough warning, he’ll even give you a tour in full uniform. Molossia has its own alphabet, flag, and has been at war with East Germany since 1983, despite only being founded in 1999. Plus, they just added their own words to the Albanian national anthem. A little bonkers, and a lot of fun, how could you dislike the Republic of Molossia?

    16. The Kingdom of Lovely

    In 2005, the BBC ran a six-part documentary titled How to Start Your Own Country in which comedian Danny Wallace attempted to do exactly that — the Kingdom of Lovely is what resulted. He decided his flat would be appropriate, and gave Tony Blair a declaration of Independence, claiming it as a micronation. Partly internet based, Lovely now has more than 55,000 citizens scattered around the world, but Wallace’s attempt to gain recognition from the United Nations was harmed by him lacking any territories.

    15. The Duchy of Bohemia

    Whether the Duchy of Bohemia is actually a micronation or not is up for debate. Amongst the serious Micronationers, it’s generally frowned upon as they haven’t been doing anything really political, instead just selling off titles as a way to make a quick buck — rather than attempting to set themselves up as a legitimate mini-country. The reason I’ve included them is because their backstory is wonderful — they believe themselves to be the government in exile of Bohemia, which was absorbed into other Eastern European countries decades ago. They believe themselves to be descended of the Bohemian royal line, which is kinda badass.

    14. Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands

    In 2004, the Australian govenrment refused to acknowledge gay marriages, so as a move of symbolic protest a huge cluster of islands of the Northeast Coast of Queensland were declared the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands, a Euro spending constitutional monarchy under the rule of King Gautier I. With a national anthem by Gloria Gaynor, anyone who was gay or lesbian was immediately granted citizenship — though the only economic activity on the islands was tourism, fishing, and selling stamps. Yes, it’s silly, and no it’s not meant to be taken seriously, but it was an interesting protest, and all done in fun.

    13. The Dominion of Melchizedek

    The so-called Dominion of Melchizedek presents the seedier side of micronations, a group of people involved in an immense swathe of financial fraud that brought the world powers down against them. Not internationally recognised, it was founded by a father and son con-artist team, who sold fake banking licenses. They facilitated global banking fraud, and were once called “one of the most diabolical international scams ever devised in recent years.” The leaders claim it’s an “ecclesiastical sovereignty,” like the Vatican City, but that’s more or less BS. They give banking licenses to illegitimate entities, who then rip off everyone else. Poor immigrants were also duped into buying citizenship papers they couldn’t afford, only to find they were useless. Nice people, all around.

    12. The Aerican Empire

    Their flag has a happy face on it. Do you really need any more indication that these people are amazing? They also take the micronation concept to absurdest ends, claiming diverse areas of land like a square kilometer of Australia, a house-sized area in Montreal, Canada, a colony on Mars, the northern hemisphere of Pluto, and an imaginary planet. For the first 10 years of existence, it didn’t even claim any land, but still managed to declare war on other micronations. They also have one of the most wonderful mottos around “The Empire exists to facilitate the evolution of a society wherein the Empire itself is no longer necessary.” It’s pretty much a state set up by a bunch of HGTTG nerds, which is amazing in and of itself.

    11. Nova Roma

    Take you standard SCA style reenactment geeks, have the obsess about Rome instead of the Middle Ages, and turn the wackiness up to 11, and you have the basics of Nova Roma. Founded in 1989 in order to “the restoration of classical Roman religion, culture, and virtues,” they’re a fully recognized non-profit with an educational and religious mission. They practice the Roman religion, do the festivities, wear the clothes, reenact battles — but I’m assuming skip the horrible torture, ethnic cleansing, and pedophilia. Well, I hope. The New Romans don’t really consider themselves a Micronation, but the rest of the Micronation community does, and they have made utterings about attempting to become a sovereign nation following in Roman traditions.

    10. Conch Republic

    The Conch Republic deserves to be on this list if only for having the funniest motto I’ve ever seen on a Micronation: “We Seceded Where Others Failed.” Well played, Conchers, well played. The Republic is completely tongue-and-cheek, and exists only to help drive tourism to the Florida Keys, but its founding was caused by real frustrations. When the US Border Patrol set up a checkpoint between Key West and the mainland, it frustrated a number of residents. Why were they being treated like foreign nationals entering the USA when they were citizens? So they decided they should make their own country. Yeah, they were removing the Michael, but were doing so with a point.

    9. The Other World Kingdom

    Finding pictures of the OWK that I could put on a marginally SFW website was tricky, because OWK exists only for kink. It’s a Femdom Micronation, one where men and women who like it when women have complete sexual and physical power over men get together. Fiercely matriarchal, male visitors are used as furniture, beaten, and generally tortured in a manner that some BDSM lovers are intimately familiar with. While apparently no actual sex occurs in this Czech manor (yeah, right), their claims as a Micronation allow them to get away with things that otherwise might be illegal — like detaining people against their will (kinda?) and physical abuse. Hey, whatever rubs your Buddha.

