Last Saturday I got an email from my friend Wendell Jones inviting me to join a Radical Faerie protest event. The email explained that the purpose of the protest was to challenge the accuracy of Don Kilhefner’s version of Radical Faerie history as it appeared in a recent series of Frontiers articles. In these articles, Kilhefner features himself as a co-founder of the Faeries with Harry Hay but he barely mentions Mitch Walker. Walker is an influential intellectual and writer whose important role in the founding of the Radical Faeries is described in several gay histories, including Stuart Timmon’s book The Trouble with Harry Hay.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to attend the protest because I had doubts about whether the Walker-Kilhefner controversy was important enough to warrant an actual demonstration. But in the end, I attended the protest and I learned some things about gay liberation. This Faerie flap isn’t just another case of two egotistical leaders fighting for recognition. The controversy highlights issues about how we conceive and practice gay liberation.
The protest took place in front of the One Archives, the museum and gallery of queer history on Adams Boulevard near USC. Don Kilhefner and Mark Thompson were giving a presentation on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the first Radical Faerie gathering in Arizona in 1979. I arrived at the protest with my friend Bryce about 30 minutes before Kilhefner and Thompson began speaking. Bryce and I joined about 12 other protestors who were chanting slogans like “Faeries cannot harmonize, hiding truths and telling lies!” Most of the approximately 75 people who came to the presentation seemed surprised about what could be controversial about a Radical Faerie anniversary.
Since I was curious about whether the protest would prod Kilhefner into mentioning Walker, I went inside to hear the presentation. Kilhefner didn’t say anything about Walker in his remarks although Mark Thompson mentioned Walker’s name once. After they finished, I asked the first question, “What is your response to the protestors outside who claim that you are trivializing the founding role of Mitch Walker?” Don’s testy answer was that he didn’t have any response because he had already given his version of the history. Mark Thompson took the microphone and said that Mitch’s story had already been told elsewhere and that there was no single history or truth about the Radical Faeries movement. He said that there were multiple histories and they were all valid. Sounding tired and discouraged, Thompson asked rhetorically if this hadn’t all been said before and if it wasn’t true that what really mattered was the here and now, not the past.
After this comment by Thompson, the discussion moved on, but it was Thompson’s comment about the “here and now” that made me realize why the controversy did matter. The question of Walker’s role matters because the history of the gay liberation movement matters. According to George Santayana, if you don’t learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. The history of the Radical Faeries teaches important lessons including whether our movement can be revitalized by the gay consciousness that energized the early Radical Faeries and what “gay consciousness” implies for those who claim to have it.
To his credit, Kilhefner is one of the most successful public spokespersons for the importance of gay consciousness as an antidote to gay assimilationism which is threatening to erase gay identity all together. Underlying the idea of gay consciousness is the idea that being gay includes an essential personal component – a “gay nature” that goes beyond mere sexual behavior. Gay essentialists oppose the idea that homosexuals are “just like straight people except for what they do in bed.” Some recent writers such as Doug Sadownick, in his article “Harry Hay’s Essentialism” (Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, January 2008) have argued that it is this essentialist perspective that accounts for the explosive progress made by gay and lesbian leaders like Hay, Kilhefner and Walker in the decades before and after the founding of the Faeries. Many “queer theorists” would disagree with this conception of gay identity and the very possibility of “gay” consciousness.
These ideas have been fought about in academic circles for decades. But while Kilhefner is perhaps the most popular spokesperson for the gay consciousness perspective, Walker is one of its foremost scholarly theoreticians. Walker’s ideas had a big influence on Kilhefner and Harry Hay before, during, and after the founding of the Radical Faeries. Walker wrote a seminal scholarly article about the gay archetype of the Double, published in a psychological journal (Spring, 1976) shortly before the birth of the Radical Faerie movement. But although they agree, to this day, upon the critical importance of a gay essentialist perspective for the future of the gay liberation movement, their productive relationship as unified leaders fell apart because of the second big lesson we can learn from this dispute which is that gay consciousness isn’t all sweetness and light. It can be used cheaply and manipulatively by those who are unwilling or unable to honestly confront their own internal, unconscious “unfinished business.”
