Thursday, May 31, 2012
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Wendell Jones' Response to Don Kilhefner's Recent Letter
Wendell Jones sent out this letter on May 23, 2012 to those who had received a letter from Don Kilhefner, as described below.
Dear Faerie Brother,
Along with his recent email cover note, Don sent the attached letter complaining vociferously that Mark Thompson drove him out of a book project they had begun to create, The Fire In Moonlight: Stories from the Radical Faeries. It’s remarkable that Don has the gall to object to Mark Thompson (and associates) claiming all credit for the project and pushing him out, when he acts just as violently at the end of his letter by claiming that only he and Harry Hay published the original Call for the first Radical Faerie gathering, back in 1979. In the letter attached below, Don states "Mitch Walker was not a co-founder of the Radical Faeries....One only has to take a look at the central and only document of the first gathering—A Call to Gay Brothers—to see it was sent out by Hay and me alone."
I don't know if Don is getting senile or perhaps more willfully avoiding the evidence, but if you look at the accompanying flier, you will see clearly that Harry and Don are not the only ones sending out the Call. To quote from the document, which Don himself attached, "The initial Call for the gathering is coming from the Circle of Loving Companions/New Mexico; The Fairy Circle/Los Angeles; Treeroots Foundation/Berkeley." Don is well aware that the Treeroots Foundation was run by Mitch Walker, because Mitch worked together with Harry and Don planning the first Faerie Gathering and Don continued to work with Mitch in the Faeries until 1981, when they resigned together protesting Harry Hay's refusal to deal with his dominating behavior in the Radical Faerie organizing circle. Don left with Mitch to further develop Treeroots, a psychologically-focused gay spirituality organization that Don helped incorporate in 1982! It is true that only Don’s and Harry's names are listed as contact people on the 1979 flier, but the Call is clearly being sent from Mitch as well.
So when Don says, "If Walker had been an organizer of the first gathering, I would have no problem whatsoever acknowledging that, but he was not," Don is lying. The more complete story of these events was recounted by Douglas Sadownick in an article in The Gay and Lesbian Review, Volume 18, Issue 1: “Ransacking History: The 'Secret' Story of the Radical Faeries,” which can be seen at http://www.scribd.com/doc/94005575/The-Secret-History-of-the-Radical-Faeries, as well as in his response to a review of The Fire in the Moonlight on the Huffington Post which can be seen at http://www.scribd.com/doc/86981366/More-Secret-Radical-Faerie-History. As Douglas explains in these statements, the matter of Mitch’s involvement in co-founding the Faeries is not only about historical accuracy, but symbolic of Mitch’s emphasis at the time and ever since on the necessity of psychological self-awareness for the better development of gay spirituality and homosexual self-realization. Don’s recent erasure of Mitch’s founding role can be understood as a destructive attempt to erase the import of Mitch’s ideological focus on gay psyche, especially ironic considering Don’s one-time close involvement with Mitch in promoting psychological awareness through Treeroots. (Also visit: gaypsychepolitics.blogspot.com)
At the end of his recent letter, Don states, "In addition to book theft occurring, Thompson-Young-Berman-Walker are attempting to rewrite Radical Faerie history. They were not there during the organizing of the first gathering. I know. I was there." But Don is really the one attempting to rewrite history! Perhaps he hopes that because Harry is now dead there is no one to refute his claims, but Harry was interviewed by Stuart Timmons about this history years before his death and his words completely contradict Don (see The Trouble With Harry Hay, 1990/2012).
DON'S NOTE
Dear Faerie Brother,
Don Kilhefner recently sent out an email in which he claimed that honesty, ethics and transparency required him to correct the historical record regarding Radical Faerie history and a recently published anthology, The Fire In Moonlight: Stories from the Radical Faeries. Unfortunately, in that missive Don himself unethically lied and distorted facts about this Faerie history to aggrandize his own role and settle scores against his perceived rivals. In the name of honesty, ethics and transparency, I am writing this brief statement to share the actual history involved. Although I was not present for all the relevant events, I have personally known most of the individuals involved, and was a Faerie organizer for many years in Los Angeles. I have included below Don's original email note, and have also attached his attached letter and all of his supporting documents, plus an enlargement of the original Faerie Call highlighting Don's deception.
