EDGE San Francisco

DID YOU KNOW:

...the first legal Gay marriages in history were conducted in Toronto under the watchful eyes of a SWAT team, and that the officiating minister wore a bulletproof vest?

...70 years ago, actress and sex symbol Mae West was arrested for writing and producing a play called "The Drag," a story about Gay men?

...the first post-op Transman was Michael Dillon, born an English noblewoman, who went incognito to India to become a Buddhist monk?

...We’Wha, a Native American Two-Spirit, was presented to high society in Washington, DC in 1886 as a Zuni princess? (Nobody seemed to notice she was biologically male.)

...Sakia Gunn from New Jersey was 15 years old when she was stabbed to death for telling a man who was harassing her and her friends that she was a Lesbian?

...a coral colored hanky means that the owner likes "shrimping" (toe-sucking)?

All that’s true, and all that- and more- will be part of the upcoming Encyclopedia of Gay Folklife, due to be published in 2009. The encyclopedia will be two volumes, 800 pages, and much more fun to read than that old Britannica thing.

Are you laughing?

Fun to read? You’ve got to be joking. It’s an ENCYCLOPEDIA!

This encyclopedia won’t be like any other encyclopedia you’ve ever read. Gay culture is full of humor, drama, and scandal; the entries written for this encyclopedia won’t be dry lists of factoids, but engaging stories designed to entertain, and teach us just how fabulous we really are.

How it all started

A couple of years ago, I was approached to write some articles for the 2005 Encyclopedia of American Folklife. I wrote three: "Gay Communities," "Gay Fire Island," and "Gay San Francisco."

The information I had gathered while researching these topics gave me an appreciation for the richness of LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Allies) culture. After the four-volume encyclopedia was published, I realized that I could have easily written twenty articles instead of three.

That got me thinking: why not our own folklife encyclopedia?

I contacted some of the top Gay scholars in folklore and asked them about putting together an encyclopedia from a folklorist perspective. A few years ago, they had talked about it. They felt, however, there was not enough material to warrant an encyclopedia.

How things have changed! Nowadays, there’s enough material for a 20-volume set. We’re having a tough time limiting it to two volumes and 800 pages.

So far, the project’s got about 50 writers, an editorial board, and an advisory committee pulling everything together. What’s missing? About 50 more writers!

"What the hell is Gay folklife?"

When I was first approached to work on this project, I was excited. I told my friends that I was the editor of the up-and-coming Encyclopedia of Gay Folklife. Most of them listened politely and then asked me- directly or indirectly- "What the hell is Gay folklife?"

I wasn’t really sure myself.

Let’s start with "Gay." When the Stonewall Riots blew the nation’s closet doors wide open in 1969, "gay" included homosexual women and men, Transgender-Intersex persons, and Bisexuals who banded together to resist the shame and oppression imposed upon them.

Unfortunately, the movement was hijacked by some narrow-minded homosexual men who sought public acceptance instead of fairness. These men wanted to normalize gay liberation and make it less "Queer" by excluding a lot of Gay people. Too many times, women, Transgender, Intersex, and Bisexuals were left out, as well as people of color. Each group then sought its own identity away from the narrow representation that had been imposed upon "gay."

For the encyclopedia, we are going back to the Stonewall definition of "gay" that includes the full rainbow of Lesbians, Gay men, Bisexuals, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and our allies, the LGBTQIA (or more commonly, LGBT) acronym used today. That’s why we capitalize "Gay." It refers to the broader community that not only recognizes diversity but also appreciates it; a community that has strong ethics of inclusion and tolerance.

"Folklife" is even more of a challenge to define.

In general terms, "folklife" is what a folk group says, does, and makes. A bit vague, but it’s a start.

Folklife is also supposed to privilege amateur over professional. And it usually involves identity, art, ethics, spirituality, or some combination of the above. There are foodways, healthways, folk speech, folktales, folk religion, folk dancing, and folk music.

We can start by looking at folk artists within the LGBTQIA community-at-large. Women’s music, for example, is recorded and performed by paid professionals, both popularly recognized artists and artists that are known primarily in certain circles within Lesbian society. The Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco would be examples of pop culture musicians within the pale of women’s music, while Bitch and Toshi Reagon are not yet pop culture icons. It’s this kind of difference that’s led us to leave the Indigo Girls and DiFranco (and other highly influential LGBTQIA musicians, such as k.d. lang and Morissey) off the list, but include some founders of the women’s music movement and some of its non-mainstream artists, like Bitch and Toshi Reagon.

Some artists are included simply because they were such fabulous pioneers. Sylvester- the drag queen who was briefly a disco star- is included, as are the commercially successful writer Gertrude Stein and notorious actress Mae West.

Stein and her life partner, Alice B. Toklas, were such revolutionary figures during their lifetimes that they fall under the category of "folk icons," as does Mae West, who attempted to bring a play about drag culture to Broadway and got arrested for her trouble. Sylvester boldly appeared in drag at the height of his popularity. The stories about Stein, Toklas, West, and Sylvester are too good to be left out. Since the encyclopedia is primarily for education, we feel it’s important to include tasty and engaging stories for our people and allies to remember.

criteria

The factors deemed most important in choosing people for articles are the following:

1) Are the candidates important figures in their folk art?
2) Do they represent a faction in the LGBTQIA population?
3) Have they influenced the community in significant ways?
4) Is there discourse generated around them?
5) On the other hand, is it unnecessary to have them because there already are plenty of books about them, OR has their role in LGBTQIA culture been adequately reported (as in Ellen DeGeneris, Rue Paul, Elton John, Rev. Gene Robinson, and Rosie O’Donnell)?
6) Would the encyclopedia be considered incomplete without them (as in Jane Addams, Harvey Milk, Sappho, Oscar Wilde, Bayard Rustin, Michel Foucault, and Walt Whitman)?

