RFD 152 Winter 2012

Number 152 Winter 2012 $9.95

Transgender Faeries in Community

RFD 152 Winter 2012 1

Issue 153 / Spring 2013

GIVING Submission Deadline: January 21, 2013 • Submissions upload: www.rfdmag.org/upload

*

The Spring 2013 issue of RFD will focus on ways which we give as a community. We have a legacy of providing for each other and we’ve all benefited from the bounty of the gifts of others. Help us celebrate this ideal within our culture which has it’s roots in the tradition of “more if you can, less if you can’t no one turned away for lack of funds”.

The roots of which go back to the Faggots and Class Struggle Conference in 1976 and probably before.

And we also ask people to explore ways in which giving has given way to the expectation of receiving without a lot of exploration into ways of reciprocating. We’re all aware of how we give, we get, it all comes around again. But we’ve also experienced feeling less than appreciated by people receiving our gifts and we’ve usually been aware that

sometimes, you can’t expect anything in return. But it’s led to a moral question: can someone use the maxim of “less if you can’t” to mean “give nothing?” It’s a challenge to our community to look at what some folks candidly call the “vulture culture” or in more polite ways we ask ourselves “Give As You Are Able But Always Give Something”.

In that vein we’re also looking for listings and updates from the Faerie tribes about upcoming events and news about their community. We also welcome other communities to share their upcoming events and news.

Upload articles and artwork at www.rfdmag.org/upload—as always we welcome artwork, photos and poetry in addition to articles and stories. The deadline for this issue is January 21, 2013.

*From Webster’s Dictionary, 1877 Photo: Marcia Rubin 2 RFD 152 Winter 2012

Radicals Free of Dichotomy Vol 39 No 2 #152 Winter 2012

Between the Lines

A

s someone who has recently fallen deeply in love with the radical faeries, I have sometimes felt like my transgender experience is largely invisible to or misunderstood by almost everyone around me. Yet through my journey, I have met fierce transgender faerie after fierce transgender faerie. I noticed more and more that I was not alone in my feelings of invisibility.

In envisioning this issue and its magickal and healing potential, it seemed clear to me that the counter-spell for invisibility, for objectification, is surely visibility and subjectification. The lens of subject-SUBJECT consciousness (as brought to us by the writings of Harry Hay) was established as the container for this issue. As a transgender faerie, I know that when I can speak my truths, my stories, my experiences, in an open and loving way, to someone who is open to me and loves me, that there is powerful magic that happens before me, particularly in a long-term and multiplicative fashion.

The ‘theme’ section of this issue of RFD was envisioned as a platform for transgender faeries to be granted an intentional moment of visibility and subjectification. Here, transgender faeries are offered the opportunity to share whatever it is about our experiences that we desire. The editors made no attempt to define who could be considered ‘transgender,’ but rather intended that the request would result in a series of pieces written by people who identify with the term transgender, who could write about the transgender experience as one that they identify with, one that they have a subjectSUBJECT relationship with.

This collection of poetry, personal stories, letters, personal ads, recipes, spells, photography, and artwork; is a gift, an offering, a communique, the beginning of many conversations. I am grateful to the RFD editorial team for the opportunity to put together this issue, all the transgender faeries who were bold enough to share, and to the community who will hear what the contributors of this issue have to say. Following the ‘theme’ section of the issue is a selection of general articles and poetry put together by the RFD editorial team.

—Sean Minteh, co-Editrixxx (along with Lady Free An’ Fresh Now)

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Submission Deadlines Spring–January 21, 2013 Spring–April 21, 2013 See inside covers for themes and specifics.

For advertising, subscriptions, back issues and other information visit www.rfdmag.org RFD is a reader-written journal for gay people which focuses on country living and encourages alternative lifestyles. We foster community building and networking, explore the diverse expressions of our sexuality, care for the environment, Radical Faerie consciousness, and nature-centered spirituality, and share experiences of our lives. RFD is produced by volunteers. We welcome your participation. The business and general production are coordinated by a collective. Features and entire issues are prepared by different groups in various places. RFD (ISSN# 0149-709X) is published quarterly for $25 a year

by RFD Press, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302.

Postmaster: Send address changes to RFD, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302 Non-profit tax exempt #621723644, a function of RFD Press with office of registration at 231 Ten Penny Rd., Woodbury, TN 37190. RFD Cover Price: $9.95. A regular subscription is the least expensive way to receive it four times a year. Copyright © 2012 RFD Press. The records required by Title 18 U.S.D. Section 2257 and associated with respect to this magazine (and all graphic material associated therewith on which this label appears) are kept by the custodian of records at the following location: RFD Press, 85 N Main St, Ste 200, White River Junction, VT 05001. Mail for our Brothers Behind Bars project should be sent to P.O. Box 68, Liberty TN 37095.

On the Covers Front: “Messapotamia Lefae” by Emily Smith Satis Back: Collage by Violet Inside Front: Marcia Rubin Inside Back: artboydancing

Production Managing Editor: Bambi Gauthier Guest Editors: Sean Minteh and Lady Free An’ Fresh Now Art Director: Matt Bucy Editor: Paul Wirhun Editor: Eric Linton Editor: Jason Schneider Prison Pages Editor: Myrlin

Artists in this Issue Sigh Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Ricardo Nelson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Jonathan Woolley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Sean Minteh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Emily Smith Satis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 14, 21 Violet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 25, 27 Glitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Janie Buttz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Adrain Chesser and White Eagle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Stephanie Pharr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Randy Weiger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Adrian Buckmaster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 33 Sylvia London & Dave Dietz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56, 57 Quito . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6, 7 *In Visible Skin* is a watercolor portraiture series by Philadelphia artist, Emily Smith Satis. Focusing on the transgender community, Satis will explore the importance of physical representation for transgendered individuals not only in the broader strokes of society, but within LGBTQ populations as well. By investigating these stereotypes viewers will be confronted with the complex nature of identity, thus challenging their own beliefs of self-representation in everyday life. The exhibition will be hung at the William Way Community Center from May 10 – June 28, 2013 with the opening reception held on May 10. Please visit esmithsatis.com for more information!

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“Zach” by Emily Smith Satis

CONTENTS Letters & Announcements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Transgender Faeries in Community For Marsha P. (Pay It No Mind!) Johnson. . . . . . . . . . Qwo-Li Driskill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . .. . * - . ..the dream of wild ponies dancing –* __ . . ..Quito. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Urban Gatherette at Le Petit Versailles. . . . . . . . . . . . Milo Rainbow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Gender Trans-cended: From Adam and Eve to Faerie Ariel - a world of movement. . . . . . . . . . Ariel Pink Pants Vegosen. . . . . . . . . . 10 My Spiracular Gender Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FrancEs Rose Subbiondo. . . . . . . . . . 14 Poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kegan Monster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Dudespeak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nico C. Beleza. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Transiting Trans: An Internal Drama . . . . . . . . . . . . . Femmy Dilemma. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Coming Out As A Pan-Trans-Faerie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oshee Eagleheart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 sissy-identified faggot wolf-lady tranimal Anarchist bitch, ISO post-gender surrealist Air avatar sartorialist transformer, SEEKS mayhem-t4t-23 (West Philly). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trapdoor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 birthright. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . j bederven. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Bionic Vagina. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feathers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Induction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Violet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 The Faerie Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Glitter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 These Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sean Minteh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Delirium in Transit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ahnika Delirium. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Becoming a Man with a Surprise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Humming Bee Iva Surprise. . . . . . . . 37 A Letter to My Cock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mushtaq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 The Time 2 Heal Is Here & Now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Altercation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Consecrating Grounds For a Triple Goddess Invocation. . . . . . . . . Frannie Blew Mackee (a.k.a. Ms. Gender). . . . . . 42 Bird Clan KullCalls Nahema. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Glitter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Sean Minteh’s S&M Seitan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sean Minteh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 From Syzygy, Beauty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . T Clutch Fleischmann. . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Bodies Without Boundaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kegan Monster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 trans.genderqueer.freak.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wolfang. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 What It’s Like Now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stella Maris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Poems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Day Mattar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Columns, News and Reviews Skinnyfat—A Comedy of Grand Proportions. . . . . . . Leopard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Marvin R. Hiemstra: Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Franklin Abbott. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Easton Mountain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nomi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Fabulous Faerie Film Festival. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sweet Chi & Sister Bhakti Shakti. . . 58 Prison Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Myrlin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

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LETTERS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Upcoming Gatherings Portraits of a Tribe, The Billys, No. CA, Dec 27, 2012 – Jan 1, 2013 Asian Faerie Gathering, Thailand, Jan 24 – Feb 3, 2013 Featherstone Faerie Gathering, Northumberland, UK, Jan 25 – Feb 4, 2013 Breitenbush Winter Gathering, OR, Feb 14-18, 2013 British Columbia Radical Faerie Camp, Squamish, BC, Canada, May 18-23, 2013 Generate Gathering, near Ukiah, CA, May 23-29, 2013 Austrian Faerie Gathering, Hochkönig, Austria, Aug 17-27, 2013 Cmen West Coast Gathering, Malibu, CA, Aug 30 – Sep 8, 2013 For more info on upcoming gatherings and the communities which host them please go to http://www.radfae.org

Call for stories from the Harry Hay Conference In the upcoming issue of RFD, we’re hoping to provide some coverage of the recently held Harry Hay Conference in New York on September, 27-30, 2012. The conference which attracted people from across the United States was sponsored by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Stidues at CUNY-NY and the Harry Hay Centennial Committee.

If you attended or participated in the conference be in touch with us via submissions@rfdmag.org to share your experiences.

The deadline for submissions is January 21, 2013.

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Drawing by Sigh Moon

For Marsha P. (Pay It No Mind!) Johnson

by Qwo-Li Driskill

found floating in the Hudson River shortly after NYC Pride, 1992 “You are the one whose spirit is present in the dappled stars.”

—Joy Harjo,” Fort Anna Mae Pictou Aquash...”

Each act of war is whispered from Queen to Queen held like a lost child then released into the water below.

Names float into rivers gentle blooms of African Violets.

I will be the one that dangles from the side but does not let go.

The police insisted you leapt into the Hudson driftwood body in sequin lace rhinestone beads that pull us to the bottom.

No serious investigation—just another dead Queen.

I am the one who sings Billie Holiday as a prayer song to you, Marsha P. We all choke on splintered bones, dismembered screams, the knowledge that each death is our own.

I pour libations of dove’s blood, leave offerings of yam and corn to call back all of our lost spirits.

Marsha P, your face glitters with Ashanti gold as you sashay across the moonscape in a ruby chariot ablaze.

Sister, you drag us behind you.

We are gathered on the bridge between survival and despair.

I will be the one wearing gardenias in my hair,

thinking about how we all go back to water.

Thinking about the night you did not jump.

I will make voodoo dolls of the police and other thugs, walk to the edge, watch the river rise to meet them.

I will be the one with the rattlesnake that binds my left arm and in my right hand I will carry a wooden hatchet to cut away at the silence of your murder.

Each of us go on, pretend to pay it no mind, bite down hard on the steel of despair.

We will be the ones that gnaw off our own legs rather than let them win.

We will be the ones mourning the death of yet another Queen.

Girl, I will put your photo on my ancestral altar to remember all of us who never jumped.

Miss Johnson, your meanings sparkle like stars dappled across the piers of the Hudson River.

Gathered on the bridge we resist the water.

Qwo-Li Driskill is a Cherokee Two-Spirit/Queer activist, writer, and scholar also of African, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Osage ascent. S/he is the author of Walking with Ghosts: Poems and the co-editor of Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature and Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature. S/he lives in Chinook Territories (Portland, OR) and is an assistant professor of Queer Studies at Oregon State University. Dragonflyrising.com.

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. .. . * - . ..the dream of wild ponies dancing –* __ . . . .

by Quito

You start off shy.

Thirsty for something.

You’re an animal, it comes from deep But you don’t know how to describe what you need You’ve never heard the right word to name it.

There is a dream you keep dreaming Night after night, alone in the forest You know you are searching for water You know there are others like you You just can’t see what they look like.

Ghosts of a wild freedom When once we ran free, without the structures of now No work beyond survival No sense of time except the present No borders, no boundaries, no protection You have to remember the dream.

Elusive, answerless images Cold forest, stars visible through a canopy of treetops Four sets of pony hooves in combat boots, dancing Heralding a change you have no words to describe.

Alive in the city Outer shell of leather and fur Walk tough into the grainy streets Mane shaggy, fringe unsettled Wired, fired, underslept, windswept Neutered, mute, broke but not broken Under all that skin, all those layers of drag Inside an empty bag body An ever-changing battalion of souls Male, female, animal Masked by a human face and a consistent personality But then : the club Smoke like air Beats like thunder Glimmering mirror moon Leather stays on, but the first layer comes off.

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And then again : there you are In the quiet deep green of a sandy midnight forest Still searching for something to dull that thirst Pacing the club, making the rounds Bar void to stage to balcony to roof deck Someone lights your cigarette, but you are not there.

And then : a flash Neon catching eyeball and then gone Another wild pony recognized as kin Half human, all beast Haunting, hunted The trees rush past as you begin to run Trunks blurring, birds of prey swooping Wind floats your ears, rifling your hide You are somewhere else entirely Alone, unaligned, and then suddenly not A beat comes on that moves you closer The dance begins Another layer gets shed Heads butt, jaws pass Spirit released from earthly body Sweat skin dance transcendance Keep your eyes closed : You are a pony in the night.

Animal souls coupling, tripling in the dark Tearing each others skin with your teeth Tugging on feral manes Hooves smashing – grunting from deep No longer neutered – but fully realized Crescendo, raw and wild Release. A pony sets all four hooves on concrete.

Emerging on a deserted beach as gray dawn breaks.

Ashes in the sand Piles of ponies, spent, sweat dried The stink of fire lightly on the wind, trapped in tangled manes Gentle, tired, reduced, dawn Heartbeats and stillness. The ocean keeps going. w Photographs by Quito

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Collage by Violet

Urban Gatherette at Le Petit Versailles

by Milo Rainbow

“You’re just the cutest little girl,” this fae says to me. “Seriously, just the cutest little girl.”

He’s going off and I’m trying not to punch him, because queen, that’s not faerielike.

He sees me exchange eyes with a friend and pauses. “Boy?” “Sure,” I say. “Boy.” ••• I’m looking for my binder. Not a trapper keeper. It is somewhere in the back of the white unmarked van I call home while in between apartments in Brooklyn. I had a bad week and tore the van to pieces. My shit is everywhere.

Clothes, bolts of fabric, beads, trim and notions.

Tchotchkes. Post-its.

I’m a minimalist with a pathological fear of letting go of anything shiny. Everything I own is drag.

••• I’ve always been more or less who I am now, archetypically, at least, yet I’m reticent to fall back on

“Milo” Photograph by Ricardo Nelson

creation myths or grander fictions re: what ways I may or may not have been born. I didn’t “transition” from one thing to another, I got a haircut. Because social cues, while perhaps even more socially constructed than gender, have power. I’m neither male- nor female-identified, and boy in the sense that a lot of folks I know say butch or fem. I don’t take hormones, but strangers ask me about my genitals fairly often. I care so much more about my community than I ever have about myself; does it matter that I was trans and fae before I knew what those things were? Totally orphaned by my gender, ugh. Nobody understands me!

Without a community, a family, is there even a point to self-identification? For me, no, not really.

••• I’m different things from day to day, I have a lot of feelings. Things related to my gender rarely make a lot of sense to me, but my more masochistic side gets a perverse pleasure in confusion, but yeah, only because I hate it.

Some things, when taken at face value, remain secrets. w

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Gender Trans-cended: From Adam and Eve to Faerie Ariel –a world of movement

by Ariel Pink Pants Vegosen

I am me a compilation of identity water earth air fire moving and flowing in many directions I am the morning sun entering with light passion joy bringing good news and warmth I am the evening moon bringing wonder shedding doubt, welcoming questions I am the first star pointing north toward your liberation I am the wind whistling in your ear telling you it is possible I am the dirt grounded and whole waiting for you to plant inside me dreams that will grow I am the trees rooted and tall seeing above it all I am the stones and the rock - holding you strong the earth mother - father sky the land in between the field out beyond ideas of gender I am a young boy excited about things that shine and sparkle I am a young girl wanting to play with trucks and ride on ponies I am a woman fierce and strong who bleeds on to this earth I am a man fierce and strong who wears dresses and has sex with other men I am all that is between boy girl man woman I have trans - cended these words, these ideas I may not always be seen by my community but neither is the moon There are days I long to be recognized as a gay man even called a faggot just to feel that I am as real as every other gay man There are days at Faerie gatherings where I feel I have found my home amongst other radicals in the soft woods or the fiery cities where I can be my full self and have others admire my drag closet that explodes from my suitcase 10 RFD 152 Winter 2012

my life-time of stories of activism and leading workshops on creative gender expression.

Then there are moments where my body is enough to trigger a conversation about who should or should not be in the room at the party at the gathering at the playing in this moment as if our bodies are our genders as if we understand the moon and the sun when in reality we only know a sliver for you can’t stare directly at the sun and you can never see all sides of the moon at once everything ebbs flows, grows and changes my body is an everyday act of radical resistance to what the word female and male mean my body forces you to question who you are and what identity really is.

My body forces you to question what is welcome and when.