The psychologist Carl Jung was the most powerful writer about the human shadow, but Mitch Walker is the principal discoverer of the “gay shadow” that is a homosexual’s particular version that is constellated by being raised in a homophobic and heterosexist world. This shadow, of which most of us remain unconscious until initiatory experiences bring us face to face with it, takes the form of covert violence that is turned against ourselves and acted out on others.
To return to our Faerie history, when the naked, moonlight dances ended, Faerie life went on in the harsh light of day. The Radical Faeries soon became the Fighting Faeries. Although the movement survived until today, and Radical Faerie chapters continue to sputter into and out of existence around the world, the founding leaders left the organization in dissension and took up new gay endeavors. Kilhefner and Walker resigned from the Faeries and co-founded Treeroots in 1982, a nonprofit that sponsors gay soul-making workshops. At about that time, Walker began to focus less upon external activism and pursued an “introverted” journey that involved a decades long descent into, and exploration of gay consciousness. He emerged in the mid-1990’s with a series of publications and workshops for the gay community that emphasize a psychological approach to gay activism and personhood. A key component of this new psychological activism which Walker believes is the next and urgently necessary stage in the gay liberation movement, involves a rigorous and ongoing engagement with one’s personal shadow in service to building productive and loving relationships with others as well as to discovering richer dimensions of essential homosexual identity and vitality that emerge as a result of this inner work.
The Walker-Kilhefner controversy is seen as a trivial squabble by some. But if you take the psyche and its shadow seriously, as a living substratum of everything we think and do and say, then the controversy is important because, to use Thompson’s words, the “here and now” is about how we are dealing with each other moment by moment, with responsible awareness of our own psychology.
When I got the email from Wendell inviting me to the protest, I had a lot of conflicted feelings including fear and shame as I imagined myself on the picket line protesting. I processed these conflicting thoughts and feelings with my friend Bryce who worked with me to sort out my unconscious motives, unrealistic fears, and authentic values. Whatever you think about this controversy, it can help our community to assess the integrity with which we are facing our own shadows, individually and collectively, and our potential for living more freely, productively and lovingly.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to attend the protest because I had doubts about whether the Walker-Kilhefner controversy was important enough to warrant an actual demonstration. But in the end, I attended the protest and I learned some things about gay liberation. This Faerie flap isn’t just another case of two egotistical leaders fighting for recognition. The controversy highlights issues about how we conceive and practice gay liberation.
The protest took place in front of the One Archives, the museum and gallery of queer history on Adams Boulevard near USC. Don Kilhefner and Mark Thompson were giving a presentation on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the first Radical Faerie gathering in Arizona in 1979. I arrived at the protest with my friend Bryce about 30 minutes before Kilhefner and Thompson began speaking. Bryce and I joined about 12 other protestors who were chanting slogans like “Faeries cannot harmonize, hiding truths and telling lies!” Most of the approximately 75 people who came to the presentation seemed surprised about what could be controversial about a Radical Faerie anniversary.
Since I was curious about whether the protest would prod Kilhefner into mentioning Walker, I went inside to hear the presentation. Kilhefner didn’t say anything about Walker in his remarks although Mark Thompson mentioned Walker’s name once. After they finished, I asked the first question, “What is your response to the protestors outside who claim that you are trivializing the founding role of Mitch Walker?” Don’s testy answer was that he didn’t have any response because he had already given his version of the history. Mark Thompson took the microphone and said that Mitch’s story had already been told elsewhere and that there was no single history or truth about the Radical Faeries movement. He said that there were multiple histories and they were all valid. Sounding tired and discouraged, Thompson asked rhetorically if this hadn’t all been said before and if it wasn’t true that what really mattered was the here and now, not the past.