It is at the intersection between LGBTQIA identities, aesthetic expression, ethics, community solidarity, and the history of Gay folk that we hope to situate every one of the articles.

The usual things that concern folklorists, such as folktale, ballad, myth, legend, spirituality, and healthways will be covered in general, and then a few examples will be given from our rich cultural treasure chest. Other things, such as material culture, are less important in LGBTQIA folklife, although we have some real doozies, like the AIDS Quilt, the MaestraPeace Building in San Francisco, the infamous hanky code, and the wonderful variety of flags we’ve got. One aspect of healthways is peculiar to us: the medical challenges faced by Transgender people. Political and religious activism is also an important feature of our folklife. Myths and legends dealing with same-sex love, cross-dressing, and Transgender abound in cultures around the world, as do ballads and folksongs about those same subjects. The one area that we have not made much of a mark in is foodways, although one member of the editorial board suggested "the Lesbian potluck" as an example; hummus was another.

Should they be included? Let us know.

The majority of articles in this list deal with public performance: drag kings and queens, rodeo, Gay Games, and spoken word. Some deal with LGBTQIA activism-as-folkway: Daughters of Bilitis, ACT-UP, suffragette, Mattachine Society, Angel Action, and PFLAG. Still others are symbols: the red ribbon and pink triangle. All of them are about identity.

Music is a rich category for Gay folklife. We have included Queercore, women’s music festivals, Bear festivals and music, DJ culture, gospel choirs, Hip-Hop, and Circuit parties.

Ethnic diversity is equally important. Transgender categories from Hawaii (mahu), Albania (sworn virgins), Thailand (kathoey), India (hijra), and Mexico (muxa) are mentioned, as well as Transgender activist Dana International from Israel, Carlos Las Vegas from Winnipeg, and Maryam Hatoon Molkara from Iran. Emperor Ai from ancient China and the Angolan warrior-queen Xinga are included as well.

Another concern is equality between the sexes. We’ve made a point to include roughly the same number of entries about individuals born female as those born male; the importance of this decision is an overriding concern for balance because, too often, the history of the Gay community looks too much like a history of the Gay male community with a few Lesbians included.

There is a conscious decision, however, not to include articles exclusively about closeted Gay icons, such as Willa Cather, Langston Hughes, Catalina de Erauso, and Liberace. An exception has been made for the obvious examples of delightful ambiguity, such as the Queer fence-sitter, Mishima Yukio; a documentary on women bullfighters by Lesbian director Kathryn Klassen; the macho crypto-homoerotic national sport of Turkey- Turkish oil wrestling; the gender-bending, all-women-in-men’s-clothing Takarazuka Revue; and the sexy-yet-campy Village People.

Some closeted personages will nonetheless be included in an entry on the closet and an associate article on ex-gays. Both of these topics are important, if dreadful, aspects of Gay folklife in their production and in their refutation.

Last but not least, what do we do about sex?

Our community celebrates sex, and it plays an important role in our folklife. Nevertheless, sex is a problem in that, if given too much of a spotlight, everything else fades into the background. Thus a limit has been placed on the number of topics that deal directly with sex. Eros, the bathhouse, Leather, and hanky code are included, but nothing else that directly addresses sexual practices. There will be no entries on buttless chaps, sex toys, or pornography, although these things might be mentioned in articles if they are relevant.

Even if you’ve made it this far in my schpiel, you may not know everything or everyone mentioned- and that’s ok. Before I began working on this project, I didn’t either! Besides, what good would it do to write an encyclopedia of things that people already knew? When the final product is done, reading it will be as much an adventure as an education.

Why this project is important

There are already encyclopedias about LGBTQIA culture. What makes this project different is that it showcases our creativity. The Encyclopedia of Gay Folklife will include history, activism, and oppression, but these things are not its primary goal. This encyclopedia is about fabulous expressions of who we are, where we’ve been, how we got there, and who helped us along the way. It will be written in a way that is every bit as entertaining as it is informative. Each entry will be more than just a great scholarly work; it will also be an example of folk art, crafted by people who love us.

How you can help

Our challenge is to accomplish this task within 2 years and with a very limited budget. M.E. Sharpe has allotted $8000 for the entire project.

Sharpe plans on producing an online version as well, but we need your help. If you know of a person or company who’d like to be a sponsor, let me know. Throughout the encyclopedia there will be opportunities for sponsorship mention, as well as other possible incentives.

We’re looking for sponsors and volunteers to help us raise money so that we can include color pictures and give our writers competitive compensation for their contributions.

More qualified writers are still needed to help us with entries. Qualifications include an advanced degree (or working towards one) in the Social Science or Humanities.

Although the encyclopedia is dedicated to Gay folklife, sponsors, writers, and volunteers do not need to be Gay.

Please join us, in conjunction with the Qualia Festival of Gay Folklife, as sponsors of a groundbreaking academic resource that will proudly display the amazing breadth of our traditions, media, festivals, and accomplishments.

Help us make the Encyclopedia of Gay Folklife all that it can possibly be.

Join us!

We need sponsors and volunteers to help us in several areas:

Fund raising
Photos for entries
Qualified writers
Media associates

At this time we don’t need ideas for additional articles, except for those regarding foodways.

If interested, please contact me, Mickey Weems, at mickeyweems@yahoo.com

Food, glorious food: we need your input!

We have few entries concerning Gay foodways. Are there any traditions of the kitchen that are part of LGBTQIA culture? Strictly speaking, vodka drinks are food, sort of. But it would be tragic if the only entries on foodways were about alcohol.

Should "Lesbian Potluck" or "Hummus" be articles on foodways? Let us know!

Contact mickeyweems@yahoo.com with your suggestions and observations.