I understand the need for safe spaces I feel connected to all the ancestors who came before me all the men - generations before me - who staked out land and space for men to love men for men to share their gifts for all the women before me who staked out land and space for women to love women for women to share their gifts for a breakthrough in patriarchy for a space where finally we can be safe And I know I am standing on the shoulders of these elders and thankful for every male only and female only space because without these spaces how can I stand today and say that I have trans- cended gender and that I too need a space There are many forms of trans identity there are those of us who want to blend in completely with the gender that we are even if it does not match the body we were given Photograph of Ariel & Nico by Jonathan Woolley

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and then there are those of us who want to blend gender completely so when you see us you are just not sure what gender we are Trans is an umbrella term it covers Female to Male, Male to Female, hormones, needles, surgery, gender blenders, gender queers, gender variants, gender out-laws, gender nonconforming, gender confused, gender benders, gender fuckers, and probably someone is reading this and thinking and wait you forgot my identity that also fits under this umbrella term.

See terms have never worked well for me I never fit well into a box sometimes I am afraid to call myself Trans because I have not had surgery and I do not take hormones and having been there for surgery fundraisers and the aftercare of top surgery I don’t want to claim a term my body did not fight for yet everyday I live on the edge of gender I walk into the women’s bathroom and someone says “why is that boy here and in that dress” in the airport the TSA says “we need a male assist, male assist - no female assist we need a female assist” at the DMV “sir, sir - I mean ma’am ma’am - no whatever - I don’t know - You, I need you to move” And for me this confusion is not painful, its actually playful see I delight in others being confronted and confused about my gender I see it as part of my activism because I don’t think gender the way we have constructed it in society is rooted in anything natural and I feel connected to the earth to the sky to being all of it I see my body as an opportunity to educate I see myself as an edge species the tipping point of the eco-system that encourages a new way to live - a new way to take flight see if I am all genders and if there are more than two genders than what are you?

I love when people can get past my pussy and see that I am man 12 RFD 152 Winter 2012

I love when people can get past my hair and see that I am woman I love looking at myself in the mirror and seeing a thousand layers and being proud of all of it I love running around naked in the woods at Faerie gatherings in queer spaces and in straight people’s houses I love being myself always Its been a journey to arrive at this location in time where I feel safe being me even if no one sees me as me because I know even when you can’t see the moon it is still there.

I have walked through the woods of self doubt the woods of frustration and anger the woods where my brothers don’t see me as a brother I came to the edge and there I found other edge species edge walkers people like me Trans, Radical Fairies, Queers, Out-laws, Othered And there we danced and played and created and birthed.

And held each other reminding ourselves we are whole in these bodies In this body I have had lovers of all genders and I myself have been all genders I have danced, played, sexed, and loved gay men, lesbian women, trans men, trans women, gender queers, gender variants I love so large that I have dicks in every size to please a wide range of people I love bodies I love penises and pussies and cocklits, and strap-ons, and strap-less and all the ways we decide to name our body parts I love breasts and chests and tits and nipples and assholes I love hips and knees and kissing people on unexpected places I love being direct and forward and allowing people to be confronted by what they thought queerness to be I am the first gay boy lover of gay men who have never

played with vagina’s before I am the first gender queer lover of trans men who before me never let anyone enter them I am the first sparkle cocked lover of trans women who finally feel safe giving a blow job I am open to the exploration I see myself as a gay man as a gender queer as a drag queen as the moon as a goddess as a woman standing on the herstory of my sisters who fought for my liberation in direct lineage to my great grandmother who was a suffragette I claim all these identities This is how I trans-cend gender And so at Burning Man when the Down Low tent won’t let me in because my dick isn’t big enough I am not angry instead I am interested in a dialogue about what are the spaces that we all need to feel safe I don’t have time to let anger consume me We as queers and edge walkers do not have time to fight each other when there is a much larger system we need to resist we need to learn how to be allies for each other how to see each other fully which takes time and practice In 2008 I sat on playa and visioned a new idea: The Gender Blender a home for those who are trans, gender queer, gender variant, drag queens, kings, explorers, crossdressers, Fairies, edge walkers, gender out-laws, and beyond. a place to educate those who have never considered the idea that gender is not a binary. a place to grow and create.

5 years later a community is thriving and growing with roots all over the globe with year-round activities, potlucks, skill shares, play parties, dances, costume shares, and support as we journey through gender.

My hope is that the Gender Blender as a collective of people and as an idea continues to bring people together to create love between communities that are often separated My hope is that my body continues to inspire people to Photos of Ariel & Nico by Jonathan Woolley

love big and see the field out beyond ideas of gender My hope is that I continue to have community that holds me as strong as I walk this edge my path of trans-cending.

There are still days when fear creeps up my branches slowly oozing into my leaves days when I think is this body man enough? should I have more muscles by now? is this mind creative enough? should I be doing more? that’s when I know I need to return to my roots grab friends and head to the woods a reminder that gender like the universe is unlimited and the only limitations are the ones we create so when I imagine Adam and Eve the first human beings I hope they were wise enough to know neither was male nor female and they probably were not the first nor am I long before I was born people were trans-cending gender stepping out of closets and boxes and into the sunlight were I dance now overcoming my fear that this lover will limit attraction limit affection limit what is possible because my body does not match what was taught as male When I was a child I never could pick which hand to write with because I thought they both were beautiful I am not afraid of you thinking I am a woman I am not afraid of you thinking I am a man I am afraid of you thinking I am anything less than human The moon is not always visible but it is always there I am me a compilation of identity the glory is in stepping out everyday trans-cending gender eyes looking up knowing the moon is watching w

RFD 152 Winter 2012 13

My Spiracular Gender Assignment

by FrancEs Rose Subbiondo

I

write this now before knowing how I will leave Crete—either under sail, with one of the other boats in the harbor, or on a ferry to Athens. (Somehow, it just doesn’t matter which). Under sail is of course a dream come true—& through Athens, would mean a pilgrimage to Assisi before heading to Sicily—which feels utterly perfect. (Assisi being the home of the one, near as I can put together anyway, out of whose garden my grandmothers grew).

I feel a constructive force at work here, one active between the conscious & the subconscious—born of journeying with integrity, & letting the universe sort & organize the too-impossibly-complex for me to figure out. Assisi wasn’t even on my radar for this trip until Inmi, a Korean school teacher in my international card playing set on my ferry to Crete, mentioned it. Yet here it is, delivered seemingly without effort to the crossroads of a voyage without a vessel.

For me, the directive here is that we may design for beautiful outcomes in every direction—or at least to grow structures that promote them. The practice, more simply stated, is one of setting up good things to happen, & allowing spiracular forms to emerge naturally.

the SPIRACULAR The spiracular to me, are those transcendent centers between & above seemingly opposing forces, in which regeneration occurs. I think the clearest teaching example is ‘sharing’—born of a simple binary exchange between give & take. As long as any exchange remains tethered though, to a sequential world of giving & taking, I see limits to the system—yielding at best a dynamic that is lovely & sustainable, but one unable to take flight. Something happens though, in the realm of the spiracular, a transformation in which I see sharing become a 14 RFD 152 Winter 2012

beautiful & limitless enterprise that grows in it’s own production & possibility. The spiracular therefore to me becomes the realm of the regenerative.

So I explore worlds between binaries, to find the stream of Life doing what it always has. These are the realms of the infinite—alchemical unions of opposites that in the English language are rarely even named. The practice of yoga lives here—above the intersections of breath & body, strength & flexibility, & the journey of rising to fall. Infinitely rich. Even just imagining what may lay at the confluence of matter & spirit; people & place; & the spiracular union between souls may be fuel enough for a lifetime.

The word spiracular —when not referring to the breathing patterns of whales & dolphins—grows out of the spiraling ascent that is the bringing together of the binary forces.

Faster, tighter, higher. In the tangible world, the spiral is the elemental physical form life assumes as it practices ascendance. As the sky & earth each beckon compellingly, vining plants, snail shells, & our DNA have found spirals to be forms that help life claim space out of the void.

All this to say that we can create pathways that steer life in positive directions & trust that allies will emerge. They always have. That is the living, breathing miracle of Gaia—allies that emerged—all engaged in regenerative practices that were never forgotten (& so not really practices at all). It’s us who have to practice…And the role my somewhat spiracular gender assignment plays in my sharing this with you now is anybody’s guess, though it hints to me at Faerie realms. My first conscious thinking on setting up good things to happen, though, developed from playing a Nintendo game called Dr. Mario. Windows into pattern awareness may open anywhere. w Portrait by Emily Smith Satis esmithsatis.com

Dragons sleeping in the park (pretending to be trees) Rustle Shift

Breath

We recognize each other.

both creatures

clad in skins

not of this world

not our own

(made palatable for society)

We believe in each other.

hold on to our common truth

in a world that erases

of struggling to exist

our personhood

(constricts our movement)

We interact with each other. (in our true forms)

a simple touch

celebrating the possibilities

de manana con libertad (a liberated tomorrow)

lets our energies dance

—Kegan Monster RFD 152 Winter 2012 15

Dudespeak

by Nico C. Beleza

Be chill.

Love one another.

Treat others as you want to be treated.

Live and act with integrity.

What more do you need to say or discuss?

Outside of gender What’s it like to be a dude with a vagina?

What’s it like to be given 10 short years To be aggressive and independent Under a moniker of tomboy, ever diminutive to lay the foundation for the stones of my pussy’s auction block in this culture of exploitation?

Tell me, do you speak dude?

Because I see Where women learn silence And men learn respect.

But, there is a never ending Back and forth If we place each other in labels, Limiting divine potential.

Transgender Outside of boundaries, Pushing forward Pioneers Trying to come correct in the present Where all imperfect beings can only move Through One Universal love accord.

Peace and love, Nico C. Beleza

16 RFD 152 Winter 2012

Transiting Trans: An Internal Drama

By Femmy Dilemma

FEMMY: Umm… THIS BODY THAT I AM: Hmm? FEMMY: What now?

THIS BODY THAT I AM: Water.

FEMMY: Oh right – it’s been a while. I can’t remember the last time I drank water.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: During the night.

FEMMY walks to the sink and fills a glass of water. FEMMY drinks the water.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: It is time.

FEMMY: For? THIS BODY THAT I AM: A walk. Take a walk.

FEMMY: Not right now, I need to check my email.

FEMMY walks into the library, sits down and pulls a computer onto F’s lap. 205 minutes go by.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: It is time.

FEMMY: For a walk?

THIS BODY THAT I AM: Yes. FEMMY: I’m tired. My eyes ache and my back feels sore.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: A walk is refreshing. The leaves are turning. Eyes love to see the forest lit by late afternoon sun.

Smell the air!

FEMMY: I’m hungry.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: The garden is full of food.

FEMMY: I want a cookie.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: Kale and sweet potatoes would be best.

FEMMY pours a mug of coffee and finds a cookie in the bread cupboard. It is satisfying but stale. FEMMY washes the mug.

FEMMY: Oh – hold on a sec.

FEMMY moves quickly to the shitter and takes a shit.

FEMMY: This is unpleasant. Why is this so unpleasant?

THIS BODY THAT I AM: You do not eat well nor do you drink well. Kale and sweet potatoes would be best. Take a walk.

FEMMY: Fine. I’ll take a walk.

With misgivings FEMMY washes up and walks through the barn

and comes upon the knoll.

FEMMY: I’m going to lie in a hammock. The ground is damp.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: Ahh, it is warm and bright. Look at the layers of green around you. Lie down in the grass.

Surrender. Please. Surrender to me Femmy.

FEMMY: Well, okay, but not for too long. I have things to do.

FEMMY lies down in the grass.

Dappled sun shines upon THIS BODY. FEMMY takes a breath.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: Thank you for that breath.

FEMMY takes another deep breath and surrenders to the breeze.

FEMMY: The grass feels good.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: Will you disrobe?

FEMMY: Yes. FEMMY disrobes and stretches out on the grass.

FEMMY: I feel so good right now!

I forget how nice this feels.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: You do.

FEMMY: Why? Why do I forget?

THIS BODY THAT I AM: You forget me, this body that you are.

FEMMY: I am unsure of this body that I am. You are strange.

People tell me you are queer. I am queer.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: What is queer? Is nature queer? Is life?

FEMMY: It is an ineffable event.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: What does that mean?

FEMMY: I am an ineffable event.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: What does that mean? You are leaving me behind. Touch me.

Remember.

FEMMY: It cannot be defined. I do not want to be defined. I am without definition.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: Yet you are defined as a body.

FEMMY: I hate you sometimes.

You are fat and pale. Your skin is tired and scarred. Your penis is alien to me every so often. I don’t know you. You are foreign to me.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: As you say Femmy. I am queer.

It begins to rain softly.

FEMMY: I need to cover up.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: No! Please do not hide me away. I need you.

FEMMY: Then tell me. What am I? People want to know. Do you remember when I was 13? When people asked if I was a boy or a girl? Do you remember?

THIS BODY THAT I AM: I remember everything.

FEMMY: I hated them.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: Yes. FEMMY: And now people ask me“Are you cis or trans?”

THIS BODY THAT I AM: You are.

FEMMY: I am not cisgender.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: And trans?

FEMMY: I am unsure. I do not identify as male or female. I access privilege by dressing male at work. I go by ‘James’ at my grandfather’s house. I do not take hormones. Wearing a skirt does not make me trans. I am unsure.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: You do not need to decide. You are queer.

FEMMY: I feel pressure to decide, to have an answer for my gender.

THIS BODY THAT I AM: Ask me.

FEMMY: What am I? THIS BODY THAT I AM: You are a question. You are transiting trans. And right now, kale would be best. Oh— and water too.

FEMMY smiles and walks to the garden.

END PLAY. RFD 152 Winter 2012 17

Coming Out As a Pan-Trans-Faerie

by Oshee

I

’m a late bloomer, like a lot of queer and gendervariant people of my generation. It took fifty-one years for me to emerge as a Pan-Trans-Faerie.

I was assigned boy at birth, and growing up in rural England in the 1950s, I had very few role models that represented possibilities outside of the masculine male and feminine female boxes (straight being assumed and unspoken). I recall seeing the occasional “man-lady,” typically a woman dressed in “inappropriately” masculine attire and not accompanied by a man; and hearing about men who were called names—queer, pansy, fairy—that implied that they were a little too sensitive and expressive, and suspect in other unspecified ways.

Those people were clearly outside the pale of normal society, and not to be too closely associated with.

I knew I wasn’t a girl, and the only other possibility was to be a boy. So, unconsciously fearing rejection by my family, I performed the boy roles assigned to me as best as I could (which wasn’t very well). My parents did their best to support this Faerie child, and at the same time to steer me into appropriately boyish behaviors, activities and expressions. I’ve always loved dressing up—in whatever there was in the dressing-up box.

When I was eight, my father got a job teaching at an all-boys boarding school, and I became a pupil there. That meant dressing in uniform boy clothes, and playing all kinds of competitive games, which I hated. Fortunately we were allowed to run wild in 18 RFD 152 Winter 2012

the woods enough for my Faerie spirit to stay alive.

A

s my sexuality awakened, I lost one best friend after another when Eros moved me to initiate sexual exploration. My gaydar, like me, must have been really late to develop! I was attracted to girls too, but they were less available—and, as I now see—I was as much interested in being like them as I was in being in them. I imagine there were faeries among my friends and playmates, but I didn’t find them. Or they were already scared into hiding, as I gradually became too.

At thirteen I was sent away to another all-boys boarding school. There, after naively attempting to spend the night in another boy’s bed in the middle of a dormitory, I went deep into the closet about my orientation. My gender expression was limited to finding creative ways to make the school uniform slightly more femme and swishy.

I became adept at avoiding competitive sports—and thus locker rooms where my attractions would be too apparent to me and too visible to others.

This was the late sixties, and outside of school I could dress in all kinds of shapes and colors. I learned dressmaking with my big sister, creating and wearing the most androgynous clothing I thought I could get away with. By the time I got to university, in the early seventies, unisex dress was practically the norm, and the Gay Liberation Front was becoming vocal and visible. Even so, I was so deeply closeted inside of Photograph by Sean Minteh

myself that I limited sexual explorations to women and gender expressions to trendily androgynous.

By then some gender-variant role models were emerging. David Bowie was very out as Bisexual, which I immediately identified with, at least in theory. For me, “Bisexual” was always about more than just the direction of my attraction; it also said something about my identity, my gender. I loved dressing up—with friends I would now think of as Faeries—and dancing the night away at Bowie concerts.

The few Trans people who got any media attention—then, as now—were transsexuals presented as “a man getting a sex change” to “become a woman.”

Gross! Scary! Not me! Many years later, when my therapist started suggesting I might be transgender, I recalled those images, and still said, “Not me!”

I

dropped out of university into a purple-and-green psychedelic haze, rejecting all the ridiculous values of the military-industrial-consumer complex.

Except for the one key assumption that was completely invisible: that humans (including me) are all either men or women. It was—and is—so well concealed, woven into virtually every fiber of the social fabric, that I completely missed it.