    8. The failed Libertarian states

    This entry isn’t just one nation, but instead is devoted to the number of attempted Libertarian micronations that have fallen apart for one reason or another. Hey, whenever your entire population thinks they’re John Galt, it’s hard to find someone to fix the sewage pump. There was Minerva on a small reef island near Fiji, which fell when Tonga invaded and took it over. There was New Utopia, founded by Howard Turney, which may or may not be an immense scam, depending on who you talk to. Then the Principality of Freedonia attempted to lease land in Somaliland, but public dissatisfaction led to rioting and the death of a Somali national, so the American students who founded it scarpered. There’s the more recent Seasteading Institute, which is attempting to build an ocean based new nation. I’m sure one day, one of them will succeed.

    7. The Empire of Atlantium

    Unlike many of the tongue in cheek attempts at micronationhood, the Empire of Atlantium went at it with a fierce devotion to the nation-state experiment, and wanted to found an extremely liberal, secular humanist utopia. Formed in Sydney in 1981, the nation has only 0.29 square miles to its name, but as primarily non-territorial state, they’re cool with that. I guess you could say it’s more a state of mind (oh god, why did I make that pun?) The man behind Atlantium is fiercely disliked by other Micronations, essentially for being an enormous flaming douchenozzle, but at least he’s trying.

    6. Grand Duchy of Westarctica

    For some reason, up until 2001 there was a huge wedge of Antarctica not claimed by any existing nation. All of the land south of 60° S and between 90° W and 150° W. was between the claims of Chile and New Zealand, and no one wanted it. So Travis McHenry claimed the so called Marie Byrd Land, and christened it the Grand Duchy of Westarctica. Of all the entries on this list, Westartica actually makes more sense than most. There was a huge swathe of land that nobody wanted, so why couldn’t they just claim it? It was completely unclaimed, so they grabbed it. I kinda hope they actually get some recognition, at least one of these guys deserves a win.

    5. The Kingdom of EnenKio

    Possibly the most widely known and condemned of the scummy, scamming micronations, the Kingdom of EnenKio claimed Wake Atoll of the Marshall Islands as their home base. These three little islands make up around 6.5 square kilometers of land, and after setting up this micronation in 1994, the founders immediately started setting up scam passports and diplomatic papers, which they sold to various unsavory types, despite them not actually having any weight in any nation on the planet. Both the United States and the Marshall Islands have released official communications condemning the actions of the EnenKions.

    4. The Hutt River Province Principality

    One of the longer running micronations, the Hutt River Province was founded in Australia in 1970. Based in the middle of fucking nowhere, around 500km north of Perth, this 18,000 hectare of farmland declared their secession after what they deemed to be overly draconian wheat production quotas. Unlike most other attempts on this list, the Hutt River Provinces almost succeeded. There’s an old Commonwealth law allowing for succession, and the Queen’s representative in Australia couldn’t be bothered fighting the five families who started the new country, so they just let them be. They don’t pay taxes, and mostly just keep to themselves, selling stamps and coins to make some extra cash on the side.

    3. The Independent Long Island

    Wait a second, someone actually wants Long Island? Huh, who would have thought? The ILI is an interesting case, because while they started by claiming the entire island as their own in 2007, on the grounds that it never changed hands to the Americans during the Revolutionary War. Or something like that. They could just be ornery, I’m not really sure. But in the scant handful of years that followed, it was entertaining as all hell to watch their dreams crumble into dust. Unlike some of the leaders on this list who kept their delusions going for years, the ILI first wanted their own country, then were happy being a separate state, and now have completely abandoned political aspirations and is now a “cultural project.”

    2. Freetown Christiania

    Within the Danish capital of Copenhagen sits a small, self-declared autonomous region known as Freetown Christiania. Founded in 1971 by, well, hippies, it’s run by, well, hippies. A bunch of squatters took over a former military barracks, and set up the mother of all communes. Think street music, lots of pot, vegetarian food, no violence, and no hard drugs. Christiana was most well known up until 2004 for its completely open marijuana sales. Anybody (including tourists) could just rock up to a stall and buy some hash. Unfortunately, 2004 saw the Danish government crack down on this, and the freeholding has been in a legal wreck ever since, with their very existence in question. Luckily, 2011 saw them open their doors to the public again after shutting last year.

    1. Sealand

    Far and away the most widely known and popular of the micronations, Sealand is based on a WWII sea fort in international waters off the coast of the UK. Occuppied by the Sealandian royal family since 1967, they have a strong internet presence, and appear to make much of their money by hosting internet gambling sites on their servers, as it’s perfectly legal in Sealand. They’ve also made quite a spin on tourism and selling of minor titles. While not technically recognised by any other nation, they’re on an island no one has jurisdiction of, so they generally just get left well enough alone. Strangely, Sealand received a major popularity boost thanks to the anime and manga series Hetalia: Axis Powers, which was about the personified embodiments of nations (don’t even ask) including the tiny Sealand.

    Reference

    Gay History: Haggard’s Law

    Article, Gay Interest, General Interest, ,

    “The louder and more frequent one’s objections to homosexuality are, the more likely one is to be a homosexual.”

