Faeries in America
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The Fire in Moonlight: Stories from the Radical Faeries, 1975–2010
Edited by Mark Thompson
White Crane Books. 309 pages, $25.

IF PROPONENTS of queer theory convened in the seminar room, the Radical Faeries gathered around the bonfire. Both movements—though both resist the label “movement”—arose in the late 1970’s and early 80’s, and both advanced a radical challenge to the assumptions of the ascendant gay assimi- lationism. And both have articulated new gestures of queerness and inspired a younger generation that often takes them for granted.

As retold multiple times in The Fire in Moonlight: Stories from the Radical Faeries, a new anthology edited by Mark Thompson, the Radical Faeries officially began in 1979, with the “spiritual conference for radical fairies” convened by three main organizers: Harry Hay, a founder of the Mattachine Society and grande dame of the gay rights movement; Don Kilhefner, an activist without whom, one learns, nothing would have gotten accomplished; and Mitch Walker, a young would-be shaman. Yet the roots of the Faeries go back further. All three men had grown disillusioned with post-Stonewall gay life, which they saw as increasingly milquetoast politically and vapid culturally, filled with clones, objectification, and discos. These three, along with Murray Edelman, Arthur Evans, Mikel Wilson, Carl Wittman, and others, had already begun to coalesce into workshops, rituals, and even small communities, emphasizing spiritual growth, “conscious” libertine sexuality, distinctive roles for queer people in society, alternative forms of community, and often, though not always, radical politics.

Many of these figures were alumni of the gay liberation movement who felt betrayed by its hedonistic drift. Others had simply never fit in anywhere else. In any case, by 1979 there was critical mass to generate a conference that has for Faeries the mythic status of Woodstock or Stonewall.

Inevitably, the reality was far messier, with disagreements erupting almost immediately. The recriminations started soon enough, and some of this continues in The Fire in Moonlight, which has a Rashomon-like quality of the same story being told from multiple perspectives, each claiming to be the authentic account. This is the least inspiring aspect of the anthology. At the other extreme, many of the essays are wide-eyed paeans to the authors’ personal transformations; once again, though, the supposedly shared experiences that these writers describe are actually quite different from one another.

Some of the best material in the book concerns the role of scholarship and scholarly discourse—including some articles in this magazine [by Don Kilhefner in the Sept.-Oct. 2010 issue and by Douglas Sadownick in Jan.-Feb. 2011—in the formation of modern identities. A good example is contributor Will Roscoe’s expansive work on third-gender roles among Native Americans. Another is Harry Hay’s quasi-Marxist, Martin Buber-inflected theories of “subject-subject” consciousness, which he saw as being at the heart of being a Faerie. For all their dancing around bonfires, Faeries have tended to be a well-read, self-reflective bunch—more like the intelligentsia at Burning Man than the hippies and pseudo-hippies at music festivals.

There are gaps, however. I wish the anthology included more young, female, and gender-queer voices to counter those of older gay men who resent the intrusion of gender diversity into their formerly all-male ghetto (a notion that rings hollow to almost any queer person under thirty). The Faeries themselves are more diverse than the voices in this anthology. Then again, it was not always thus, and The Fire in Moonlight is an excellent lens on this and other histories.

Thirty years on, there are Faerie sanctuaries and local pods around the world, gatherings happening every month, and, of course, splinter groups, conflicts, and the struggle with “diluting” the Faerie magic that this anthology describes. Faerie culture has occasionally impacted the mainstream culture—Justin Bond, John Cameron Mitchell, and Michael Warner are three examples—though it thrives mostly as a counterculture, deliberately messy, oppositional, playful, and confounding of expectations.
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Jay Michaelson is the author, most recently, of God vs. Gay?: The Religious Case for Equality (Beacon, 2011).