After a pilgrimage of self-discovery through Europe and North Africa, I threw my life into one of the many guru-centered Eastern religious cults that flourished at that time, seeking bliss through self-surrender and transcendence. I took vows of celibacy and devoted my life to selfless service, travelling the world dressed in orange robes. Thus, as I now see, I avoided dealing with gender and sexuality for many years Seventeen years later that guru died, and a year later I re-entered the mainstream of life in Bushera USA. When I went to buy clothes for my new life, I limited myself to the men’s sections of the thrift stores, since I still took it as a given that I was a man. For ten years I did my darndest to live as a “normal” man. I even went through a nine-month men’s initiation process, at the culmination of which I cut off all my long hair and shaved off my beard. I married a woman and we lived as a couple. Along the way I embraced breathwork, Deep Ecology, and Earth-centered spirituality, which all helped in my recovery from my “cult” years.

Bit by bit, my “normal” life unraveled, and my closet started to disintegrate, exploding in a big burst in the year the millennium changed. That year, 2000, my divorce was finalized; I fell in love with a man; I was cross-dressing whenever I was in a place

that felt safe enough; I started seeing a gay therapist (the one who suggested I might be Transgender); and I came out as bisexual—which was no surprise to most people who knew me. At a gathering called the “Men’s Wisdom Council”, I danced in a fabulous fringed, Cher-designed dress at their “come-as-youaren’t” ball, and I took the dress home with me.

I heard about this group called the Radical Faeries. They had recently bought land in Vermont close to where I lived, and were holding gathering there. People kept telling me, “You’ll love the Faeries”, so eventually I subscribed to Lucy, the Faerie Camp Destiny listserv, and introduced myself. I got friendly and welcoming replies from several Faeries. The invitation to the 2000 Lammas gathering included the phrase, “All genders welcome”, and that tipped the scale for me. I decided to go and check out these “Faeries”.

A bold woman friend offered to come with me, and we headed up to Faerie Camp, where I immediately changed into one of my favorite dresses. The first person we met on the walk in said, “Welcome home!” The next said, “Nice frock!” Faerieland does exist! At that gathering I got to play a fairy in a very Faerie adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”—which included a real wedding (Civil Unions had just become legal in Vermont)—dressed in my Cher dress. Heaven! I’ve called myself a Faerie ever since, and the Faeries have played a big part in keeping me alive and relatively sane through all this.

The labels “Bisexual” continued to feel like it fit me very well, for the next several years. For a short while I had a male (Faerie) lover and a female lover: perfect for me; not so perfect for either of them. I bought my clothing almost entirely from the women’s sections of stores—facing a huge amount of fear and sometimes terror—and cross-dressed more and more of the time.

I

n 2003 I went to a four-day “Gender Reconciliation” workshop, billed as “The Alchemy of Collective Transformation among Women & Men.” I knew the lead facilitator, and warned him that my understanding had evolved and might challenge his assumptions; that I now saw sex as a spectrum, gender as a range of possibilities, and orientation as an individual narrative. To his credit, he welcomed me and offered me the possibility of being in a third group for the parts of the workshop where the participants would split up into men and women.

I declined, not wanting to sit alone with nobody to talk to, and the first few times we split up I went with the men. In those sessions I expressed my RFD 152 Winter 2012 19

discomfort at being in a group labeled “men”. I wore dresses throughout the workshop.

On the final morning of the workshop, we were preparing to divide into the same two groups one last time, for the members of each sex to create a ceremony to honor the members of the other.

I became aware of very powerful emotions rising up from deep inside me, seeking expression. I started to sob; my whole body heaved; my breathing pattern shifted. As I surrendered to it, the sobs grew stronger and completely took over my being.

I sobbed for all the times I had betrayed myself by going along with what I was told: “It’s a boy,” “He’s a boy,” “You’re a boy”—even though I knew in my core that I wasn’t. No more! From that moment on I knew I had to drop the pretense of being a man and live as myself: neither boy nor girl, neither man nor woman. I applied a new label to myself: Transgender. And so far it has stuck.

When I could speak, I created a third group with three others. We called ourselves the “diversity union”, and created a ceremony to honor each of the other participants as unique beings. That experience threw me into the steepest learning curve of my life.

I had to learn a whole new vocabulary to explain my life and the world around me as I now saw it.

The core of it is the simple placing together of two words: Gender Diversity. As I became aware of the enormous variations in human sexual anatomy and chemistry, and realized that there are way more than two sexes, I replaced the Bisexual label with Pansexual.

Nine years later, I’m still discovering myself as a Pan-Trans-Faerie. For me, Pansexual means I’m potentially attracted to beings of many sexes and genders; I don’t limit my attractions or sexual interactions to any particular sex or gender. Transgender, as I apply it to me, means that my gender identity and expression aren’t limited to man or woman.

Faerie, as it applies to me—and many others, I think as I look around—is one gender among many… or many other genders… or beyond gender altogether…

Through my rainbow lens, all Faeries are Trannies. My Faerieland is populated by beings who are each entirely unique at every moment. There, we all respect and celebrate each other’s choices about how we label or define our sex, gender identity, gender expression, and who we play with and how.

Sometimes it looks like a far-away vision. And sometimes, especially when I’m around Faeries, it’s right now. w

sissy-identified faggot wolf-lady tranimal Anarchist bitch, ISO post-gender surrealist Air avatar sartorialist transformer, SEEKS mayhem–t4t–23 (West Philly)

By Trapdoor

Dearest Messapotamia Lefae, Oh how I long for communion in Philadelphia again. i sit here in New Brunswick, reunited with a long lost sister of Yiddish garbled jewish pagan past, and I wonder, why does it take going to an unfamiliar place with the backdrop of post-industrial city gone University SPRAWL to rediscover yr love. To rediscover yr place in the world. To rediscover those in yr life who are grafted to yr heart, yr bones, to every inch of dermis and every moment of gyzym in waking reality and drifty hypnagogic travel.

I miss you. I want to cavort openly in the streets and to topple gross drag masculine bullshit, to LICK those bitches into shape and teach them there are 20 RFD 152 Winter 2012

more ways to life than tawdry existence. They pattern their art on the tropest of tropes and I wonder if something greater speaks to them, if they have found their calling, if they have found sisterhood and great joy and mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.

You, Messy dearest, reached out to me and continue to reach out to me in times of darkness.

Yr soft voice and maniacal cackles and selflessness and caddiness and brilliance and artistry are all PERFECT in their beatitude, and I wonder, OH I WONDER, MESSY, where our life journey as drag sisters will lead.

No dysphoria in the past couple of days. You asked me to write this RFD submission in midst of full

blown dysphoria. I am grateful you helped yank me out. Maybe it was the New Moon, maybe it was job transition, sexual frustration, maybe I should blame it on the boogie. I was having body dysmorphia over my lack of breasts, over stubble (yeah, I grew it to work out some razor bumps, and, like the time I grew it out for that tranimal shit we did, I let it go too long and triggered something. sitting here writing with a shaved face and a glorious outfit—MMMPH grrrl it feels good), gender dysmorphia SHMORPHIA. In my dysphoria, I started pumping out responses to craigslist again. No responses to BBC dudes fetishizing white/black dynamics with me as the sssy btch. This time I was pumping them out to white 30 somethings who wanted to be daddys and me their little sissy girl with my junk all encaged in chastity devices. “Your dick will be a means of fluid exiting your body it will not be allowed to get hard. Your body will be trained

“Messy” portrait by Emily Smith Satis esmithsatis.com

to crave and only cum when your ass is penetrated.

You must be fem total bottom smooth clean sub and serious.”

In those dysphoric states, I forget how SHITTY that schlock has made me feel in the past, how I am compromising ethics of consent. Do those patriarchal FUCKERS even understand their shit as BDSM? They are invested in the mystery of trans bodies, excuse me, TRANNY WHORES. They couldn’t give a fuck what I want in the scenario. I am the great sssy btch waiting for the seed of inspiration so YES DADDY GIVE IT TO ME LIKE THE STUPID BITCH WHORE I AM. •••••••

H

ow strange it is to be in this flesh—to be a transvestite, transgender and seeking laser

RFD 152 Winter 2012 21

hair removal; to be full of gay love, brimming with queer rage; and to become more womanly each day.

The hormones carrot-on-the-stick dangles by my mouth, and I know I have more spiritual searching to do before I traverse that rabbit hole.

ONE PILL MAKES YOU LARGER AND ONE PILL MAKES YOU SMALL AND THE SEX MOTHER GIVES YOU, DON’T

DO ANYTHING AT ALL GO ASK MESSY WHEN SHE’S MOANING ON

THE FLOOR How strange it is to long for some gender transition, rituals and procedures, within a Slavic pagan tradition, as if I know much about it all. Maybe I ought to reread Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture: A Radical View of Western Civilization and Some of the People It Has Tried to Destroy. Will I find more clues to make sense of this whole mess?

In those pages and in other tomes, will I find the historical equivalent of that I am—a transvestite faggot with a raging hard-on in lingerie, who seeks social gender transition and medical intervention with her body, who relieves herself of gender dysphoria by becoming a sissified object to be used by a master/mistress? Read: jizzing through the lace to know you’re a woman with a dick, eat yr cunt out Janice Raymond.

If you didn’t reach out to me through private corresponDANCE, I doubt I would have given the Radical Faerie scene a chance. Coming into the space, I knew I needed to set me bookish self-learning aside.

How can I experience subject-subject consciousness and approach others with an open heart if I am treating this whole thing called life as historical footnotes? I am so glad I learned about the Cockettes, the 1976 Faggots and Class Struggle conference on land that is now the Wolf Creak sanctuary, about lesbian separatist and rural gay homesteading cross-pollination—about all the incredible work Hi-NRG maniacs did, and continue to do, in laying groundwork for how I understand gayness.

I was sick of spitting queer venom and longed to experience gayness with wholeness. I no longer wished to disidentify and stay fractured from gay brethren around me. In the annals of community archives and dusty books, I found it. Thank goddess so much, or some things—hell I can’t fathom what has been lost—made it through the initial bout of AIDS genocide. I know it took sweat, blood, come, and tears.

••••••• 22 RFD 152 Winter 2012

M

essy, oh Messy! I still long for communion with our Philly sisters and brethren. I have found it with a number of sisters and gentle gay fae folk. I fear the brethren are still straight-identified faggots, drunk on the brew of straight patriarchal civilization. STIFF are our interactions and stiff I feel while treated as an object. I fear the fissure between transgender gay experience and cisgender gay experience cannot be mended. No more of this queer, no-one-turned-away, all are welcome bullshit, this pandering to the party line and lip-service to inclusivity. I know the sting of faggots who objectify without limit nor restraint—hell, I’ve been on that trip before. I’ve felt that laser beam NRG too many times to have the wool pulled over my eyes. I know when another touches and treats me as a male sexual object, reduces me to a male assigned at birth (MAAB) classification. And, honey, I know when someone makes me mighty real.

What you see is not what you get with us trannies, and surely those who ID as the. Faerie. of pagan tradition and folklore know that.

Are too many Radical Faeries entranced, intoxicated by the soft glow and caress of the forest?

Maybe if we called ourselves Radical Banshees, they wouldn’t forget. Surely those STIFF cis-sies must know what faeries do to those who transgress, to those dull men who tread too brashly in their thickets and in their groves. Maybe they should read up a bit. Or are they too loud to hear the swelling storm, too crazed to read the subtle cues?

It’s not a pretty sight, for the men that is. For the faerie, now that’s another juicy story. Who am I to say—I am a silly tranny after all.

I look forward to the day I can speak my name openly for all to hear. Alas, the name you and others call me is too grating to hear, soiled by odd interactions, uneasy to experience in Radical Faerie space.

Messy, one day I can be Voyager again, Ruby Lamet Lefae Voyager, and I will be proud to hear it hissed.

You, my transformer sister—you know when the time is right, when I am amongst my ppl. I hope to spread my wings as wide as you do and to have nearly as much plumage in my arsenal. One day, I will glean yr subtle grace and nuance, and I too will lift off and soar where tik-tik dare flutter.

Dearest, This is yr captain speaking over and out Tik-tock-tik-tock-tikky-tikky-tik-tock Goddessspeed sweet one, Trapdoor

birthright by j bederven

my mother’s worn hands, callous from scraping against one too many memories, pushed deep into dirt.

and I whispering into wind, skin imbrued with the red of my leaking rabbit heart.

heart line, fate line, head line hands full of tulips.

my mother her hands are my hands.

she brittle-boned woman able to lift and sustain weights her birthright, terrible gifts from her father, his father, my father. and I born to accept hardness of the flesh, burning eyes, manhood.

my nails are long and like hers they harbor soil in their beds.

I am wearing makeup as I walk the streets.

I am opening my ribs and letting the world in. and, through this effort, as the visage of manhood cracks, I am seeing lines in my hands and the tulips that will find their place there.

and I taken to flights across fields away from the shouting of boys who had already begun to use their bodies as weapons against life

RFD 152 Winter 2012 23

Bionic Vagina

Fall Gathering 2012

by Feathers

I went to a doctor She modified me Made me the creature I wanted to be No sedation ‘Cos I wanted to watch Her six inch needle As it stung my crotch

A little snip here

A little tuck there

Now I fit much better in my underwear

BIONIC VAGINA

neon lips on living chrome

BIONIC VAGINA

grab my hips as you’re sliding home Into my flesh origami My little lady bits My high technology My brand new clit Fondle my curves And see me make faces ‘Cos she routed my nerves Into all the right places

With some lightning here

Some thunder there

She carved a little heart in my pubic hair

BIONIC VAGINA

neon lips on living chrome

BIONIC VAGINA

grab my hips as you’re sliding home

24 RFD 152 Winter 2012

Induction

by Violet

D

on’t let anyone pull the wool over your eyes— transsexuality is seriously fucked up. It’s an EMOTIONALLY FRAUGHT and BLOODY process in which one commits to assuming a new identity, cutting off parts of one’s body, and taking prescription medication FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIFE. Trannies are a demographic with higher than average degree of substance abuse, mental illness, suicide, and imprisonment. Trannies, throughout history, have had a reputation of being catty and indolent. This reputation persists.

I know people who have LOST TOUCH WITH REALITY for months as a result of transitioning. I know people who have undergone painful transitions only to change their mind and undergo an equally painful de-transition process. EVERY SINGLE TRANNY I KNOW CARRIES SOME SORT OF HEAVY EMOTIONAL DAMAGE. Nonetheless, many transsexuals I’ve grown close to, developed friendships and fallen in love with are the most powerful witches I know.

Why is this? I’ve seen enough fierce trannywitches in diverse enough contexts to begin to believe that there is some sort of causal relationship between gender reassignment and sorcery. What is this connection? How can we begin to understand this unique process?

INDUCTION Induction is a beautiful word. It means to both magnetize and initiate.

You can induct an iron nail two ways by passing a magnet over it many times in the same direction or running an electric current through it. Afterwards the inducted nail is MAGNETIZED; it draws things “Faerie Friends” by Violet

to it. A magnetized object also aligns itself with greater forces; compasses work by constantly reorienting themselves to the Earth’s magnetic field.

Likewise, when someone is inducted into a “mystery” they are transformed by the process. They become “magnetic,” able to form external reality in accordance with internal states. Frequently those inducted into mysteries learn the art of prophecy, which is essentially the ability to create internal alignment with transcendental realities and actively navigate towards desired futures and outcomes.

Incidentally, in the context of goddess worship, the word “induction” often serves as a euphemism. It literally means CASTRATION. A notable example of this is the cult of Cybele: Cybele was the great mother and fertility goddess of Phrygian mythology.

She probably originated as a mountain goddess and was sometimes referred to as “The Lady of Ida” a mountain in western Anatolia. She inhabited the wild and dangerous regions and ruled over the fiercest of wild animals.

Eventually, the cult of Cybele spread to Greece, later to Rome where is was an official state religion until Christians took over and ruined all the fun.

The public rites of Cybele were orgiastic and ecstatic: her priests , the Galli or Galloi, would beat and castrate themselves in mad frenzies of passion, using whips decorated with knucklebones. The celebrations were accompanied by the sacrifice of a bull or ram, during which the initiate or high priest or priestess of Cybele, stood beneath a platform and was drenched in the blood of the sacrificed animal.

Cybele’s followers believed that her mysteries would lead them to be reborn after death into a new life.

After initiation the Galli would grow their hair long, dress in elaborate women’s clothing and refer RFD 152 Winter 2012 25

to each other with female pronouns. They were believed to become imbued with magical forces which allowed them to prophesize and affect the future.

These sorts of tranny cults have a habit of springing up whenever goddess worship and agriculture coincide in space and time. In vastly different cultural contexts castration has served as something of an entrance fee to a class of people who were known to command potent magical forces. The Galli of Rome and Hijra of India were and are sought and feared for their powerful blessings and curses.

The point I’m trying to make is that throughout recorded history trannies have been recognized as FIERCE WITCHES. This is directly relevant to myself and many girls I know. I’m going to share a secret with you—when two trans women first meet 9 times out of ten they eye each other on the sly for days before figuring out some pretext to talk and then go on and on about time-travel, dreaming, prophecy AND BEING WITCHES. Sorry if I’m blowing anyone’s cover, but I doubt it. Anyone reading this probably has some experience with trans-sorcery and knows first hand how real it is.

CASTRATION I was castrated two years ago by a medical professional. The process took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. I was lucid and conversational throughout the operation. I greatly enjoyed the experience. Afterwards it took me 6 weeks to recover.

During that time I was almost completely confined to a bed set up in a garage in Portland Oregon.