    Haggard’s Law is an adage named after Pastor Ted Haggard — despite his not being gay in any way, shape or form. It is used as a purely sarcastic musing that people who strongly object to homosexuality may be likely to engage in homosexual activities, and is based on the numerous public scandals of famous figures who oppose homosexuality and homosexual behavior.

    Instances of Haggard’s Law are gleefully spread by the media for an audience that revels in such scandalous behavior.

    “Racists never imagine what it’s like to be like the person they hate, homophobes imagine it in graphic detail for hour upon hour.” – Bob Schooley

    Haggard’s Law made its first published appearance in an article, written by Dennis DiClaudio of Comedy Central fame and is named after American evangelical preacher Ted Haggard. It was created after and is reference to a scandal involving prostitute and masseur Mike Jones who alleged that Haggard had paid Jones to engage in sex with him for three years and had also purchased and used crystal methamphetamine. Although Haggard denied using methamphetamine or having sex with Mr. Jones, the scandal has caused many evangelicals to view Haggard as extremely hypocritical about his spoken views, as he was known to publicly preach against homosexuality.

    Original quote by author Dennis DiClaudio

    Haggard’s Law — The likelihood of a person harboring secret desires to engage in sexual and/or romantic activities with members of the same sex is directly proportional to the frequency and volume of said person’s vocalized objections to homosexuality.

    The “law” is more generally used to reference hypocrisy in public figures who lead the moral opposition of homosexuality, and then are discovered to have partaken in homosexuality or homosexual behavior.

    Is Haggard’s law true?

    So far, there are no scientific evidences supporting Haggard’s law which, therefore, should be taken only as an ironic term describing some hypocritical homophobes. In fact, testing scientifically if there is some truth in Haggard’s law is quite hard, because of the following reasons:

    • There is no easy way to know with certainty the sexual orientation of a person. Statistical studies which rely on the sexual orientations reported by the subjects are hardly useful, since of course no homophobe would reveal their homosexuality. Methods measuring sexual arousal via biometrics are also problematic, because they measure only a physical response to a stimulus, not sexual orientation, and it is possible that similar physical responses are due to completely different psychological reasons. Probably, the only sure way to know the sexual orientation of a person would be spying on them to see if they actively look for and engage in heterosexual or homosexual activities, but of course that poses both ethical and practical problems.

    • The scandals behind the history of Haggard’s law, although numerous, are statistically irrelevant with respect to the whole number of homophobes, who have never been caught in homosexual activities. Indeed, believing in Haggard’s law because of such scandals is an instance of the Toupée fallacy.

    Penile plethysmography

    In a 1996 study, 64 men were assessed by the “homophobia index” and split into two groups: “homophobic” and “non-homophobic.” Then, their arousal by homosexual and heterosexual images were measured via penile plethysmography, a rubber gauge used to measure erectile responses. In the “non-homophobic” group, 66% showed no arousal yet in the “homophobic” group only 20% managed to restrain themselves from getting aroused – and significantly underestimated their own arousal.

    However, it should be noted that what was measured as arousal may have been the result of the uncomfortable feelings the homophobic group were feeling on seeing homosexual imagery. As pointed out by the authors of the study: “It is possible that viewing homosexual stimuli causes negative emotions such as anxiety in homophobic men but not in nonhomophobic men. Because anxiety has been shown to enhance arousal and erection, this theory would predict increases in erection in homophobic men. Furthermore, it would indicate that a response to homosexual stimuli is a function of the threat condition rather than sexual arousal per se.” Hence, this confounding factor may explain the results more consistently.

    Implicit measures

    Studies that rely on implicit measures both to gauge a subject’s same-sex attractions as well as their level of homophobia do give credence to the suspicion that there is something to Haggard’s law.

    Statistics

    By a 2011 survey, 33% of the USA population believes that “homosexuality is a way of life that should not be accepted by society”. On the other hand, another 2011 report estimates that about 8.2% of Americans have engaged in same-sex sexual behaviour.

    On the basis of said polls, no more than 24.8% of those 33% of American homophobes — i.e. one in four active gay bashers — could be a closeted homosexual. This means that a literal interpretation of Haggard’s Law (e.g. ‘homophobe perfectly implies homosexual’) fails in at least 75.2% of cases.

    However, this conclusion is flawed, as the 8.2% figure only considers those who have admitted to same-sex sexual activity.

    Ethical calculus

    It’s entirely possible to be raised to believe that homosexuality is evil yet still turn out to be homosexual. There are many ways for the human mind to rationalize this away, where everyone else is a “sinner” but you are unique, or some other cognitive dissonance. But one way to justify “sinning” is to remove more “sin” than you cause, sort of like how every third house fire fighters save they get to light one up for funzies. So if a politician or preacher manages to convince other people to avoid or give up homosexuality, then surely they have made the world “less sinful” and are thus still “good”, right?

    Bisexuality?

    Haggard’s Law could sometimes be a bit of a misnomer as the newly-outed may not only be attracted to their own sex, but “swing both ways.” Haggard himself insists that he can still “exclusively have sex with my wife and be permanently satisfied.”