I don't know if Don is getting senile or perhaps more willfully avoiding the evidence, but if you look at the accompanying flier, you will see clearly that Harry and Don are not the only ones sending out the Call. To quote from the document, which Don himself attached, "The initial Call for the gathering is coming from the Circle of Loving Companions/New Mexico; The Fairy Circle/Los Angeles; Treeroots Foundation/Berkeley." Don is well aware that the Treeroots Foundation was run by Mitch Walker, because Mitch worked together with Harry and Don planning the first Faerie Gathering and Don continued to work with Mitch in the Faeries until 1981, when they resigned together protesting Harry Hay's refusal to deal with his dominating behavior in the Radical Faerie organizing circle. Don left with Mitch to further develop Treeroots, a psychologically-focused gay spirituality organization that Don helped incorporate in 1982! It is true that only Don’s and Harry's names are listed as contact people on the 1979 flier, but the Call is clearly being sent from Mitch as well.
So when Don says, "If Walker had been an organizer of the first gathering, I would have no problem whatsoever acknowledging that, but he was not," Don is lying. The more complete story of these events was recounted by Douglas Sadownick in an article in The Gay and Lesbian Review, Volume 18, Issue 1: “Ransacking History: The 'Secret' Story of the Radical Faeries,” which can be seen at http://www.scribd.com/doc/94005575/The-Secret-History-of-the-Radical-Faeries, as well as in his response to a review of The Fire in the Moonlight on the Huffington Post which can be seen at http://www.scribd.com/doc/86981366/More-Secret-Radical-Faerie-History. As Douglas explains in these statements, the matter of Mitch’s involvement in co-founding the Faeries is not only about historical accuracy, but symbolic of Mitch’s emphasis at the time and ever since on the necessity of psychological self-awareness for the better development of gay spirituality and homosexual self-realization. Don’s recent erasure of Mitch’s founding role can be understood as a destructive attempt to erase the import of Mitch’s ideological focus on gay psyche, especially ironic considering Don’s one-time close involvement with Mitch in promoting psychological awareness through Treeroots. (Also visit: gaypsychepolitics.blogspot.com)
At the end of his recent letter, Don states, "In addition to book theft occurring, Thompson-Young-Berman-Walker are attempting to rewrite Radical Faerie history. They were not there during the organizing of the first gathering. I know. I was there." But Don is really the one attempting to rewrite history! Perhaps he hopes that because Harry is now dead there is no one to refute his claims, but Harry was interviewed by Stuart Timmons about this history years before his death and his words completely contradict Don (see The Trouble With Harry Hay, 1990/2012).
Mark Thompson was willing to go along with Don’s revisionist history when they appeared together at the One Gay and Lesbian National Archives on Feb. 15, 2009, where these revisionist claims were publically pushed. But perhaps Mark had second thoughts about this after Doug’s article appeared in The Gay and Lesbian Review in January 2011 pointing out that Stewart Timmons reported a completely different story following his interviewing Harry, Don, and Mitch for Harry's biography in the early 1990s. If I understand the chronology correctly, it seems Mark backed away from Don's revisionist history after Doug's article appeared. Perhaps Mark drove Don out of the publishing project because he realized there were revealing historical records that showed how ugly his and Don's revisionist efforts had become. It's impossible to tell for sure, but interesting to consider. If Don wants to expose others’ purported "ethical stains," he ought to consider his own blotches.
In gay spirit and psyche,
Wendell Jones
You can reply to my letter by sending an email to Wendellxx@gmail.com or writing a comment at gaypsychepolitics.blogspot.com, where this letter will be posted.
Dear Brothers:Greetings.I have attached a letter from meto the contributors of the recentFire In The Moonlight (MarkThompson, editor).The letter is self-explanatory.I have also attached severaldocuments as corroborationfor what I have written.In the name of honesty, ethicsand transparency, I feel you needto be aware of the contents ofthe letter.My best wishes to you.Animae Communitatis Colendae Gratia(For the sake of tending to the soul of the community)
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