While in bed I underwent a spiritual transformation. I became obsessed with the study of reincarnation, parallel realities, practical time-travel, manifestation and the vast organizational capacity of the soul. I learned to swim through the dream-world and tie blue strings to desired outcomes. Over time I’ve slowly grown more sensitive to energy dynamics. Concurrently I’ve become increasingly telepathic, able to subtly shape the flow of events. I am NOT alone in this—other girls have told me that castration immediately connected them to ethericnetherworld forces. More generally, though less dramatically, I’ve noticed that as soon as a tranny starts altering their body through outfit, hair-style and/or hormones there’s a tendency to become more empowered, brave and capable.

LIFE-CYCLE Transsexuality is a process, much of which hap26 RFD 152 Winter 2012

pens prior to medical intervention. While shots and surgery often allow an individual to embody their ideal there is almost always an internal transition that occurs long before the word is made flesh.

Transsexuality is a profound process. It involves a complete hijacking of the life-cycle. When I was castrated I had only been taking hormones for a few months. I had the body of an 11 year old girl. After being cut I became technically post-menopausal. I felt simultaneously like a maiden and a crone. This is a POWERFUL feeling—almost as if the polarity of the maidenhood and cronedom contained in my body created an electric arc that connected me to the Great Mother.

There is a great deal of universality in the transexperience; dissatisfaction, realization, social transformation, medical intervention, physical transformation, etc. These universal aspects of experience create a kind of “landscape” that is physically passed through. Along with this more physical “landscape of trans” there is a distinct pyscho-emotional topography. Travel through different physical terrains requires different modes of transportation. One uses camels in the desert and sailboats in the ocean. The terrain you cross determines the skills you need.

I have identified a spiritual terrain to transsexuality. Traversing this landscape serves as something of a crash-course in witchcraft. This landscape is comprised of 3 realizations that must be comprehended prior to someone transitioning. These insights are as follows:

REEVALUATION My initial involvement in both trans and magic happened only after I began to question ALL of my assumptions of who I should be. This was an arduous process. I spent the three years before I started estrogen deeply evaluating ALL of my behaviors, emotional hang-ups and thought patterns. I had to learn who I truly was and how to let go of what is false in me.

Arising from this slow reclamation of my life I realized that I CAN BE WHOEVER I WANT TO BE REGARDLESS OF WHAT I WAS TAUGHT IS APPROPRIATE OR POSSIBLE. Most queers I know share this insight, which is why I suspect so many queers are practicing witches.

Without this hard internal work of brooding introspection I would have continued in the world ignorant of who I truly am and alienated from my inner forces.

AGENCY

Eventually I realized that I wanted to cut my balls off really bad, take hormones and live out my life as a strange woman named ‘Violet’. I was daunted and horrified knowing what I truly yearned for.

Each aspect of transitioning seemed like a separate mountain I’d have to climb. During the 6 months prior to initiating the transition process I studied breath-work and present moment awareness with single-pointed focus. I trained myself like a warrior in order to shape circumstances to my ends.

Altogether it only took me two weeks to get a hormone script, 4 months to have testicles removed, and half a year to attain a driver’s license saying I’m a woman named Violet. I had literally transformed myself from someone I hated and secretly wished to kill into someone I love dearly.

I know that we as individuals have an enormous capacity to become whatever we want. To have/ make/create/be whatever we desire.

Trannies usually comprehend this enormous power because it is so literal to us. Every time I feel my nipples rub against my blouse I KNOW THAT MAGIC IS UNDENIABLY REAL. I’ve noticed that trans people are usually confident in bearing, have impressive skillsets, and speak their minds.

The process of imagining a better version of oneself and MAKING THAT REAL is supremely magical. Applying this principal to other areas of one’s life IS the stuff of witches, sorcerers and magicians.

Magic is not a spectator sport—it requires your active participation. Part of this participation entails recognizing the vastness of your power. Another vital aspect is willingness to SEEK WHAT YOU DESIRE. All magic is created and/or funneled through your imagination.

I suggest against diminishing the less spectacular more prosaic tools of magic. It is impressive to, say, conjure rain or meet up with someone in dreamtime to plan a road trip and discuss this in waking life while in the car with said person. This sort of magic is the exception, not the rule.

One of the most powerful spells I’ve ever done is I let myself make a list. I wrote down everything that I wanted from the next two years without fear or inhibition. I was completely honest with myself.

I stashed this list in my bookshelf. Two years later I checked. I had done EVERYTHING on the list.

EVERYTHING. If you so desire: engage in a conversation with your “soul.” Allow yourself to truly discern what you wish to see in your life. Write down what you discover. Look the list over. You may feel a faint warm glow. Intentionally welcome needed change into your life. See what happens. w Violet can be reached at muggwort@netzero.com.

Zines & art at http://trashling.deviantart.com.

CHANGE Collectively as a species we fear change. Change of habit, change of mind, change of fortune, change of paradigm etc. Change on every scale horrifies most of us. Nonetheless, change is an ever-present force in our lives. Trans people have a unique relationship to change; we embrace it and use it to slowly embody our ideals.

CHANGE IS THE MEDIUM OF MAGIC. Time is the organizational principal of experience.

Time is only observable through the rich pageant of change. Magic could be described as the science of change through time relative to imagined states.

To grasp that one has the agency to attract desired changes into one’s life IS TO BE INDUCTED INTO WITCHCRAFT.

TIPS FROM A TIME WITCH If you’re reading this and don’t suspect me of early onset schizophrenia, we are in every way allies.

If you’re reading this and are getting excited about making magic, then we are some kind of family.

“Self Portrait” by Violet

RFD 152 Winter 2012 27

The Faerie Effect

by Glitter

T

ransition was an exciting and difficult time.

Once I learned that FTM’s actually existed, so much finally made sense in my head and confusion began to drift away. But to externally express who I thought myself to be was a frightening endeavor!

You see, I had spent 36 years of being “the paper behind the wall flowers”. I learned early on in life, that if I was invisible, I could escape criticism & punishment. So, getting NO attention meant I was doing something right! It was the highest… well actually the only…compliment given in my household. I feared conflict because I usually lost. It seems from birth I had an intense fear of getting into trouble. I not only tattle tailed on my siblings, I would also tell on myself. Therefore, I always found a way to meet the expectations of my authorities. I did my homework & got good grades instead of developing a social life, I went to church and appeared like I was paying attention even though I was far away in my mind, and after the first divorce I found a way to get an annulment. I was the “good” child. Doing unpopular things that would make me be noticed was never appealing to me, but equally compelling was the desire for inner freedom & happiness. To transition would rip the world I knew apart!

After my trans awakening, I read a very, very, very thick book by Holly Devor titled Female-ToMale Transsexuals in Society. I’m not an avid reader, but somehow I read this monstrosity from cover to cover. It was a very objective view of what 40 others had went thru to transition in life. Only 1 or 2 identified like me as a gay man. Some were physically assaulted when they were found out. I finished the book with the understanding that I may never do this. It was just too difficult!

The timing of finding information about transgendered males coincided with the beginnings of a divorce. I left my husband in Florida and moved back to New England. The previous therapy for a troubled marriage started really taking root. As I began to start life over, I realized I was emotionally stronger than I thought just few months earlier. I found a transgendered support group & began to seriously consider things and build a new family.

Once I made the decision to go forward, things progressed rather quickly. I found myself facing 28 RFD 152 Winter 2012

most of the fears that I held the majority of my life.

As I did, each one slowly began to shrink & eventually disappear. I struggled to continue to learn new coping skills as I confronted life’s challenges.

Although I was feeling relief from the confusion that used to exist in my head and great joy with the ecstatic reward of growing facial hair, I was angry about my life’s circumstance. I viewed being transgendered in a judgmental, fear reactive world as a cruelty! By changing only what showed on the outside, what was once seen as a kind and gentle person was now looked at as a perve by many in my world. Even my sister felt she needed to “protect” her kids from me at first. I went from a world where holding hands and showing affection with a male lover was once an accepted societal action to it suddenly being a precursor for danger. I didn’t know how to navigate such drastic changes.

I joined a gay men’s support group hoping it Photo courtesy of the author

would help me adjust to this new way of living. It was during some of these meetings I first heard about the “radical faeries”. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I did not consider myself to be a radical and I had no intention to be! That word scared me still.

T

ime went by. One of my friends attended a weekend or two at Destiny and then invited me to go with him just a couple months after my surgeries. I guess I was feeling a little more secure by then. I decided to trust him and, in October 2001, Dancing Tree (at the time, aka Wave) took me home.

This weekend was a life changing event to say the least. Shortly after arriving, I helped a crew of men bring a sweat lodge, which Moss had made, into the woods. I realized afterward that I was amongst others who didn’t know my story for the very first time and I was finally experiencing what it was like to just be “one of the guys!” I enjoyed this so much I almost didn’t participate in the ceremonial sweat the next day. It was something I was very much looking forward to, but once I got there I began to chicken out. How would I be treated after other men found out my trans status? I started chatting with Kleber while waiting for the sweat to start and debating in mind about what to do. He didn’t seem to care about my transness and kept inviting me to join them. This was the first of many sweats!

As the weekend unfolded, Kwai (who turned out to be my midwife) kept saying to me “Welcome Home.” I thought nothing of it. That was until the very end of the weekend when I walked the Labyrinth. During the walk, I had some insights that were nice, but as my foot touched the threshold on my exit his words came THUNDERING through

“Emergence” by Glitter

my head!!! With them was the understanding—I came home to myself through transition; I now came home and know my place in the Universe (this community was my portal!).

Since that weekend, there have been many epiphanies. I have met so many people who live life so differently AND successfully, that my rigidity has flexed. I’ve learned I don’t need as much control as I was taught I did. I’m so fortunate to have had the myriad of atheists, pagans, Buddhists, Hindus, inbetweens and others to finally show me what the teachings of Christ look like in action. I have had the chance to experience what it’s like to be valued and an active participant in a community of equals.

When things get ugly, I’ve seen people struggle to work it out instead of judge and punish. I use to think conflict meant the end. What I found was that grounding voices can balance it out and make it a beginning. What the men talk about in closed walls at the support group I go to gets lived out in the open in the faerie world.

These experiences of this welcoming community have literally saved my life, especially through a time of disabling illness!

One of my favorite epiphanies was that not all men wearing a skirt are impersonating a woman! Nor are they less of a man for expressing the feminine part of their soul. It took six years to be able to come full circle in accepting all of who I am and was. I can’t erase the 36 years of living like a female and I’ll never have jock itch. I live between the worlds of opposing genders. What was once my perception of cruelty has now become my experience of blessing!

For had it not been for being so different, I would have never entered this radical place and been so affected! w RFD 152 Winter 2012 29

These Thoughts The little boy with the smooth, soft body feels inadequate around the beautiful, muscular men who are fags.

The little boy closes his eyes at night and dreams about having a hard, hairy body someday.

The little boy hates himself for desiring assimilation and his failure to love his own body.

The little boy knows these thoughts are foolish. —Sean Minteh

30 RFD 152 Winter 2012

Tranimalistic Lady-Boy Seeks Gender Deviant(s) for Collaboration, Revolution, Maybe More

by Hella Regernate

P

olymorphously perverse androgyne seeks agender, third-gender, polygender, mixed-gender, transgender co-conspirators and playmates. I’m a gynandrous fag-dyke. Could you be the neutrois of my dreams? Are you a lesbian, a nellie natureboy, a stud, a butch, a Sapphic sister, a femme, a bear, a top, a bottom, an epicene, a sissy, a sadist, a masochist, a cross-dresser, a grrrl, a womyn, a boi? Preferably, be all of the above. High tolerance for the infinitely complex, ever-changing fluidity of my identity is a must. I might seduce you with my feminine wiles one day, then charm you with my boyish good looks the next. Shape-shifters, freaks, and mutants move to the front of the line. Misogynists need not apply. I have a cunt and I’m not afraid to use it.

I enjoy blunts and long walks through the rugged margins of our crumbling civilization, or through the gray area between the binaries of gender and sexuality. Let’s meet up, swap preferred pronouns and life herstories, and if the chemistry is right, I might give you an eargasm or let you ride my clownaweenie.

Let’s pretend that gender means everything.

Let’s play dress up. Let’s trade clothes. Let’s tape up our extremities or attach new ones. Let’s try on new names. Let’s talk in voices higher or lower than usual. I’ll be the hero, you be the heroine. Then we’ll switch and do it the other way around.

Let’s pretend that gender means nothing. Let’s

overthrow the monarchy of drag kings and queens and become drag-comrades in the coming insurrection. Let’s absorb the essences of the trees until ecstasy overflows from our bodies. Let’s swim in the ocean until we turn into mermaids. Let’s stare at the stars until we turn into aliens. Let’s stare into each others eyes until all we can see is a mirror.

Show me the parts of your body you love the most, what you call them and how they like to be touched. Show me the invisible, ethereal parts of yourself, what you call them, and how they like to be touched. Show me the stretch marks from years of growing your own identity out of the wreckage of the one your parents, your church, your school tried to give you. Show me your battle wounds and I’ll show you mine. We’ll lick each other until we scar over. We’ll sink our teeth into one another until we find the sweet spot between pleasure and pain, until we remember why we like to linger in the inbetween spaces, why we refuse to choose sides.

Call me they. Call me he. Call me she, or ze, or quee. I don’t care what you call me, just call me. I’ll be all the man and all the womyn you can take. w Hella Regenerate is a freelance freak migrating between Florida and Short Mountain. They are a founding member of the Bonobohobo’s Panspermic Circus and can be reached at msellendegenerate@ gmail.com.

RFD 152 Winter 2012 31

Delirium in Transit

by Ahnika Delirium

I

first knew I was an Otherlyng when I was four years old. There was a weeblo-scout that my parents brought me to. At the same daycamp was the equivalent girlscout camp. I knew, at that moment, that I didn’t entirely fit on either side of these established lines. I saw then that I identified much more strongly with the feminine end of th’ spectrum. I saw also, tho’ I did not have the words, that this was not the whole picture. This has led me to a life of questioning the ostensible facts laid out before me.

This was, fer me, the beginning of my journey of Becoming, which I hope I will never be done with.

I will never grow up. But I hope to always be growing.

This particular ramble is not my autobiography, but I start here because I want to make clear that this is one perspective within a diverse rainbow spectrum. Everyone has their own story & must tell it in their own way. There are a perhaps infinite array of perspectives & experiences of what it can mean to be a Trans, Queer, Faery, Witch, Creaturely, Two Spirited Shamyn. I am of the mind that it takes a village to do, understand, manifest & fully be anything. Yer voice & yer perspective can be held in a space with mine. We are all important & we must all feel accounted for & honored in order for a new paradigm to take root. Here is some of my Light, my Magick. I offer it as a messy array of inspiration & a beckoning for you to look at & nourish Your Light, Your Magick. What is in Transition in your life & identity? What are you working & playing to Transcend? What Transformations have made ye who ye are? Who are ye? Who would ye like to be?

My genderfullness & gender fluidity have greatly influenced my development as a persin thru’out my life. This has always been a process of great struggle, leaps of faith & learning experiences fer me; & has sometimes gotten me in trouble. I believe this is as it should be.

Note the plethora of misspellings & capitalization thru’out this missive. This is intentional. Part of my TransFaey identity is the notion of the transformation of prescribed form. Reinventing language has been happening since language began. I call this a “Transit’”. If a created Transit’ can be relatively 32 RFD 152 Winter 2012

easily interpreted by one’s audience, can it serve as a tool other folx might pick up & use in their own way? My hope that this is so is what motivates my creative process.

I don’t like proprietary Transit’s. When a word is created, or intentionally misspelled (re- spelled) only for the sake of the persin using that word, I

consider it rude. I know that I may seem rude when I do this myself, & my hope is that folx will call me on it, that I might have opportunity to explain &, perhaps, inspire. We all have somewhat variable definitions of our language. I think that there needs Photographs by Adrian Buckmaster

to be room for this. This involves a great deal of patience.

I prefer the notion of created language as “offerings”. Notions I am attempting to live by include the maintenance of cordiality, boundaries, & consent; as well as self care & care for others. “No” is an acceptable answer (to give or to receive). Ask for what you want.

I have my own gender pronoun. “Te” (Pronounced, “Tay”; Te went to the store, te’s book is on the table. Ahnika told me te’self. How many tes does it take to screw in a lightbulb?). However, because it will not (necessarily) rock the foundations of the broader nomenclature, I don’t ask that folx attempt to use it. I am comfortable, for now, with feminine pronouns. It was hard enough fer folx to transition their perceptions of my assigned gender to the more accurate feminine. Te is more accurate fer me, but to others, especially my bio- family, it took awhile fer them to realize the accuracy of the femme adaptation & to begin using it; but the binary

gender paradigm they could understand; expanding that concept to include multiplicity in the gender spectrum is a leap most folx are not ready to make.

I cannot, in good conscience, try & push that new paradigm upon them. Yet. I feel that my role, & one that many a queer, faey & trans community could embrace, is one of emissary. Holding space for where folx are at in their personal evolution. A true warrior, from my perspective, is one who chooses their battles, one who uses tact, diplomacy, play, compassion, creativity, pleasure, imagination & social communion to win battles, long before resorting to combative strategy, fighting words, anger or force. This is the difference between wielding/grinding an axe, & nourishing/ cultivating the garden we want to live in. We are emissaries of the garden, not perpetrators of the war. We want to live in a community, not a mob.