    Some instances of Haggard’s Law

    • Ken Adkins, a notoriously anti-homosexual pastor who made the news for attacking the victims of the Orlando shooting, was arrested in August 2016 for not merely being gay, but having molested a young boy who was a member of his church. Ironically, one of his chosen lines of attack seems to have been that all gay and trans people were paedophiles, as he was banned by court order from using the phrase “child molester” without proof after numerous attacks on a local school board member via social media.

    • Gary Aldridge, pastor at Thorington Road Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, was found dead of autoerotic asphyxiation while wearing two complete rubber wetsuits, including a face mask, diving gloves and slippers, rubberized underwear, and a head mask, reportedly with one dildo in the anus covered with a condom. You read that correctly.

    • Bob Allen, anti-gay Florida politician.

    • Ernest Angley, internationally known televangelist, sued for sexual abuse by a former pastor, and caught on tape admitting to a homosexual encounter.

    • Roy Ashburn, Californian anti-gay politician caught on a DUI after picking a man up at a gay bar.

    • Larry Craig was a Republican Senator from Council, Idaho who is not gay and never has been gay. He is best known for his hardcore theocratic bent and for pleading guilty to “lewd conduct” in an airport restroom. He is totally not gay.

    • Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines and homophobe, says he “cured himself” of homosexuality.

    Official photo of Mark Foley. “What, me? That kid? Naw, never!

    • Mark Foley is a former United States Representative (R-FL). He is famous for validating Haggard’s Law after he sent sexually explicit emails to young male congressional workers. Rep. Foley resigned from Congress when his particular scandal broke. The irony was that Foley was on House committees to protect children from exploitation and fought against child pornography, as well as promoting causes like sex offender registration and requiring FBI fingerprint/background checks for adult volunteers and employees of child groups like Boy Scouts of America. While being against gay marriage and gay adoption, he had previously donated to LGBT causes and was endorsed by the Log Cabin Republicans. He has since come “out” and is now selling real estate in Palm Beach.

    • Wes Goodman, Republican state legislator for Ohio, resigned after being caught having sex with a man in his office.

    • Marc Goodwin, sent to prison for murdering a gay man in a homophobic attack, later became one of the first two men to receive a gay marriage in a British prison.

    • Ted Haggard, duh

    • Dennis Hastert, possibly, although the target of his affections appear to have been students on his high school wrestling team.

    • Eddie Long was the senior clergyman at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a 25,000 member megachurch in Lithonia, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. In what has become an almost timelessly classic Christian story line, in September 2010 the homophobic minister was accused of coercing young men into sexual activity. Several plaintiffs brought suit against the heretofore triumphant exponent of the prosperity gospel. Describing Long as a ‘monster’ in an interview with WAGA-TV in Atlanta, one of Long’s victims alleged that he offered “holy scripture to justify and support the sexual activity.”

    • Pastor Matt Makela, a married father of five, reportedly routinely argued gay people should sublimate their same-sex desires—while he was simultaneously chatting up guys on Grindr.

    • Possibly Omar Mateen, the 2016 Orlando nightclub gunman. Multiple media outlets have reported that he had a gay dating app on his phone, and was a regular patron of the gay nightclub he later attacked.

    • Jonathan Merritt, son of James Merritt, former leader of the Southern Baptist Convention.

    • Matt Moore, who claimed to be ex-gay thanks to religion, was found using gay hook up services.

    • Matthew Dennis “Denny” Patterson, pastor of Nolensville Road Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, was arrested in 2018 for molesting multiple children, mostly boys, over the course of his 20 year ministry.

    • Possibly Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, according to former church member Lauren Drain.

    • Timothy Lee Reddin, anti-gay pastor from Turner Street Baptist Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, was arrested in August 2018 for soliciting what he thought was a 14-year-old boy for sex online.

    • George Rekers is a Southern Baptist minister and typical religious right activist who has written numerous books about the evils of homosexuality. Rekers has long been affiliated with James Dobson and the Family Research Council, as well as appearing as an “expert” witness in several court cases espousing how homosexuals aren’t fit to raise children, and so should be prohibited from adoption. He also testified on behalf of the Boy Scouts of America in support of their gay ban. When a judge was suspicious of Rekers’ testimony, describing it as “extremely suspect” and said that Rekers “was there primarily to promote his own personal ideology”, Rekers went on a tantrum describing the trial as “utterly corrupt”. In May of 2010, he was spotted returning to Miami International Airport with a young Hispanic gentleman hired “to carry his bags”. Like all baggage assistants, the young man had been hired from a website entitled “Rentboy.com”. Much hilarity ensued, of course, with Rekers even admitting he had hired the boy from the escort website—while still insisting he had only hired him for “baggage handling”. At UCLA in the early 1970s, Rekers ran “The Sissy Boy Experiment”, a reparative therapy program. The program came under intense media scrutiny following the suicide of Kirk Murphy, whose parents enrolled him in the program when he was five years old. Murphy suffered physical abuse as part of the plan to cure him of his feminine behavior. Murphy’s family blames the program for his depression and eventual suicide.