After this comment by Thompson, the discussion moved on, but it was Thompson’s comment about the “here and now” that made me realize why the controversy did matter. The question of Walker’s role matters because the history of the gay liberation movement matters. According to George Santayana, if you don’t learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. The history of the Radical Faeries teaches important lessons including whether our movement can be revitalized by the gay consciousness that energized the early Radical Faeries and what “gay consciousness” implies for those who claim to have it.
To his credit, Kilhefner is one of the most successful public spokespersons for the importance of gay consciousness as an antidote to gay assimilationism which is threatening to erase gay identity all together. Underlying the idea of gay consciousness is the idea that being gay includes an essential personal component – a “gay nature” that goes beyond mere sexual behavior. Gay essentialists oppose the idea that homosexuals are “just like straight people except for what they do in bed.” Some recent writers such as Doug Sadownick, in his article “Harry Hay’s Essentialism” (Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, January 2008) have argued that it is this essentialist perspective that accounts for the explosive progress made by gay and lesbian leaders like Hay, Kilhefner and Walker in the decades before and after the founding of the Faeries. Many “queer theorists” would disagree with this conception of gay identity and the very possibility of “gay” consciousness.
These ideas have been fought about in academic circles for decades. But while Kilhefner is perhaps the most popular spokesperson for the gay consciousness perspective, Walker is one of its foremost scholarly theoreticians. Walker’s ideas had a big influence on Kilhefner and Harry Hay before, during, and after the founding of the Radical Faeries. Walker wrote a seminal scholarly article about the gay archetype of the Double, published in a psychological journal (Spring, 1976) shortly before the birth of the Radical Faerie movement. But although they agree, to this day, upon the critical importance of a gay essentialist perspective for the future of the gay liberation movement, their productive relationship as unified leaders fell apart because of the second big lesson we can learn from this dispute which is that gay consciousness isn’t all sweetness and light. It can be used cheaply and manipulatively by those who are unwilling or unable to honestly confront their own internal, unconscious “unfinished business.”
The psychologist Carl Jung was the most powerful writer about the human shadow, but Mitch Walker is the principal discoverer of the “gay shadow” that is a homosexual’s particular version that is constellated by being raised in a homophobic and heterosexist world. This shadow, of which most of us remain unconscious until initiatory experiences bring us face to face with it, takes the form of covert violence that is turned against ourselves and acted out on others.
To return to our Faerie history, when the naked, moonlight dances ended, Faerie life went on in the harsh light of day. The Radical Faeries soon became the Fighting Faeries. Although the movement survived until today, and Radical Faerie chapters continue to sputter into and out of existence around the world, the founding leaders left the organization in dissension and took up new gay endeavors. Kilhefner and Walker resigned from the Faeries and co-founded Treeroots in 1982, a nonprofit that sponsors gay soul-making workshops. At about that time, Walker began to focus less upon external activism and pursued an “introverted” journey that involved a decades long descent into, and exploration of gay consciousness. He emerged in the mid-1990’s with a series of publications and workshops for the gay community that emphasize a psychological approach to gay activism and personhood. A key component of this new psychological activism which Walker believes is the next and urgently necessary stage in the gay liberation movement, involves a rigorous and ongoing engagement with one’s personal shadow in service to building productive and loving relationships with others as well as to discovering richer dimensions of essential homosexual identity and vitality that emerge as a result of this inner work.
The Walker-Kilhefner controversy is seen as a trivial squabble by some. But if you take the psyche and its shadow seriously, as a living substratum of everything we think and do and say, then the controversy is important because, to use Thompson’s words, the “here and now” is about how we are dealing with each other moment by moment, with responsible awareness of our own psychology.
When I got the email from Wendell inviting me to the protest, I had a lot of conflicted feelings including fear and shame as I imagined myself on the picket line protesting. I processed these conflicting thoughts and feelings with my friend Bryce who worked with me to sort out my unconscious motives, unrealistic fears, and authentic values. Whatever you think about this controversy, it can help our community to assess the integrity with which we are facing our own shadows, individually and collectively, and our potential for living more freely, productively and lovingly.
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