I think that the above is a way we can establish a new paradigm. Over the years of coming to radical faery space I have seen this shift happening. From when I first started attending gatherings, to now, there has been a lot of good work done to open the faery culture to many types of people: men, women, genderqueer, gender variant, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, trans, & a whole host of other possible identifiers. We’ve come a long way & I am deeply grateful to everyone who has twerked long & hard, with patience & compassion, at opening minds, hearts & spaces; & to those who’ve allowed themselves to be more open & tolerant. A special place is held in my heart for our gay brothers who began the radical faery movement, upon whose shoulders this generation of Faey stand. Honoring our elders is imperative, me’thinks!

This rambling missive is a verse in a long song, the song of the TransFaey, the Tranimal in each of us; the offering that Trans can mean more than gender variance. It can mean transformation, transition, transcendance, translation, tranifestation. Create some more meanings, & see where they fit in your life.

I hope to hear many more verses of this song from yer lips, from yer hearts, & see them in yer actions. If we can hold space for each other, make our boundaries & needs clear, & really listen reflectively to one another, with patience & persistence, the Faey will change the World in ever bigger & deeper ways. Breath. Listen. Twerk. Tranifest.

Rinse. Repeat. w Blessed Be. xo- Ahnika Delirium RFD 152 Winter 2012 33

Paintings and a Film

by Janie Buttz

34 RFD 152 Winter 2012

“I Wish I WAS a Pretty Girl”

“T is For”

RFD 152 Winter 2012 35

“Arisen”

“Shirley” A Conari Arts film by Cari, Janie, Kiki, Suma, Romeo St. Ruckus, and Ru VanGorp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5f6dZlHzL0

36 RFD 152 Winter 2012

I am Janie … Janie Buttz. I’ve lived in the faeborhood of SMS for about a year now. If you like what you see here, email me at ravncom@yahoo.com. OH, by the way, I’m a horny little sissy in need of a good pounding. xoxoxo, Janie.

Becoming a Man with a Surprise

by Humming Bee Iva Surprise

My name is Jaime. My faerie name is Humming Bee Iva Surprise. I am a Female to Male (FTM) transgender human being. My story begins with the passing of dear faerie friend, Bumble Bee. His passing brought together many people whose paths had not crossed before. I met a couple of faeries that encouraged and supported me to attend the Winter Gathering at Breitenbush in 2009. I had, at that point, not attended any “male only” gatherings or events. I was excited to go and be with my faggot brothers in an intentional faerie space. I understood that faeries were creating space for other faeries to be in nature and express their beautiful selves with intentional ritual and sexy play. I appreciated that the faeries celebrate the divine feminine as well as the masculine in each other.

About three days before I was to leave for the Breitenbush, the faeries in Portland held a heart circle, where I realized I would be sharing naked and sexually charged intentional space with my faerie faggot brothers. This thought sank like a stone to the pit of my belly and I was overcome by a nervous anxiety as the questions began to emerge. Would I be accepted, Despised? Would I be received only as my genitalia dictated? While these thoughts simmered in the back of my brain, I took comfort in the fact that I already knew many faeries that would be attending, and that I could find safe space with them.

Throwing my fear and doubt aside, I packed up my fabulous drag, drum, and sacred ritual items and caught a ride to the soaking pools and land that is Breitenbush. Upon arriving my excitement bubbled over, seeing dear beloveds pile out of cars with the gifts of smiles, hugs, and I was welcomed home. I situated myself in my cabin on “A Row” with Rhoda Roadkill, Dyslexia, and Fakir. The plastic totes full of clothes, hats, and small mammal adorned wraps, food, etc, announced the fierce faeries I was staying with.

B

efore long, a friend grabbed me in the lodge for my first soak. I was relieved that it was already dark, for I could postpone, have more time confronting my fear until the morning. I undressed and lowered myself into the healing water of the meadow pools. It was as if Spirit knew my fear, for

suddenly it was right in front of me. A faerie in the dark pool began to talk about how bad female genitalia smelled. My shoulders rose up in defense and my spirit withdrew. Being a faggot identified transmale faerie, I know some people find it difficult to reconcile their perceptions of my energy, my body, and my genitals with each other. All my fears rushed from all sides to attack my heart. I quickly made excuses to my friend and left. I could not find my voice to speak up for myself. It was gone. He let me go, knowing exactly how and why I was hurting.

I went back to my cabin, heartbroken and berating myself for believing that I could ever be fully accepted as a man. I retreated into that fear and isolation, and let the sadness hold me as I slept. I could not talk to my cabin mates or friends about it. I feared that they too questioned my right to participate. I felt utterly alone. It was a gut wrenching reminder that binary gender does not include me.

It does not leave room for a person sexed female at birth and yet very decidedly male.

The next morning I hung out on the fringes, fear of rejection driving my actions, or lack thereof. I only felt safe to soak at meal times, when all the other faeries are sharing food and conversation in the lodge. I would get my food as early as possible, eat fast, and hit the meadow pools alone. I was distraught, and thought, “Why would I come all this way to attend a gathering and be all by myself?”

My friends appeared to be having a wonderful time, while I was paralyzed with terror. But I was too afraid to participate, because I knew that other transgender faeries that had been met with judgment and isolation just as I had, so I felt I had good reason to be cautiousI asked myself, “Why would I want to go to a gathering where I have to defend my right to be involved, when I have to do that all the time in every aspect of my life outside of the faeries?

I do not want to be the focal point, or the elephant in the room, when I already do that in my family of origin. I have been told for the past thirteen years that I pass well as a man. I do not want to just pass as anything! I want and yearn to just be myself, a faerie man who loves men. Who likes a cock in his mouth, who likes giving an offering of love to that man and all the ancestors that came before him.

RFD 152 Winter 2012 37

I

spent two full days of the gathering this way. I felt conflicted, anguished, and terrified to show myself. I went to sleep that Friday night vowing that the next day I would take a risk and be braver than I had been so far.

The next morning the fear was still present, but so was my resolve to do something about it. As lunch rolled around, I decided to take a chance. I ate slowly and savored the company of the faeries around me. I scooped up my towel and walked leisurely to the pools to soak with whoever was there. As I got into the tub, I realized that Spirit had taken mercy on me, for there was only one faerie in the water. As it happens, I knew this faerie too; I had danced the Naraya with him. We shared our silent love of trees. Soon after, a group of faeries I did not know approached the tub and my fear was renewed.

I felt like a coward as I raced to get dressed and leave the tub I had just taken solace in.

Discouraged that my own fear had gotten the best of me, I did not return to the tubs that day. I had fought so hard in my life to release the shame I carry in my body, and here it was again, in my face!

Red with embarrassment, I left the talent show early to go to bed and hide. When I got back to my cabin, Rhoda was the only one home. I hadn’t spoken with her much before, but we warmed to each other immediately. We shared our love for the Naraya and elder Thunder Cloud. Rhoda Roadkill became family forever to me, in that moment. This connection fed me so much that I went to sleep praising myself for being brave, and promising myself to do better the next day.

The following morning I woke up full of fear. But I knew what it was, and I knew that in order to let it go I had to name it. As I approached the lodge, folks began asking if I would be going to heart circle.

I had been avoiding heart space of any kind, but I knew that it would be a great place to stop hiding.

In heart space, I could be witnessed in my fear and shame, and even be loved for it. I went into the North ballroom and found a cushion, to sit in my discomfort.

Powerful messages came through, as they often do in heart circles. As heart circles do, there were powerful messages coming through. I heard a message directly for me in the speech of each faerie that shared. The fact that while speaking, each faerie was wrapped in a shawl made by Michael Allisone Wonder gave me the strength to stay. The first faerie rose and removed all his clothes to say, “Reveal yourselves!

We want to know who you are!” My jaw hit the floor, realizing at that moment that I needed to do just that.

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I spent most of the rest of the heart circle deciding whether I had the courage to reveal myself to the entire room. Finally, at the last fifteen minutes, I stood up to take my turn under the faerie shawl.

I received the shawl from the faerie brother before me. I felt the warmth of his body still in the cloth, and wrapped it around my shoulders. I could feel the fear sweat dripping down my sides. My heart was pulsing in my ears and my face was red as if anticipating the exposure to come. I closed my eyes and let my toes dig into the floor. Ground before you jump off the cliff, I told myself. Taking a deep breath into my belly, let us begin. Instead of saying my name, I said, “I’m terrified.” To which, of course, everyone in the room echoed back, “Terrified.” There was a great bit of laughter all around me as I embraced my terror for what I was about to do next. I dropped the shawl. Wrapped only in the shawl and my fear, I walked around the circle to let all those in attendance see me. I spoke of how afraid I was: afraid to reveal myself, afraid of not being accepted as a man, afraid of not being sexually desirable, and afraid of being asked to leave the gathering. With tears in my eyes, I bared more than just my body. I bared all the vulnerability of my uncertainty. I let them all see what makes me different and yet the same.

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here was not a soul in that room that could not identify with my fear, even if for different reasons. I realized that this experience was not just a transgender one but a human one. We all fear being rejected and told we do not belong. I spoke of the importance of male only space, where we can express ourselves. Where we can experience healing, desire, and transform our pain. I talked about how I had learned how to be a man without a cock and balls, and that faggot was bigger than the question of into what hole you stick your cock. I had walked through the fire, placing all that I knew on the chopping block, and stepped into the unknown. And the fire becomes the forging of my manhood. I was proud of the man I had become. My brothers met me with open arms and teary eyes. The love radiating in that circle washed my fear away and brought me into the center.

As I gave the shawl to the next faerie to speak, I gathered up my clothes and returned to my seat, still naked and not quiet fully in my body. Shaken, I was through it and out the other side. Time felt slower, as I tried to climb back into my body. I always know when I am speaking from the heart because I usually cannot remember what I said after. It took me

about 45 minutes to leave the room as there was a line of people waiting to embrace me and welcome me home again. I wanted so badly to soak and let the tension leave my body and spirit. I looked in the eyes of every man waiting to wrap his arms around me and express how happy he was that I was there. I needed to allow myself to see in their eyes how they saw me. To have myself, as I really am, reflected by so many is a humbling experience. I let that awareness steep into the depths of my core. I went to the tubs afterward with a light heart and many, many new friends.

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eturning to my cabin after soaking, I ran into my faerie big brothers Adrain Chesser and White Eagle. They had been in the heart circle with me and wanted to create a photo to display the power of this moment. In the upper meadow pool, with my faerie brothers, I stood naked as the day I was born in front of the camera, having become the man

Photograph by Adrain Chesser and White Eagle

I always wanted to be. Journeying from a boy to a man on my own road, made me see first hand what it means to be a man. The biggest lesson for me was the power, the power of being incredibly strong and using that strength to hold something tenderly and delicately, so as not to crush it. To be a warrior for joy, fighting for the sweetness of nectar with everything I have, is my lesson. If I can love myself through my shadow and doubt, then I can love you.

This photo captured the magic that we all create when we stop being afraid of being ourselves.

After the gathering, I experienced the ripples of my actions, as other transmen approached me regarding my experience. I am ever grateful for taking that chance and all the conversations and controversy that followed. We are still struggling as a community to let go of exclusion and binary gender lines in the sand. The conversations continue, building towards understanding. I am thankful for the opportunity to show you my most authentic self. w

RFD 152 Winter 2012 39

A Letter to My Cock

by Mushtaq

My cock has been neglected of late. And when I do pay attention to him, it’s usually to say, “Hurry up.”

So this is my apology to my cock.

Dear cock,

I’m sorry. I’m sorry that for two decades, I thought you weren’t big enough. I saw the movies with the huge penises and the exciting positions and the raw fucking, and I thought that would make me cool, and I saddled you with my ego. I wanted notches on a headboard, I wanted swagger and studly. I wanted to be needed. I wanted someone to be so amazed by my sexual skills that they’d never leave me. I’m sorry, my dearest cock, that I never asked what you wanted.

I’m sorry, my faithful cock, that for years I never touched you with my fingers, feeling ashamed of your diminutive size, and your shape, and your smell, that for years I touched you through fabric, touched you with the coldness of other objects and rarely with my hands. You never complained, so glad to be touched at all, I think. I still hesitate to touch you as I would my hand or my foot, as I would my head and my hair, fingers playful and delicate, teasing, laughing, loving. You get wetter than most cocks, and I’m a bit of a clean freak—you’ve probably noticed—but anyway, I’m sorry. That’s what I want to say. I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that I don’t proudly display you to my sexual partners -- I still feel shy. And lately I’ve started to feel like you feel shy, too. You haven’t been as hard and as throbbing as you used to be. You’ve been quiet and reserved, and it’s unlike you, but we haven’t had much of a chance to talk about it. And when we’re with men, I know you’re beautiful and amazing and mine, but I look at their cocks and they fit so easily in my mouth, I sometimes wished you fit more easily into someone’s mouth. It’s a terrible thing to say, I know. No one ever sticks their hand down my pants to grab a hold of you, and maybe it’s me, you know, maybe I give off the wrong vibe, but maybe it’s you, maybe they’re afraid of you, afraid of touching you. I guess they don’t see the beautiful cock that you are. And you are beautiful. But once in a while, it would be nice to feel someone’s hand wrapped around you, a gentle tug, the warmth of skin against skin. But it’s not your fault, and I’m 40 RFD 152 Winter 2012

sorry if I make you feel like it is. We’ve traveled such roads together, you and I. Born in a body that was not ours, and such hardships to change this body to one that fit better.

There were years of not wanting to be a man with a cock, since men with cocks raped people I knew, and me too, and if cocks made them men, then I did not want a cock. But then the fight was lost as more and more it didn’t matter what I wanted, it mattered what WAS. There was no way to explain to people that I had always had a cock, one that felt amputated, invisible, but with all the hardness and frustration blue-balls could give you. And the conversations about what made a man and what made a woman, and the unsaid thing that I never told anyone: When all reason went out of my head, when all the stories were silenced and it was just thrusting and grunting and primal reflexes, you, dear cock who wasn’t even a cock yet, you fucked like a man porno, you shivered and shook like a man shooting his load, even if your load was one no one could see.

And then there were no more explanations.

There were the hormones, the hair everywhere, and then you were born. Or rather, came out of hiding. There would be no knives or surgeries, but you grew into a beautiful one inch cock—tripling your size!—in a year. You grew a whole inch and I was very proud of you.

And so you’re not 6 inches, 8 inches, not a thick uncut cock, but you are one inch, sometimes one and half inches, you do get hard, and you do want to be touched. And I will try, dearest cock, to touch you more. To invite others to touch you more. I will try, try, try to remember that you have feelings, too, and not make you rush all the time to finish so I can go to bed. It’s just hard, my lovely cock, to fight the good fight for you out in the world. I don’t feel very strong when my pants are down around my ankles.

I get scared and you get scared and I do the best I can. I’ll try and do better. And at the very least, I’ll try to spend more time with you. Just you and me, like when we were kids. But this time, I’ll like you the way you are. My dear cock, stick with me a while longer, I’m trying to be the man you deserve. All my love... w

The Time 2 Heal Is Here & Now

by Altercation

“T

HE TIME 2 HEAL IS HERE & NOW” is a cathartic ceremony designed to allow survivors of sexualized violence to articulate events they have experienced without burdening others with specific details—to be heard without necessarily being listened to. There are three ways that have been used so far, and these are also templates that anyone can modify to fit their own needs.

The first way involves electricity and can be done as a performative/interactive ceremony where numerous modalities can be employed. The idea is to create a soundscape such that people can be speaking all at once, over one another, with music happening as a top layer. Modified microphones are used to change a persons voice to be unrecognizable. As many as are available can be set up behind a screen in a cozy space involving hung fabrics, cushions, stuffed animals, candles…whatever feels good.

Then, out front, shrines and prayer spaces can be set up where supporters can gather and pray, sing, light candles or incense, place objects…again, whatever feels good. Then, also, a decompression area set up with various kinds of healers and supporters to give gentle touch, massage, energy work, or be available to give private listening attention away from people, if necessary.

This can be very powerful, and requires a lot of bravery on the part of the participants. Some people feel there should be a time restraint on how long this ceremony goes, but be sure to give a couple “last-calls” before the time is up so those still summoning the courage to speak will know the winddown is approaching. Then, have a performance arranged specifically to gather the energy, involving a short song or prayer everybody can chime in on, and also a live musician to perform. We used an

aerialist too, to great effect—transmuting grief into joy and releasing it out into the world for the greater good. A lively dance party can also be included after this, to put people back into their bodies in a positive way.

The second form of this ritual is electricity free, and can be done with a group, or modified as a solo ceremony. This involves digging a hole into the ground, instead of using microphones, and using ‘mother-earth’ as a ‘secret-keeper’. A nice way to do this can be with a group, fitting in with any number of ceremonies as the group feels appropriate. We used a small team to consecrate the ground and form the hole, and another to gather water and bring it to the hole to represent tears and renewal. A nighttime ceremony can include a fire nearby with people making music as a soundscreen for privacy, but this can also be done in the day. When we did this in the day, as soon as we started singing our chosen song, “All that I am, I offer at the altar of Love.” (2x) “In sweeee-ee-eet sur-re-ender.” (2x), we received a gentle sun-shower!!! This form can involve the same aspects as the first with a team of healers on hand for support and shrines of solidarity, or can be done alone in your own backyard with privacy.