    • Bill Sanderson, a family values conservative Christian Republican lawmaker from Kenton, Tennessee, resigned his seat on the same day it was revealed that he was allegedly using the online dating service Grindr to hook up with gay men.

    • Gaylard Williams, (possibly) former) pastor of Praise Cathedral Church of God in Seymour, Indiana, arrested for battery after soliciting gay sex at a park. After he was arrested, police discovered a gay porn DVD in his vehicle.

    In fiction

    The 1999 film American Beauty

    Reference

    Gay History: They Built It. No One Came.

    Article, biography, Gay Interest, General Interest, , , , , ,

    They built a commune but nobody came

    “It was a dream, and it was a good dream,” Zephram said. “Though it broke our spirits that we had no one to share it with. Now, it doesn’t matter that we didn’t have brothers. It doesn’t matter if the place survives. We carry it with us, in the moment. The work we did. What we felt.”

    PITMAN, Pa. — They slept in the barn their first winter, on a straw mattress with antique linen sheets and a feather tick. There was no electricity, heat or plumbing, so they made their own candles, used a chamber pot and drew water from a spring.

    They were born Michael Colby and Donald Graves, but once there, on 63 acres in the Mahantongo Valley, a bowl of land in central Pennsylvania, they changed their names to Christian and Johannes Zinzendorf and called themselves the Harmonists, inspired by a splinter group of 18th-century Moravian brothers who believed in the spiritual values of an agrarian life.

    Their ideals were lofty but simple: They would live off the land, farming with Colonial-era tools, along with a band of like-minded men dressed in homespun robes wielding scythes and pickaxes. They would sleep in atmospheric log cabins and other 18th-century structures that they had rescued from the area and that they began to reconstruct, painstakingly, brick by crumbling brick and log by log.

    But what if you built a commune, and no one came?

    It turns out it’s not so easy to cook up a utopia from scratch. There are 1,775 so-called intentional communities listed in the Fellowship for Intentional Community’s United States directory: eco-villages, pagan co-ops, faith-based retreats and everything in between. But how do you advertise, organize and thrive? “Don’t ask us,” Johannes said. “We failed that class.”

    Inspired by a splinter group of 18th-century Moravian brothers who believed in the spiritual values of an agrarian life, Johannes Zinzendorf, 64, left, and Zephram de Colebi, 65, arrived in Mahantongo Valley, a bowl of land in central Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s. Back then, they went by Michael Colby and Donald Graves. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

    It was a raw, bright afternoon in April. Christian and Johannes, or to be accurate (stay with me here) Zephram and Johannes (Christian changed his name again when he realized the hoped-for brotherhood was never going to materialize, and his new last name is de Colebi), are now 65 and 64. And they have reconfigured their life here for the third time in three decades.

    The 25 buildings that dot the landscape are mostly dormant, save for Zephram’s house and Johannes’s house. The two have been living separately, so to speak, for a decade, individual housing being an unlooked-for boon when their commune went to pieces and they ceased to be a couple.

    They’ve sold most of their antique tools, save for a handful, which they’ve added to the collection of furniture, housewares, paintings, textiles and other Pennsylvania Dutch relics they’ve amassed over the years. The two have turned the whole lot — thousands of artifacts — into a museum, filling the cavernous barn where they spent their first winter with exhibits.

    They’ve written a memoir, tragicomic, of course, and are looking for a publisher.

    Their ideals were lofty but simple: They would live off the land, farming with Colonial-era tools, along with a band of like-minded men dressed in homespun robes wielding scythes and pickaxes, sleeping in atmospheric log cabins and other 18th-century structures that they had rescued from the area and that they began to reconstruct. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

    It’s their second book. “The Big Book of Flax,” the story of linen processing (in history, legend and song!), came out in 2011 from Schiffer Publishing, a Pennsylvania house whose publishing motto is “Find your niche and scratch it!”

    Johannes Zinzendorf feeding cattle in their early days on the farm.

    Johannes and Zephram met in the 1970s at a gay-consciousness-raising group in Salt Lake City, where both were attending college. They were each dabbling in various spiritual practices: Zephram was circling around the Wiccans, attracted by their earth-centered rituals, and Johannes was sampling Hinduism.

    When you’re gay, Zephram pointed out, it is not always the case that traditional religions will welcome you. So alternatives beckon.

    Salt Lake City was changing, they said; they could see their future mapped out there, and it was not an appealing one. “Successful urban gays, buying property, having cultural weekends in San Francisco,” Johannes said. “Save us.”

    Inspired in part by the Mormons, they began to turn over the idea of starting an intentional community in a rural setting. But how to organize? What would be the guiding principle?

    They toyed with creating a gay Scottish clan (Johannes is from Texas and Zephram from Maine, and both have Scottish forebears) or starting their own version of the Radical Faeries, a vaguely pagan, spiritually based queer counterculture movement from the mid-1970s.

    They moved to Bethlehem, Pa., that hotbed of Moravian culture (crafts and agriculture, mostly), where Zephram worked as a teacher and Johannes as a reporter. There they learned of a curious local offshoot of a brotherhood started in Europe in the 18th century.