The third can be for in the city, using a bowl of water as the ‘secret-keeper’, again with a full team of healers and music, or alone for total privacy, with the water later used to quench an indoor plant, or poured out in a nearby park.

Any of these ideas can be modified to fit the situation you are in, and can also be helpful for healing other forms of trauma that are not sexualized. To quote Bernard, brother of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. in Timequake, “We are all in this together, whatever it is.” w

All that I am, I offer at the altar of Love All that I am, I offer at the altar of Love In swee-ee-ee-eet sur-re-ender In swee-ee-ee-eet sur-re-ender

RFD 152 Winter 2012 41

Consecrating Grounds For a Triple Goddess Invocation

by Frannie Blew Mackee (a.k.a. Ms. Gender)

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his ritual is focused on the invocation of the triple goddess in a newer, alternative form. This form identifies mostly with Hecate, for the sake of crossroads reflecting into trans-identities and gender queer cross-paths, and a newer adaptation of the maiden-mother-crone archetype. This is the ritual done in order to create and hold a magickal space for an important invocation as well as any magickal practices the witch may want to walk through. I could never say definitively how any intensely personal ritual should be held; however, these are the steps I take in the process.

1) Locate, claim, and hold a potential magickal venue.

2) Assert a deep intent and gather your reagents: -one blue candle -one white candle -salt (black salt if you have it) -an unframed mirror -a hammer or mallet -any personal magickal garb and weapons -a long silver chain -a jar of water (from a natural source, salted or not) 3) Make way to the magickal area with the reagents and focus your intent on the location and how you will spiritually navigate the event.

This consecration is severely personal in the sense that it is intended for the lone witch. Personal growth is the goal. The force behind the magick lies within the chosen grounds and the power fortifying the blessing. I bless safer emotional and metaphysical spaces for myself and loved ones on similar paths.

To begin, I would throw a pinch of salt in each of the four corners of my area, nullifying outside energies into the space for a time. Then enter ritual by lighting the blue candle in the center of the grounds for spiritual healing and protection. While it is burning, begin to meditate on any issues revolving around your cross paths in your sexuality, gender, personal policy, boundaries, or queerness.

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Once having inserted yourself into a deeper mental state, take the mirror and place it on the ground in front of your candle. Gaze deeply at yourself and study the reflection. While doing so, put forth the different aspects of your person into the mirror.

Use your reflected eyes as a portal to which these thoughts and energies travel into. Try not to force anything out, instead allow them to retreat from your psychic barrier into the safe space that you’re creating. If you at any time begin to feel drained, or just feel that everything necessary was transferred to the mirror, close the mirror portal and rest.

After as much time as you feel you needed for recuperation you may choose to begin the next step of the process.

Take the ritual mirror from the candle and place it directly in front of your body. Break the mirror by Photograph by Stephanie Pharr

striking it with your mallet three times. With each strike invoke a different aspect of the triple goddess; I influence an androgyne form in replacement of the maiden, I address them as the warden or the Totem.

This mirror is now broken to represent the aspects of your persona, however they are now externally symbolized but unbound.

The binding process starts with the burning of the white candle. A white candle clears the area of negative energy and harbors pure intention. As the candle begins to burn, organize the shards of mirror into a small circle, edges touching. You may want to form this circle in a centralized altar space in your consecrated area in order to return and offer onto it later. Once you have chosen a location and assembled your reflecting circle return to the white candle.

At the white candle, take into hand the silver chain, slowly drag each link through the flame of the candle, purifying the linking system. After the

silver has been fired, lay it on top of your reflecting circle; each shard should be connected with chain.

Pick the white candle up in your least dominant hand, and drip wax onto each place where the chain touches a separate aspect or shard of your circle.

After that your circle is bound and your aspects are linked, you may take some moments to reflect on the ritual before closing it, noticing what areas you struggled with, where you thrived, and where you felt the magickal energies of personal growth.

The jar of water is the closing scene to this consecration. I would normally, based on how I am feeling after the blessing, water the grounds surrounding my area or wash myself in the water.

Following this is an invocation of the triple goddess. The seven pointed star with the marking in the middle should be drawn onto an item of choice or carved into the ground before you. I choose to burn or smoke lavender and sage during this invocation. I hope this serves you as well as it has me. w

RFD 152 Winter 2012 43

Bird Clan KullCalls Nahema

by Glitter

A Tin A Tithe Atone Through Glass of Rind and Rascaling means Throw the mirror 4 Her Hearts of Desires Plumes she Plucks Pine His box of Cedars Olhm Twelve in our us Shadows glow Tic Tac Tic Talk Releasing our kisses whispers Olhm olm olhm olm olhm olm olm olm olhm A tinder Box From his chest Gentle, Trime ADD True Inside her owl’s eyes olhm We are I ones we are I ones we are I ones Three Trusting eternal drums beat from a temple in the memory of time the surrendering sisters of eternal silver scisors Keen keen keen keen keen keen keen keen keen

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A father’s faux feather’s a fox Pick a box Pick your box Pack 4 times for 3 Hold a mirror to trace 6 lines Seven Sacred Salves Blue Glass jar on a shelf Irons cast in Altyme Silver eagles sheen to carry the BA in the Moss, Hollow ADD Dairy 4 Pride Proofs from 3 truths This is our hall of mirrors Secret Sacred Temple Bird Clans bend Holds space in many spirits Anu, Ra, ta, toa Anu, Ra, ta, toa Anu, Ra, Ta, Toa Pour the water from the vessel Hash T marks for sacred sound Sew, Sow, Song Sew, Sow, Song Sew, Sow, Song Hogg’s Breath airs Three lunar Crowns are married Blood Bond Bleed Blood Bond Blood Bond Blood Blood Black Raven Knows who holds the souls Grandma crow speaks a sacred truth KA KA KA KA KA KA KA KA KA

Cue to Squared Spider’s strings tied, pulled ADD Woven In a basket on its corners Lathe layers with hands For the waters Aeternal mothers twist box cube twist box cube twist box cube As above this is below From within as Inn hours have been sigil segal knot sigil segal knot sigil segal knot kue ka ba kue ka ba kue ka ba 4 directions from her corners Center is Drawn within Circle Box Tri Circle Box Tri Circle Box Tri She molded the shapes to BE So mote the Birds so mote the bees so mote the flowers so mote the trees Bless the Beasts Bless the Beasts Bless the Beasts

Hello my name is Glitter and since before Kindergarden I have used magic.

With respect and gratitude to the unseen for letting me see what others either cannot or choose not to. Gender is just glamour to me and genitals spare pieces and parts which only matter when procreating. Trans knot for lack of destination but because I’ve been there and will probably again. Change and evolution are my most sacred magics. I have a 5 spirit min. in this vessel.

RFD 152 Winter 2012 45

Bodies Without Boundaries

by Kegan Monster

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he roughly hewn branches that make up the and positions hir bits for Twill to take into his mouth. ladder are encouragingly solid as I count the Humming with pleasure, Twill wiggles involuntarily 28th rung. Only moonlight guides my hands as I as his busy mouth inspires Haiku to gasp. push open the hatch of the tree house floor. The I slide my cock into Twill. He inhales sharply, ladder shifts slightly with the weight of Haiku as then relaxes into my movements. I am lost in the ze commences climbing. Twill calls up nervously, silky, wet textures of his tight asshole. I slide in and his fear of heights evident, “Will it hold all of our out, slowly feeling his body open up, feeling his weight?” need draw me deeper. I grab his hips and start to I chuckle reassuringly, “She’ll hold.” fuck him properly, finding a rhythm that balances It is remarkably bright this high up, level with the ease with effort as I stoke his fire. Enthusiastic, Twill canopy. I brush aside stray leaves and twigs and roll presses into me with each stroke. I hold back until out the sleeping mats. Haiku and Twill situate them- he whimpers with yearning, then I thrust into him selves neatly on the platform; we eye each other hard and fast. The sound of our colliding flesh beats eagerly. The spicy scent of lusty anticipation mixes sharp and solid. A deep groan builds in his throat, with the sharp odor of recently a slow crescendo that releases his adorned latex. pelvis. I feel him open like a chasm I reach out and stroke the stubthat I fall into, cock first.

As our sexual ble on Haiku’s jawline, my thumb We move together as I thrust catching in hir lips. The sudden purposefully. Each motion travels energies build, moist heat brings me to attention as through Twill into Haiku, who acts I lose track ze pulls me deeper into hir mouth. as an auditory amplifier. Ze moans of where my Hir eyes dance with a deviousness and shouts. Ze swears and pleads. body ends and as ze sucks my flesh. Twill deftly “More, huh, ohhhh. please..... takes hold of the opportunities Fuck Yeah. mmmmmmmm. fuck the others’ before him, each hand occupied yeah.” Hir legs are outstretched bodies begin. with our conveniently exposed bits. and so taught that they vibrate like Haiku moans, sending ripples of a plucked banjo string. Hir heels pleasure vibrating up my thumb. I thump out a spontaneous rhythm. gently remove my member and grasp the back of hir As our sexual energies build, I lose track of where neck. my body ends and the others’ bodies begin. Haiku I pull Haiku into a deep kiss, enjoying the roughorgasms first, cum exploding out of hir body as Ze ness of hir skin and tasting the salt of hir sweat. We pulls out of Twill’s mouth. Grinning hir thanks, ze kiss with urgency as Twill works us over with his wastes no time and reaches around to stroke Twills nimble fingers. I feel my junk, hard and wet. I delight sex, sliding two fingers inside of him to press his in the coolness of his skin on my hot flesh. The pleasure spot. Twill’s eyes go wide. He cries out smoothness of lubricated latex. The friction of his fin- as a rogue hand finds his nipple. I feel his muscles gers moving across my sensitive bits. Pleasure ignites tighten around my cock and deliver the decisive my root chakra. I grow with each stroke, until my thrusts, relishing in the strength of his ass and gripcock throbs. Our bodies hum with common arousal. ping his hard, sweat slicked muscles.

Fire dances in our eyes. I pause Twill’s hand and Twill shudders and cums with a grunt. My root invite him to bend over. He nods, grinning and looks chakra erupts as I release into my orgasm. I see the to Haiku to articulate a repositioning. Twill kneels energy expand beyond me and wash over me, leavand arches his back. I caress his asshole, swirling my ing a pleasant, echoing pulse in my junk. gloved finger on the sweet pink flesh. Stroking the We collapse into a puddle of bodies, relaxing rim and feeling the muscles respond to my touch, into the sway of the tree canopy. The night is alive drawing me in. I press the tip of my cock to his with noises as we drift to sleep. I smile, glad to have asshole teasingly, as Haiku neatly lays in front of Twill contributed to the woodland chorus. w 46 RFD 152 Winter 2012

Sean Minteh’s S&M Seitan A PtM (Plant To Meat) Kitchen Tranzformation Spell

by Sean Minteh I first learned how to make seitan during a period of my life when I was dropping out of college, being introduced to radical politics, navigating homelessness, and dating a wizard-bearded electrogrind musician who was also an inspiringly talented vegetarian chef. I didn’t try to make it again on my own until I moved to Short Mountain Sanctuary, equipped with my copy of the Veganomicon and the full abundance of the world’s best kitchen. I have since enjoyed sharing my knowledge in workshops to produce seitan for gathering meals at SMS and Faerie Camp Destiny. And now, I invite you all to experiment with seitan for yourselves if you haven’t already.

FYI: making seitan with a group of people can get really hot, especially if you’re into punching and slapping and pounding and sweating and grunting.

I’m writing this recipe to produce about two pounds of seitan, but if you live with a bunch of hungry faggots & witches like I do, you might wanna scale it up and make a bunch at once. Two pounds of seitan provide twenty servings (as a side).

Ingredients for 2 pounds of seitan:

1 cup of cold vegetable broth

8 cloves of garlic

4 tablespoons of olive oil

2 cups of vital wheat gluten

3/4 cup of nutritional yeast

3 tablespoons of thyme

1/2 cup of tamari or soy sauce

broth for simmering:

8 cups water

8 cups vegetable broth

1/2 cup soy sauce or tamari Make 1 cup of vegetable broth ahead of time and put it in the fridge or on a cool windowsill to get cold. (It is actually really critical that your broth be cold or room temperature, but not warm or hot.)

Whir 8 peeled cloves of garlic in a blender with 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Set aside for at least 15 minutes to let the garlic infuse with the olive oil. (You can achieve a similar effect by pressing or

microplane-grating garlic and letting it sit in olive oil to infuse. If your garlic is chunkier, lots of the pieces will pop out of the seitan while you’re beating it later.)

In a large bowl, mix 2 cups of vital wheat gluten with 3/4 cup of nutritional yeast and 3 tablespoons of thyme.

In a smaller bowl or large measuring cup, mix your 1 cup of cold vegetable broth with a 1/2 cup of tamari or soy sauce and your garlic-olive oil blend.

Clean your counter surface thoroughly to prepare it for the seitan’s beating.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in your wet ingredients, while stirring if possible. (I like to use a big wooden spoon for this.

Stir until it’s clumpy but the moisture is distributed.

Then use your hands to knead and blend it further, until it all clumps into a big cohesive fleshy blob.)

Dump the seitan blob onto your counter. If you’re working with others, divide it into as many pieces as you have participants. (To divide the seitan, I typically use either my fingers or a chef knife.

I try to get all the pieces to be approximately the same mass.)

Beat the seitan. My goals for seitan-beating are to eliminate air bubbles (which cause a spongy texture that I don’t like), elongate gluten fibers (which give seitan its dense, toothsome, flesh-like texture), and maintain as cohesive a blob as possible (which allows for minimally-invasive cooking and makes the final product easier to store and use).

Alternate between folding the seitan blob into itself repeatedly (which will elongate the gluten fibers) and punching, slapping, spanking, and/ or slamming the seitan against the counter (which will eliminate air bubbles and seal inner folds). Tuck “loose ends” in on the edges of folds, particularly toward the end of the beating process.

At first, punching and folding will be a relatively easy endeavor. As the texture of the seitan changes and develops, it will get tougher and tougher to work with. You may notice the consistency becoming more and more flesh-like as you progress and the developing of a shiny outer ‘skin’. The seitan will adhere more strongly to itself in its current shape and will become more resistant to being folded, and also more dense RFD 152 Winter 2012 47

and thus harder to punch and slam around.

This can be a physically and spiritually intense process. I often find myself sweating and breathing harder, maybe channeling some feeling or passion into the work of my hands. The nature of the work (getting harder and harder) makes beating seitan an act of perseverance. I keep a glass of water nearby and take a ten minute break partway through the beating process so that I am not too exhausted near the end as I am trying to decide when the seitan is finished. Beating seitan can also be sexy, lighthearted, fun, and full of laughter. In a community kitchen, the loud slamming, heavy breathing, and low grunting often draws an audience.

I stop beating the seitan when the texture is dense and flesh-like (what does it feel like when you slap it?), the blob is as cohesive as I can make it, and it’s so annoying to try to fold it in on itself that the effort doesn’t seem worth it anymore. (Obviously this is all very subjective, but so is the ideal seitan texture!)

Divide the seitan into roughly 1 pound portions with a knife. (2 pounds = 2 pieces) Prioritize making clean, even cuts in ways that leave cohesive blobs with smooth edges.

Simmer the seitan in a flavorful broth mixture for one hour. For this recipe, I suggest 8 cups wa-

ter, 8 cups broth, and 1/2 cup soy sauce or tamari.

(Simmer, don’t boil! Boiling seitan will force air bubbles back into the edges of all the blobs where they touch the boiling water, making the edges of your seitan spongy.)

The seitan is done when there is a clear change in consistency and the doughy or ‘gummy’ nature of the seitan is gone. The seitan pieces will have almost doubled in size in the broth and will feel firmer and have a set shape. After turning your pot off, let the seitan sit in the broth for 15 minutes to rest. Then, using tongs, pull the seitan chunks out of the broth and let them sit in a colander or on a tray to drain and cool for ten minutes.

When the pieces are cool enough to handle, they are ready to be cut up and used in a recipe or wrapped in plastic wrap (airtight against the skin) and stored in the fridge or freezer until they’re needed. They are fully cooked at this point and can be sliced like lunch meat and eaten cold if desired.

I highly recommend cutting the seitan into small cubes or strips and frying them in lots of hot oil so that the outsides get crispy and the insides stay juicy. I particularly love to smother fried seitan in homemade BBQ sauce or pancake-batter strips for deep frying and dipping in maple syrup. Yum! Happy pounding! w

From Syzygy, Beauty

by T Clutch Fleischmann, published by Sarabande Books, 2012

B

y describing something we place it at a distance.

My body is a fleshy thing, my body is tall and filled with citrus. I want everyone I have touched to send me a postcard on which they describe their fingers, but mostly I want them to do this before I have the chance to ask. At night, my eyes are unable to understand depth. When I was young I climbed a tree playing flashlight tag. I sat in it so long I forgot how high I was and leapt to get down, the earth like a flat punch as I tumbled to my ribs. I write down 102 words that say what I see when I see you, how it is a flat punch to look at you. How does it feel to know you are something I look at? In the morning, dress yourself in the clothes I removed last night.

Dim snow. Light tower. Peninsula. Skyscapes before skyscapes. You say a ghost is an impression, like wet paper in our hands. The white and blue of

48 RFD 152 Winter 2012

winter. The white and blue of windows. An arm’s distance as far as I can see.

I am having trouble living somewhere, or anywhere. After only a month has passed, I find myself on the side of the road again, walking to the trains.

I have been so many places I must be sunlight. I have been diffused by clouds. To hike to the top of the mountain, I must spend the afternoon facing the steep slant of earth, my hands in brambles.

Only once I am high enough can I turn and see the tin roofs and straight beds of flowers, dropped to a Euclidian flatness. Where have I been? Listen, I have been diffused by clouds, by everyone who has touched me, and just like you I am a radiation destined for the earth.

When I am not in the country I am in the city, so why not your city, after all? A girl I sometimes

date lives here, three friends from college. Everyone is speeding beneath the pavement, a rumble in tunnels we trust not to cave in. I walk around with a basket of apples, unaware that apples are out of season. I am suggesting that you bite the loaded image, am calling myself a witch, a snake-devil.

It’s not tart because of poison, it’s just a tart apple.

“You don’t have to trick me into hanging out with you,” my friend claims. “Just let me know what time.” They say you have to live here for ten years before you live here, so really this isn’t any more your home than it is mine.

Above us, arboreal life. Imagine everything you have done and you never bothered to touch the earth. A mobile draws attention to floating movement, seeking an equilibrium upset by the constant shifts of the world. A lesson for children, laying them in their cribs to watch how restlessly everything turns above. When we return to the hollow, we will watch the sharp rise of trees on either side, the fireflies so numerous and high they seemed to be a continuation of the stars. I’m afraid that if you and I stop and are still you will notice me, so I put my body on top of yours and breathe. My rhythm on your rhythm, steadying into each other, no tent around us. When I first left the city, I couldn’t stop commenting on how bright it was, as though the moon and stars were more startling than streetlights.

I have decided to build a house here, near the houses where my friends live and across the creek from where my friends camp. It does not mean that I am staying, just that I want two small rooms, sometimes. A porch wrapped in screen. A friend of mine tells me she has a glass curse, that it came after she lit religious candles she knew nothing about. The glass that held the wax cracked, and then all her glass kept breaking, falling or being taken, suddenly, by a thin and crooked line. As far as I remember, I have been waiting for my life to come together, those pieces to settle until I am there.

So many moons off which you can reflect to me. “I didn’t,” my friend says, “expect the curse to follow me

out of Brooklyn.”

My hands weren’t cold at all, but neither were your pockets warm. The wood stove puffing up the sky and the clouds gracefully coming at night to hold the sun’s heat a moment longer. One way to knowledge is somatics, what the body tells us.

Like I know you, like we’re familiar. You lie curled into yourself, protecting your heart and your head from the rest of the world. I can stand behind you when you point straight ahead and still reach my fingertips to yours. The oldest mountains in the world, they say, if you don’t count fields and oceans. To pause implies that it all has a reason.

To expect warmth.

Call me the bowerbird, I’ll make sure all the beetles are near-colors and demonstrate discretion when picking up stones. Which mate will show up? I’ll dance and see.

I’m working these pants today, working my hair, that long strand in the front that can go to either side. So many hours carrying lumber and oh my, look at these arms. My craft project is the one falling from the ceiling of third grade, strips of glitter on the cute boy’s desk. I have nothing to wear to a wedding so good thing I don’t believe in weddings. If it’s about charming then it’s about being earnest, not waking at dawn to find white feathers but pumping my wings so hard when I see you.

I’ll admit that I like to say “and his boyfriend” right after I say “my boyfriend.” And then sometimes I say “his ex-girlfriend,” too. What it implies about me. How modern we are here with outfits like strings of light and no future. You’re busy rubbing your temple and I’m resting my cheek in my palm, like oh my, how could this have happened. At the karaoke bar later tonight you are going to point at me every time the chorus comes back. I’ll laugh at this and I’ll have your shirt on because the temperature dipped. Right now we’re eating lunch and when asked later how we spent our day there won’t be much of a story. The ginger sizzling in the pan. I don’t know the song you’re humming. Here, taste this. w RFD 152 Winter 2012 49

trans. genderqueer. freak.

by Wolfang

trans. genderqueer. freak. what are you? i hear it at least once a day, and i live in berkeley, california. i can only imagine what its like elsewhere. well, that’s not true, i have friends, i watch the news. i track the violence, the indifference, and the adulation. i remember all the different early conversations online about pronouns. zie, zhie, s/he, hir, zher, sir, free, fir, frim, x, xe, xie, s/him, they, the list keeps growing. i keep tabs on the academentia studies, the social movements, and burgeoning community and communities that build, grow, integrate, isolate, implode, expand, and all the things that new communities do. there are stories of us, us as faeries, us as trannies (and i choose that word for myself, not every trans person likes it) us as the ones on the edge and at the center. these stories are as old as time, and documented back to the beginning of history. in ‘lady of largest heart’ by Betty de Shong-Meador, there is a passage of translated poetry written by a priestess over five thousand years ago. in it, she describes the ceremony and initiation of the strong women who come to the altar to lay down the brooch and take up the sword, and the pretty men who come to lay down the sword and take up the brooch. this priestess, en-heduanna, describes us, _us_ as the “reed-marsh people,” those who live between the land and the water. there is a word for us in english. its an old word, with a long and fascinating history. that word is epicene. it means that which exhibits the characteristics of both genders, yet is neither. look it up in the oxford english dictionary. read the history. i’ll wait….. we have always existed. in almost every culture on the planet, we have had a place. more often than not, we have been the caregivers. the teachers. the artists. the tenders to the dying. the explorers. the shamans, the medicine people, the magic workers. the historians, the archivists. the whores. the ones 50 RFD 152 Winter 2012

who simultaneously live on the far edge and at the very center. we are the in-between, the liminal and, far too often, the ephemeral. i have studied, i have read, i have researched, i have walked in this world as my deviant self for over two decades. always seeking, finding glimmers and hidden pieces of our history in unlikely places. if you see me at a gathering, feel free to ask me, i’ll go on about our history for hours if you let me. in this, in this be-ing, i find myself with so many questions. in all the books i’ve read, in all the posts, and ‘zines, and rambling conversations over smoke and coffee, i come back to my lifelong search. how do we connect to <insert-deity-of-choice-here>? i think we hold a special place in the heart of whatever anyone chooses to call spirit, be that hairy thunderer, cosmic muffin, or flying spaghetti monster. part of that place is through the journey we go through to find that connection, that heart. that space in the multiverse where we can breathe, where we feel that depth, that comfort, that grace. where we don’t have to watch our backs, or our sides/fronts/inverse angles, where its safe from the demands to justify our existence. also, there is the journey of finding ourselves, creating our selves out of whole cloth, with few to no models to base our self-creation on. part of my research over the years has been finding the trans deity figures in world mythology, finding the myths and stories that describe those images that we may make ourselves in. i think we have a very different approach to <g-dz> than most people. beyond identity politics and the endless masturbatory debates about is-ness and construction, and the ghawdz know i love masturbation, still, there is more. more to be articulated, more to be unveiled, more to be communicated. i am trans. i am a being that goes beyond, that crosses over, that moves across. i transgress. i transcend. i transfigure. hell, on occasion i even transmogrify. w

Skinnyfat–A Comedy of Grand Proportions A review by leopard

“I feel like a twink has-been” says Davy (Evan Johnson) one of two cute, skinny and not-thesmartest San Francisco twenty-something hipster gay boys lamenting the loss of their “natural six packs” at the beginning of this fun yet sharp Faerieproduced comedy-short which explores the very real issues of body image, self worth and the fear of not being datable.

“You have skinnyfat” explains Grace Landers (played by the very compelling Delia Wolfe) a dietologist at “Body Shapers” out to sell our gullible heros anything in their desperate search for approval. “A notoriously difficult condition to treat,” she goes on all charm, understanding and thinly veiled judgement, “a mostly First World phenomenon born of social privilege and laziness.”

Everything about the movie is delightfully overstated. Chas (Jason Jaynes) wants to lose ten pounds in a week to get the “perfect, normal, hot” guy at the party and ropes in Davy on a journey through every possible way of loosing their imaginary “muffin tops”. From hula hooping in the park (complete with a kiddies birthday party in the background), through mail-order paint on abs, to ice cube and lettuce smoothies—and a great moment of positive affirmations unfolding into a battle of wills with an apple!

Stills from Skinnyfat courtesy of the production

Like any good comedy it doesn’t old back and there are moments when the unrelenting satire made me feel more than just a little uncomfortable. But we are meant to squirm. “Every one has body issues” says writer-drector Andy Bydalek, and there are probably few of us who haven’t looked in a mirror and felt less-than because of some perceived slight of body. However, this thick and fast comedy is good medicine. A reminder of the commonality of the experience and that being real and true to ourselves is far more important, more loving and, well, so much easier! Thank goodness for the Bears!

The movie has a great soundtrack, is carefully photographed and edited and the characters are irresistible. Skinnyfat is available on DVD, with a short and a longer version and some great extras including great product placement ads for a “Skinz” (Dye your skin—not just your hair!) and “ManMilk”, which features the wonderful talents of SF fae supastar, Artist.

The movie is a now also available for online viewing on the movie website www.skinnyfat.com. Once there take the chance to read some of Grace Landers’s advice column which seems to be taking on a life of its own. A great chance to enjoy some fun and thoughtful faerie talent.

RFD 152 Winter 2012 51

What Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Like Now after Nomenus Great Circle, March 2012 When we were planted, green wands patted into earth, this wall was already here, built by refugees making a new place safe by dividing chaos from home.

Soon apples overhung it, deer nibbled and dropped seeds.

The orchard outgrew its embrace.

Saplings outside the gate tangled root and branch with relatives inside.

The line of the wall grew wooly with lichen, heaved and broke with ice.

Now it is coming down.

Still twisted around its absence, we stand in new relation, slowly feeling the space between and all around us where yesterday was stone.

52 RFD 152 Winter 2012

Stella Maris standing.wave@gmail.com October 2012

Poems

by Day Mattar

Happily

Absolute

The earth sits still and observes us.

Stars regard me

Colour unfolds, takes its place about your room, as morning light blushes through the window.

Sleep has avoided me again.

with smiles, their light soft as old friends.

Silence bobs sleepily and folds in cool waves.

The flowers undress themselves of colour, and nod with the bowing trees, Your body rolls into the curves of mine Calm and large as blindness or death, I am aware of the great atlas of you.

I plead quietly with discomfort, try not to wake you.

Attempt to reason with it, lure it down, contain it, as though it were a small and excitable bird. Slouch into the other room, my head dense and heavy as deep water. A cigarette droops from my mouth, like a wet flower, while I struggle to light a match. A flame strikes, burning the top of my index finger. I suck the tip, suddenly aware suddenly awake. My body tense as a fist. The pain demands my absolute attention.

Could I experience all of lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sensations as entirely as this?

In the bedroom, you breathe slowly, regularly. I return to bed, place my head on your chest and drift along the rolling waves of your sigh.

RFD 152 Winter 2012 53

Marvin R. Hiemstra Interview by Franklin Abbott

P

oet Marvin R. Hiemstra is well loved in the poetry circles of the San Francisco Bay Area. His poems and his presence inspire mirth, something we all need more of. His new book of “droll” poems, Poet Wrangler, takes his readers from his roots in rural Iowa to his beloved San Francisco where he lives with his longtime partner, Lloyd Neilsen, on a hill overlooking the city.

Marvin and Lloyd ran Juniper Von Phitzer Press for many years publishing dozens of exquisite miniature books. Readers will note Marvin’s keen sense of detail as well as his spaciousness that may summon the empty spaces in classical Chinese painting. For more visit his website: www.drollmarv.com.

1. You came from a tiny town in Iowa. When you were growing up how did you perceive queerness?

Because the town was only four thousand and everyone knew everyone, diversity was accepted and often observed with amusement. Praise Coincidence I appeared in the High School class with perhaps the only two other obvious, and pushy, gay people in the town’s history so we three and a handful of camp followers put on much loved musical and theatrical events in and outside school. We thought queer dating was something you did when you grew up and moved to New York City which in fact is what happened to me.

2. You live inside a jewel box perched on a hillside overlooking San Francisco. From your present vantage point how do you perceive queerness?

Because my birth family was so conflicted, at about age nine I decided that queerness would be my norm: that is I would be my own person. I never accepted the “nobody is important except your birth family” myth—we nurture and collect our true family as we go through life.

My mate of 46 happy years, Lloyd Neilson, also was born into a conflicted family so we both wanted more than anything a real home and that is what we created 54 RFD 152 Winter 2012

and share. I’ve always found the world to be predictably weird and myself to be not queer at all.

3. Your new book, Poet Wrangler, is subtitled droll poems. How are the poems droll and how are they different from poems that are not?

All my poems have an amusing surface, something that people can relate to, and a firm subtext of understanding. As Kate McDonald says in response to my work, “It’s the laughing and thinking at the same time that I love.” Many poems out there are bland on the surface and with little or no subtext.

4. You often perform your poems to much applause.

Can you talk about the process of preparing to read poetry in public? Any advice to poets about performing their poems?

I hated performance until I won a competition and had to perform to receive the prize: I rehearsed every day for a month and, surprise, I received a standing ovation. Why should you rehearse your selection of poems every day for a week or more? You will be able to look at and enjoy the audience while you perform and vice versa!

Most important, repetition is the best editing process: after a few days of reading the poems OUT LOUD you’ll know what should be removed or changed. All writers have good ideas: it’s the final product which may or may not be the most dynamic presentation of those ideas. I’ve taught performance for twenty five years: it’s a lifelong process and skill to be developed and relished.

5. You meditate. Do poems arise from your meditations. Where do poems come from and where do they return?

I meditate whenever I can. Poems often arise from clear thoughts that appear during meditation. “Leaves are forming everywhere, even while we talk.” When I write that down, often the pattern for a poem appears and I write that idea down…and develop the poem from there.

Poems come from special moments when the mind puts things together. You must write those ideas down as soon as possible (even if it’s in the middle of a blissful summer night or if you’re tooling down the Interstate, flashing your tongue at that guy in the new pickup) or the poems will return to nowhere! w Franklin Abbott is chairperson of the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival. For more on his poetry visit www. pinkzinnia.wordpress.com.

Photo courtesy of Marvin Hiemstra

Poems by Marvin Heimstra from his collection, Poet Wrangler.

Push It All the Way: Mountain Top or Nothing Would you think of stopping halfway during the huff and puff process of afternoon or anytime delight?

No! So why would you, poet burning brighter than the Sun waking up with a hard-on,

The Poet’s First Duty Don’t listen to what they say!

Lovemaking on this side of the Continental Divide is somewhat uninspired.

I grew up on the other side.

Don’t forget to blow tenderly in the ear of the Universe as often as you can.

The Universe gets so lonely.

stop halfway on a poem?

Are you the one who just excused yourself with a limp villanelle?

Have you ever been guilty of sprung rhythm interruptus?

Are you still wasting all your good energy on one night epics?

Take your poem and walk barefoot, a Sun Circle on each soul print, to the top of the nearest cooperating mountain on a radiant day.

Shout your poem out! Listen to the echo.

If you use the right voice tone, you won’t scare the pikas.

Shout it out! Edit the echo tenderly until your poem is ripe and eager for the Sun’s warm embrace.

RFD 152 Winter 2012 55

Easton Mountain

by Nomi

G

ive me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed. ~Walt Whitman As the days begin to grow shorter and cold winter winds blow the last autumn leaves from the trees, I settle into my new home here at Easton Mountain, a Gay Spiritual Retreat just north of Albany, NY. Easton Mountain rests on 170 beautifully forested acres in Washington County NY, with hiking trails, beaver ponds, a meditation temple, 200 year old oak trees, and, wait, what is that? A hot tub?!

My name is Nomi, and I am excited to be the new gardener here at Easton. After living in NYC for 8 years and graduating from Hunter College with a degree in Environmental Science and Permaculture, I spent a year living in a van and traveling the country, visiting faerie spaces, national parks, festivals, and communing with nature and the divine. I have been an active part of the 56 RFD 152 Winter 2012

Destiny community in Vermont and have lived on that land for the last two summers, and deeply love my faemily. I am happy to now call near-by Easton my home and am working on different gardening and Permaculture projects around the land. Some projects are well underway and we already have eight beautiful chickens on the land, debugging the garden and providing us with wonderful fresh eggs.

As we move forward, we will be expanding the current garden and planting smaller herb and veggie patches near the lodge. Over the coming years we will be growing our Permaculture even further to include water catchment systems and mushroom fields, and our new compost regime is well underway. The winter, however, leaves little work for the weary gardener but luckily for me there is much still to be done. There is an apple orchard on the land that hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been used in over 30 years and is badly over grown. I will be using the winter months to Photographs by Sylvia London and Dave Dietz

clear out this area and prune the trees to hopefully bring forth fruit. We will be hosting work weekends in the winter and coming up in the spring. I really look forward to having people come and help in the garden and orchard, and after a long day we’ll give you a hearty meal and you can soak your tired bones in the hot tub.

Come spring I will need even more people to come and help with the maintenance and upkeep of the garden and orchard. I would love it if I could see some volunteers come for a couple weeks at a time, camp out on the land, and work and meditate in these fields of soil and earth.