    As Johannes, left, and Zephram learned, it’s not so easy to cook up a utopia from scratch. After a series of success and failures, and an unrealized brotherhood, they  have rebranded themselves as curators of the Mahantongo Heritage Center, open to the public from May through October. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

    Its leader was the charismatic son of a patron of the Moravian Church, who believed in a spiritual communion through sex and agricultural practice. It was not a wildly popular concept 300 years ago, and contemporary rural Pennsylvania was perhaps not the best place to resurrect its tenets, even with the sex part edited out.

    Also, as Johannes pointed out: “Neither one of us is very charismatic. That was a problem.”

    But they were young and eager. They bought 63 acres for $63,000 in Pitman, a tiny community in Eldred Township, and they began to rescue period cabins and structures in the area and move them to the site.

    Filled with Colonial zeal, they bought an antique letterpress and began printing brochures to advertise their concept. Dressed in their homespun linen garments, made from flax they had planted and sewn themselves, they set up tables at gay-pride festivals, living-history farms and farming museums.

    “People would look at us and say, ‘Oh, so you’re gay Amish?’ ” Johannes said.

    They did get a few takers: a man who was interested in the culture of the early German settlers, but preferred to observe its customs rather than pitch in; a guy they called “the Primitive man,” who set up a lean-to on the property and wore loincloths in the summer (he stayed the longest but turned out to be mentally ill).

    Then there was the man who brought his accordion and offered to play while they worked. Indeed, the farming chores seemed to mystify most of their would-be brothers.

    “Everyone just wanted to watch us work, and that got old real fast,” Johannes said.

    “We weren’t good at being able to explain the spiritual part, either. People would say: ‘Let’s write down your philosophy. Let’s create some commandments.’ But that didn’t come naturally. When we tried to explain our beliefs — spirits living in springs, the earth as mother — people just thought we were weird.”

    They filled the cavernous barn where they spent their first winter with exhibits of furniture, housewares, paintings, textiles and other Pennsylvania Dutch relics they’ve amassed over the years. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

    Farming the Colonial way requires lots of hands. While Zephram worked full time as a teacher in a neighboring town, which paid their mortgage and costs, Johannes was alone on the farm, having been fired from his reporting job.

    “I wasn’t able to do two full-time jobs at once,” Johannes said. “I remember the first time I cut hay, seven acres that had been planted by the previous owner. I’m there with my scythe, and I started cutting, and I quickly realized that what made the brotherhood we were emulating successful is that they had 88 men, and we were only two.”

    Yet the work was holy to him, he said. “I loved getting out there.”

    They had cattle, sheep and goats; turkeys, geese, ducks and chickens; and cats and dogs. A pair of oxen, Star and Bright, took over the plowing duties, with a handmade plow the local auto mechanic would fix when the oxen grew balky and mangled its metal parts.

    They acquired much of their livestock before building the appropriate fencing, which meant that the animals would wander off, enraging the neighbors. “They were so incredibly tame, and we loved them,” Johannes said. “We had Edward Hicks and ‘The Peaceable Kingdom’ in our mind. But for ruminants, you know, the grass is always greener.”

    Their older neighbors were impressed by their work ethic and shared their folklore and practices. “These Dutch couples in their 80s had lived the lifestyle we were living,” Johannes said. “They didn’t care who we were, they just saw how hard we worked. They taught us how to broadcast seed, how to tie the corn shocks to dry the corn.” And how to sharpen their scythes on the stone walls that Zephram had built.

    Early on, a woman appeared with a gift, a heavy heirloom quilt stitched with pieces of her husband’s uniform from World War II. “This kept my husband and I alive one winter,” she told them.

    This building is their weaving and spinning studio. The men are known locally as the Flax Brothers, for their expertise in growing and processing flax into linen. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

    There were moments of incredible joy. The day they completed the reconstruction of what they called the community house, an 18th-century log cabin with a marvelous peaked roof that they rescued from an industrial park and that took 10 years to remake. Eating outside with the animals. (“They were like our family,” Johannes said. “But they did eat all the flowers.”)

    But there was menace, too. This rural township was not overwhelmingly welcoming to two young gay men and their dreams to populate a fledgling farm. They always knew when the bars closed. They would hear engines revving, and the shouts would begin: “We’re going to kill you.” “Go home.”

    Johannes took to sleeping in his truck, hoping to chase the perpetrators and write down their license-plate numbers. One night, a cow was shot.

    Eventually, self-sufficiency and exhaustion trumped the Colonial lifestyle. They put in a satellite phone, dug a well.

    Harvesting by hand gave way at first to Star and Bright’s efforts, and then they sold the team to buy a tractor. They bought a generator and power tools, including a jigsaw. “That was fun — we put gingerbread trim on everything,” Johannes said.

    They tried wind power, then solar. “You might get 40 minutes a day, and then it would crash,” he said. “Lightning storms would hit and blow up the transformer.” Four years ago, they hooked up to the power grid.

    Zephram explaining the differences between various spinning wheels. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

    In the wake of the unrealized brotherhood, they tried artists’ retreats, residencies and other gatherings. Worn out, they decided their empty commune would be a hermitage. “We would be hermits, each in his hermit house,” Johannes said.

    Now, they raise only poultry, because the birds are easier to take care of. They turned the bunkhouse into a library; along with a collection of local religious texts, there is a prodigious array of “Star Trek” paperbacks. (In anticipation, they christened it the Brokeback Bunkhouse, and decorated its crossbeams with saddles.)

    Zephram retired from his teaching job and began painting. “We try to live in the spirit,” Johannes said. Some days are easier than others.

    Then one day in early 2012, their turkeys vanished. They found them beaten to death, their body parts strewn over a field and a bloody crutch tossed nearby.

    It had been years since Zephram and Johannes had been threatened. The viciousness of the attack stunned them. Though they say they know the assailant, no one was charged with the crime. Yet something shifted after that day.

    “People came up to us and apologized,” Johannes said. “It traumatized not just us, but the town.”

    Jim Hepler, a sixth-generation farmer and Pitman native, called it a turning point. “When they arrived, people said, ‘Oh, no, we’ve got a gay community beginning here in the valley, and it’s going to be awful,’ ” he said. “That wasn’t my feeling, but there was tension. Here we are 30 years later, and it’s still two men minding their own business.”

    Pieces from Zephram’s collection of artifacts. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

    The turkey beating, he said, “was an awful thing.”

    “It was senseless, and it was bad,” he continued. “I think the community came together then in support of them.”

    Johannes and Zephram have rebranded themselves, too, as curators of the Mahantongo Heritage Center (that’s the barn with its exhibits), open to the public from May through October.

    Zephram paints vibrant animistic canvases in his studio; Johannes frets about the maintenance on their copious collection of structures. In a tour of the property accompanied by their enormous bellowing turkeys (they have replenished the flock), he pointed out the peeling paint on the window trim of his hillside house.

    Up on a ridge, a few art installations (a grain silo embellished with fins to look like a spaceship, and a cow-size dog made from rusty pipes) give the place a goofy DiaBeacon feel.

    “It was a dream, and it was a good dream,” Zephram said. “Though it broke our spirits that we had no one to share it with. Now, it doesn’t matter that we didn’t have brothers. It doesn’t matter if the place survives. We carry it with us, in the moment. The work we did. What we felt. Star and Bright and all the animals.

    “It’s not a lonely place. It’s just jumbled.”

    The 25 buildings that dot the landscape are mostly dormant, save for Zephram’s house and Johannes’s house. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times
    When Johannes and Zephram first began spreading the word about their concept, they set up tables at gay-pride festivals, living-history farms and farming museums. “People would look at us and say, ‘Oh, so you’re gay Amish?’” Johannes said. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times
    One of Zephram’s vibrant, animistic paintings. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times
    Over the course of their years living in Mahantongo Valley, self-sufficiency and exhaustion trumped the Colonial lifestyle. They put in a satellite phone, dug a well. They bought a generator, and power tools, including a jigsaw. They tried wind power, then solar. Four years ago, they hooked up to the power grid. But they still use this wood stove. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times
    Now, they raise only poultry, because the birds are easier to take care of. They turned the bunkhouse into a library; along with a collection of local religious texts, there is a prodigious array of “Star Trek” paperbacks. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times
    Johannes in his home. Christopher Gregory for The New York Times

    Reference

    Gay History: This Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Just Took A Job At An LGBT Synagogue.

    Gay Interest, General Interest,

    Despite criticism in his highly haredi town of Lakewood, NJ, Rabbi Mike Moskowitz says serving queer Jews at New York’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah is a fulfillment of his duty

    Rabbi Mike Moskowitz just took a job at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, a New York City synagogue serving the LGBT community. Next to him is the synagogue’s senior rabbi, Sharon Kleinbaum. (Courtesy of CBST/via JTA)

    NEW YORK (JTA) — In many ways, Mike Moskowitz is a typical ultra-Orthodox rabbi.

    He wears a black suit and black hat. He sports a thick, curly beard beneath a closely shaved head. He peppers his speech with liturgical Hebrew and Yiddish words. He quotes from Jewish legal texts.

    Moskowitz sometimes closes his eyes when he talks, swaying back and forth and rubbing his fingers together as if he’s engaged in deep Talmud study. He spent years upon years studying at traditional haredi yeshivas. Today he lives in Lakewood, a New Jersey shore town of some 100,000 residents well known for its largely haredi population.

    On a recent weekday afternoon, Moskowitz is sitting in a Jewish study room at this city’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in front of shelves filled with tractates of the Talmud. But the rest of the setting is decidedly, well, unorthodox.

    The bathrooms around the corner are gender-neutral. A memorial plaque in the sanctuary pays tribute to those who have died in the AIDS epidemic. The prayer book, published specifically for this synagogue, includes a special prayer for the weekend of New York’s Pride Parade. Four rainbow flags hang in the lobby.

    Most haredi rabbis probably would not take a job at a synagogue that serves New York’s LGBT community. Standard Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law strictly prohibit not only same-sex relations but gender fluidity and cross-dressing. But Moskowitz says his new job as CBST’s scholar-in-residence for trans and queer Jewish studies is a perfect fit.