The garden will be a great place to meditate, as will the orchard. Take a stroll with an old friend, or meet a new one. We will be developing workshops in gardening, Permaculture, and their relationship with spirituality, meditation and community.

So come and join us at Easton. Come this winter if you can or wait till the spring. Grab a shovel, a rake, or some pruning shears, and lend a hand. Be prepared to get your knees dirty and get your hands into the earth. Commune with nature, your fellow fae, and the community of men whto call this land home.

Feel free to contact me directly or through the Easton mountain website for more information.

Come and help out on an upcoming work weekend, or come whenever you can, I am always here.

And feel free to stop by the land and check us out for our Holiday Social, December 16th, 4-9pm.

Blessed be. w

When I go into the garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

In gardens, beauty is a byproduct. The main business is sex and death.

—Sam Llewelyn

Nomi Saxton Easton Mountain 391 Herrington Hill Road Greenwich, NY 12834 518-692-8023 or 800-553-8235 www.eastonmountiain.org

RFD 152 Winter 2012 57

Fabulous Faerie Film Festival

by Sweet Chi and Sister Bhakti Shakti

F

lickering images of pure light. Cavorting figures telling stories of triumph, redemption, and mayhem. Rapt participants entranced in a collective dreaming. A seminal festival featuring ten films embodying the radical queer sensibilities inherent in the lives and experience of an ethereal, chimerical community who call themselves “Radical Faeries.”

When we first dreamed up the idea last autumn while attending the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, we had no idea what kind of films we might find. In spite of the substantial history of the Radical Faerie movement, we are under-represented in the medium of film, although there is significant representation in the literary and visual arts, especially photography. We chose films that directly expressed an aspect of the Radical Faerie experience, and which demonstrated proficiency at filmmaking. In creating this festival we hoped to share some small essence of the Radical Faerie experience with filmgoing audiences, and also inspire those who identify as Radical Faeries to use film as medium to explore and document what we’re about. We hope it will be a vessel for building community, by giving attendees a new lens to view, contemplate, and explore what it

58 RFD 152 Winter 2012

means to be a Radical Faerie; and in the larger communities it provides a forum for people who may not have encountered Radical Faeries to have a taste of the experience - at least for 80 minutes.

Ultimately, we were thrilled with what we found!

The films we selected are all strong entries covering a wide range of the Radical Faerie experiences: documentaries, short films, longer films, comedies, and what may be the first ever Radical Faerie narrative film (a drama). Some had been made 20 years ago; some had been completed just last year.

It took forever to secure a venue. We scouted out literally every possible theater and eventspace on Capitol Hill (Seattle’s gayborhood), but for one reason or another none of them were available on the date we had chosen. Seemingly at the last minute, the Goddess provided a perfect venue: the Fred Wildlife Refuge, an old photography studio built in the 60’s, repurposed as an intimate and trendy gathering spot. Through further blessings, we were awarded a City of Seattle arts grant, and Refuge gave us a price we could afford!

On the most radiant full moon of the year, the Radical Faerie Film Festival screened to a sold out house on May 5, 2012, in Seattle. Faeries and their friends attended from all over the West Coast, as this was the weekend of Seattle’s Ravenna Ravine Beltane ceremony. With the addition of the film festival on the evening before, the weekend came to feel more like an urban gatherette, contributing to the revitalization of the Faerie community in Seattle.

Photo: (left to right) Dont’ch Love It and Jadeheart volunteer to help organizers Sister and Sweet Chi at the box office

One of the many beautiful moments was screening the documentary about Faygele Ben Miriam, a beloved member of the Seattle Faerie and broader Gay communities who had passed away in 2000 from lung cancer. Pendra Wilson, creator of “Pinko Fag Jew,” lives in Vancouver BC, and was able to attend the festival. Another joy was the submission of an early work by David Weissman, who has received wide acclaim for his recent documentaries, “The Cockettes” (2002) and “We Were Here” (2011).

The screening went well and the audience was enthusiastic, clapping after each and every film.

We were thrilled! It was a success! At the conclusion of the documentary on legendary Seattleite Faygele Ben Miriam, some audience members were standing and applauding the filmmaker, Pendra, and more than a few had tears in their eyes for they had known him personally.

The festival was truly magical, and we saw new dimensions in films during the screening, even though the two of us had seen the same films several times during the selection process – which just confirms that the experience of a group in a shared experience can open inner worlds that may not be readily accessible to us as individuals. This is a foundational premise of group ritual after all.

In looking ahead to 2013, we are interested in touring the festival to other cities: Portland, Vancouver BC, and San Francisco, and also beyond the Northwest and West Coast. We would love to collaborate with the local faerie communities to make this happen! If you might be interested in bringing the festival to your town, please contact us. The key support needed is arranging financing, finding a venue, and getting the word out!

We are also interested in finding new Radical Faerie films for a possible second festival program!

If you have any information on possible films, want make a film, or want the FFFF to come to your city, please contact us! Email: faeriefilmfest@hotmail. com or call: 206-200-3020.

Sweet Chi was a film student and a programmer at the “Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital,” and now lives in Portland. Sister Bhakti Shakti (no relation to the fabulous Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence) is a community organizer in Seattle with extensive experience in project management, event planning, fundraising, and cocktails. w

About 80 folks attended a sold out house at the Radical Faerie Film Festival in Seattle WA on May 5, 2012.

Faygele Ben Miriam Faygele Ben Miriam was a legendary Faerie and Human Rights activist. It seems such a magical coincidence that we were able to show the documentary about him this year of all years, since Washington is one of the four states voting on Marriage Equality this year. You see, Faygele – who’s birth name was John Singer – was an early crusader for Gay Marriage: in 1972 John and his partner Paul Barwick went to the local King County auditor’s office to request a marriage license … and were denied. They were the first gay couple in Washington State and the second in the country to sue for the right to marry. Faygele also liked to wear dresses to work, and was fired for it, and sued and won a significant settlement, which he used to help finance many community institutions, such as Seattle’s Gay Community Social Services, which opened the Gay Community Center and produced the first gay country-music album ever, “Lavender Country.” The Seattle Counseling Service (a gay mental health center) continues to this day from his gifts. Among his many legacies is the work he did as part of the production team for RFD in the late 70’s, and for the Elwha land community in northwestern Washington.

He passed in July 2000 of lung cancer. Some articles about him are available in the local press online at www.seattletimes.com.

RFD 152 Winter 2012 59

Prison Pages Edited by Myrlin

T

ransgender Faeries, the cover article for this issue of the magazine is also an important part of the ongoing march of Brothers Behind Bars. When I first assumed editorship of the BBB list in December 2002, we had no ads that I know of from our Transgender/Transsexual Brothers Behind Bars.

Gradually the number has increased quarter by quarter. At this point in time we have quite a number sending in ads, poetry, writings and art work for inclusion in the list. Even in the short descriptions that many have sent in, I have become aware of some very unique and interesting individuals who, I can assure you, would be a blessing to know.

Christopher Catt (MI), Bradley Hixon(CA), John PerryRydz(WI), {Issue #152} and Michael Colon(FL), and Desi Wallace-Mitchell(NY) {Issue #151} and Antoinette Early (VA) {Issue #150}.

Brothers Behind Bars is a quarterly list produced in conjunction with RFD Magazine and is available on a sliding scale of $3.00 to $10.00 per issue and may be ordered by writing BBB, PO Box 68, Liberty, TN 37095. Money received is used to offset postage and printing costs. The editor position is an unpaid position. The list generally contains about 32 pages of ads, poems, stories and art. A further description of the program is available at www.RFDmag.org.

By now regular readers of this column know my thoughts regarding the “prison industrial complex” and the fact that shares of stock in corporations such as GEO and CACA are traded on the market. Now I find that one company (Wells Fargo) that I hold shares in invests heavily in prison related stocks. It is so easy to get wrapped up in this stuff. Ugh!!!!

Enough said!

During the past few weeks I have received a number of letters that bear inclusion in the Prison Pages Article for the broadest possible dissemination. They well illustrate some of the dilemmas faced by those incarcerated. I pray that you will read them with the compassion and understanding which they deserve.

September 24th, 2012 Dear Harry, Hello! I hope you are doing well. I am writing because I am in serious need of your help. Mail call has been very depressing for me and I am hoping you can assist me with making that change.

Since the last time I wrote to you, I have been through a lot and have been suffering from severe depression. I attempted to kill myself about 6 months ago and have lost over 100 pounds in about 8 months from not eating. I don’t have any real outside connections and I don’t get any mail. Prison life is very depressing and is a constant struggle to get through on a daily basis. I need a man in my life who will help me get out of this serious stage of depression and help brighten up my life. I’m hoping you will take my situation into consideration and help me.

Please understand I am indigent and don’t even have any money to buy deodorant or other things I need to survive on a daily basis. I had to sell my lunch tray just to write and send you this letter. If I had some money, I would have no problem sending you some for helping me…I can also sell my food to send you some stamps if you like. I just need your help.

—Joe Luzier Joe Luzier III – E 24178 Union Correctional Institution 7819 NW 228th Street Raiford, FL 32026 September 26, 2012 Dear Harry, I’m now in the process of writing the Dr. Phil Show in LA-CA and eventually I am going to find someone who’ll take on my entire situation and when they do, I’m sure without a shadow of a doubt, my personal pain, suffering, mental anguish and disfigurement will be compensated for!

I know I’m super excited to get released next January because I’ll be doing my 18 th flat year of incarceration and that’s way too long for me. The attempted murder that cost me half of my right ear and then 108 days later the Sexual Assault

Some of the men you will meet in BBB.

Henry Alaffa (TX) 60 RFD 152 Winter 2012

Freddie Foucha (LA)

Ray Fuller (KS)

Christopher Miller (KY)

(rape) by 2 different Gang members and the unit’s doctor failing to get DNA from myself or my attacker is in violation of the P.R.E.A. Policy and my giving the entire unit adequate warning of myself and Gang member – cell partners situation – and I’m definitely going to force them into a jury trial and make damn sure both of them attackers get charged with a felony in society and all officers sanctioned, the Dr.’s license taken and my pain, suffering and mental anguish fully compensated financially.

I’m going to chill out and hopefully once I’m out in Society again, find a Law Firm to take on my case and then just relax and stay legal and wait on my first day in court. Because I will look both attackers in their eyes when they get convicted and are given consecutive time!

I’m eventually going to find a soul mate, partner in life and best friend forever, and I will relocate to her/ his/their state if need be.

Stay well, enjoy your winter, and know you are in my thoughts daily.

Sincerely, Michael.

Michael Burkett #454882 E-105B 1600 South First Street Diboll, TX 57941-9699. After 1-13-13 Michael Burkett Jr. 11855 22nd Street Santa Fe, TX 77510 “MY REASON FOR SEARCHING” Being used and taken advantage of as a young child had made me push people away altogether. I never allowed myself to get close to anyone. I never allowed anyone to get close to me. The abuse that I once endured, had often led me to the point to where, as a young child, I realized that loving people, depending on people, needing people, was just too dangerous.

I believed that love was just a way to set you up for a bad fall.

Love was the rug that was pulled out from under you when you finally decided that everything was goanna’ be okay. But now that I’m older, I realize that we’re all so ephemeral, We’re all so fragile. And life is so unpredictable.

I continue to reach out to people as a friend because I am alone, I have no one! And being alone isn’t fun. No one wants to face the world alone and unloved. That, by itself, is why we ‘must’ find people to love. People to share our lives with…to open our hearts and minds to…people to depend on…cherish… people who’ll depend on us whenever they need to know they’re not alone—caring for your friends and family, knowing that they care for you—that’s what keeps our minds off of the void that awaits us all. By loving and letting ourselves be loved, I now realize that we give meaning and importance to our lives.

It’s what keeps us from being just another species of the animal kingdom, grubbing for survival. And at least for a short while, through love, we can finally forget about the darkness at the end of everything.

I don’t seek love in a romantic way, I only want the love of a Friend to another Friend. I once gave up on life because I believed that God hated me by punishing me for something that I didn’t do. I prayed and prayed, but still my prayers went

unanswered. I asked God, “why me?” But still I received no answer. And no matter how many nights I may cry myself to sleep, I still wake up to the same nightmare.

I now understand that once you’ve loved someone, the love will forever remain, even after that person is gone. Love is the only thing that endures. Mountains are torn down, built up, torn down again over millions and millions of years. Seas dry up. Deserts give way to new seas. Time crumbles every building man erects. Great ideas are proven wrong and collapse as surely as castles and temples—But love is a force…An energy…A power…And at the risk of sounding like a Hallmark Card, I really think love is like a ray of sunlight, traveling for all eternity through space, deeper and deeper into infinity, like that ray of light, it never ceases to exist.

Love endures, it is a binding force in the universe, like the energy within a molecule is a binding force, as surely as gravity is a binding force; without the cohesive energy in a molecule, without gravity, without love, we get chaos. We exist to love and be loved, because love seems to me to be the only thing that brings order and meaning, and to existence it must be true.

Because if it isn’t true, what purpose do we serve?

So, even in my position, where there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, I now believe that I’m capable of loving someone. I’m also now capable of being loved by someone. All I must do now is give people a chance.

—Jeremy Jeremy D. Craft 1626852 W.P. Clements 9601 Spur 591 Amarillo, TX 79107 Brothers Behind Bars Innocents Project, I’m a 25/W/Bi/M who is currently looking to prove my innocence and looking to get out soon! I cannot be placed on our site to solicit pen-pals but anyone you have review my case is free to write with advice! To see a list of my charges and my personal info, the DOC website is www.doc.mo.gov. My case is on case net.

I’d love to meet some mature adults, with good conversation and advice. I’ve been working on my case for a while now and some came easy and some through hardship, but all in all its coming together. Little by little my innocence comes nearer.

I use meditation to keep a healthy mind and stretching and working out relieves stress! Inner peace is a good feeling along with being healthy. Would love to hear from you, hit me up, I’ll hit you back! Help prove my innocence.

—Colby Colby Mosher #1131100 C.R.C.C. 1115 E. Pence Road Cameron, MO 64429 Please consider writing to obtain the Winter 2012 List and have a chance of meeting the many interesting people included therein. You may find the love of your life or simply a good friend who will value his relationship with you. To the left are some of the men you may meet. w RFD 152 Winter 2012 61

Natural Bed & Breakfast Retreat Tantric Erotic Massage Have fun in the Arizona Sun! Call Marc 1-888-295-8500 bleu55@gmail.com

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20% off for Five or More

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62 RFD 152 Winter 2012

What kind of socks does a gay poet wear?

Find out in POET WRANGLER. “Marvin R. Hiemstra is our 21st Century Whitman, blowing ‘tenderly in the ear of the Universe.’ ” —David Alpaugh

$15.95 www.TwoHarborsPress.com or www.drollmarv.com

Advertise in RFD It really helps keep this

magazine in production! We offer affordable rates and a growing subscriber base. If you have questions about advertising, please contact Bambi at submissions@rfdmag.org or visit our website at www.rfdmag.org/advertise.php.

RFD 152 Winter 2012 63

T H E

S O U N D

“The Hills are Alive, With the SOUND OF MUSIC”... “Edelweiss” … “Climb Every Mountain”…

Every faerie knows and loves these songs… but have you ever been on the mountains where the musical was filmed? Well, here’s your chance!

We are thrilled to announce Austria’s first international FAERIE GATHERING in the AUSTRIAN ALPS near Salzburg, August 17-27, 2013.

We welcome Faeries and friends of all genders from across Europe and around the whole world for 10 days of summer love, light and laughter on the beautiful Hochkönig mountain, 1,300 meters up in

64 RFD 152 Winter 2012

O F

FA E R I E S

Gathering in Austria, 17-27 August 2013

the heart of the Salzburg Alps.

Join us to create a safe space in a comfortable and private typical Alpine style hostel near a mountainside forest. There are rooms for four, six or eight, bathrooms with showers, a big kitchen, a dining hall / ballroom and small group rooms. If you want more privacy and like chilly nights, you can set up your own tent. You might also enjoy sleeping in one the cosy cottages nearby.

Check out our new website www.eurofaeries. eu/austria for the latest news about the first faerie gathering in Austria.

Issue 154 / Summer 2013

QUEER ART Submission Deadline: April 21, 2013 Web Upload: www.rfdmag.org/upload

As we enter the high season of Summer, with its PRIDE commemorations and gatherings galore, we in the RFD Collective want to celebrate the many FABULOUS artists in our community. So we are asking for you, dear artists & lovers of the Arts, to send in images that capture the nature of your work or of those whose work you love.

How has being Qweer influenced your work, and how has your werq led you in your own lifepath, through process as well as personal insight. We’d love to make this a SPLASHY pictorial replete with imagery as well as the words that convey your experience as an artist or as someone profoundly changed by something someone else has shown you in exposing their inner selves.

Who has influenced you? How has ART contributed to this community—especially in its rich ritual life? Where are we going & how is Art leading the way in ways often presaging the written word? How do visuals communicate with and without words?

Let’s celebrate Summer and our rich artistic heritage!

Photograph by artboydancing

RFD 152 Winter 2012 65

a reader created gay quarterly celebrating queer diversity

RFD Vol 39 No 2 #152 $9.95

66 RFD 152 Winter 2012