    Moskowitz, 38, says serving queer Jews is a fulfillment of his duty as an Orthodox rabbi, not a contradiction. To him, this job is simply the best way to help those in dire need.

    The walls of the restrooms at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah are adorned with historical photographs, while the stalls fly the rainbow colors of the pride flag. (Courtesy CBST)

    “The religious community has a unique responsibility to provide sanctuary, a literal sanctuary for people who are searching,” he says. “How can we broaden the tent to allow people to feel communally engaged in and taking responsibility for their unique relationship with God?”

    Moskowitz knows what it’s like to be an outsider. He grew up in a secular Jewish family in Virginia and encountered religious observance through USY, the Conservative Jewish youth group. He went on to study for four years each at the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem and Beis Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, two prestigious haredi institutions, and work as a student advisor and leader of a Torah study program, or kollel, back home in Richmond.

    Despite Orthodoxy’s clear boundaries around gender and sexual orientation, Moskowitz says compassion for people, no matter who they are, was built into his traditionalist education. His rabbis advocated “people being themselves in relationship with God.” That idea led him, in Richmond, to reach out to intermarried couples, despite Orthodoxy’s prohibition of interfaith marriage.

    Moskowitz started counseling transgender Jews three years ago when he worked with Columbia University students on behalf of Aish Hatorah, an Orthodox outreach organization. He also met queer Jews while serving concurrently as rabbi of the Old Broadway Synagogue, which draws a diverse crowd as one of the only synagogues in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood. Around the same time, a close family member began transitioning genders, giving Moskowitz close personal exposure to the transgender experience.

    In December 2016, Moskowitz presented a sermon to the synagogue advocating acceptance of trans Jews — using an obscure 16th-century Torah commentary to make his point. At about the same time, he wrote a letter urging a Jewish day school not to expel a transgender student. Shortly after, he was let go from both jobs — neither gave his LGBT advocacy as the official reason.

    “It’s the holiest among us that are often the most vulnerable because their light is the brightest,”’ he said in the sermon, referring to the symbolism of the menorah’s candlelight. “To such an extent that some aren’t even aware that darkness exists. Are we going to protect that light?”

    Congregation Beit Simchat Torah. (Courtesy)

    Moskowitz believes that Orthodox communities have much work to do in accepting LGBT members. While they claim to be warm, accepting places in theory, he says, they often fail to make space for Jews who are the most vulnerable or on society’s margins.

    “There are absolutely ways that religion can be a system for oppression like all others,” he says. “When it comes to the theoretical, they’re quick to say ‘of course we should be inclusive.’ When it comes to the practical, there’s a huge gap between the ideal and the way in which it actually manifests.”

    Moskowitz also says that normative Orthodoxy gets Jewish law wrong when it comes to transgender identity. He says, for example, that the biblical ban on cross-dressing is actually a prohibition on misrepresenting one’s gender identity — no matter what it is — through clothing.

    And he says the Orthodox community places undue emphasis on gender and sexual prohibitions because of social norms. Instead, he says, the Jewish religious community should worry less about biblical injunctions and more about how to embrace transgender Jews so they don’t succumb to the transgender community’s high suicide rate.

    “Transgender as an awareness is just a presence of understanding,” he says. “There’s no prohibition to acknowledge the reality of something when it comes to one’s identity. If a person says about themselves ‘this is who I am,’ it’s not a space of choice.”

    After leaving Columbia, Moskowitz served as senior educator for Uri L’Tzedek, an Orthodox social justice group. He also began blogging for Keshet, a Jewish LGBT organization, and even shaved his beard for a time so he could fit in better with a more liberal crowd.

    Illustrative: Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz, founder of Uri L’Tzedek: Orthodox Social Justice at a November 2014 immigrant rights protest. (courtesy)

    He became connected to Congregation Beit Simchat Torah when he met its senior rabbi, Sharon Kleinbaum: Both were arrested in January at the US Capitol for protesting on behalf of immigrants. Hired by the synagogue on May 1, Moskowitz serves a dual function: He connects the Jewish LGBT experience to the traditional Jewish texts he has spent decades studying, and counsels Orthodox LGBT Jews and their families.

    On the day he spoke to JTA, he also had phone conversations with three parents of transgender youth.

    “He’s already working overtime,” Kleinbaum said. “The demand is like a floodgate has opened. People are reaching out to him for pastoral help. Their kids are trans, they are trans, they haven’t had an [observant] rabbi to talk to who hasn’t said to them something besides ‘you’re going to …’”

    Moskowitz still faces tension between his professional and personal lives. Living in Lakewood, he receives hate mail due to his work, and has been ostracized from synagogues and other institutions there.

    But the rabbi appears to take it in stride. There is still a synagogue where he and his family are welcome. And the animosity he experiences, he says, is just a sliver of what transgender people have to deal with every day.

    “Do the right thing, you end up in the right space, but it’s not geshmak,” he says of his Lakewood experience, usually a Yiddish word that means “delicious.” “But again, this is what trans folks feel going to the grocery store.”

    Reference