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Advocacy & Support
In addition to my own work as a published author, I also seek to partner with other Rainbow artists to make stories that are more interactive and artistic in the way that our ancestors saw them. By reconnecting with this collaborative tradition of artistic storytelling, I hope to enrich our concept of the modern Rainbow Communities and show how we can make this world just a little bit more magical together.
I have always believed that Gay, as it applies to men who love men, is its own culture––not a subculture, not just a sexual orientation, but an actual culture in and of itself, and I work to help other Gay men find pride in that cultural identity while supporting the other Rainbow communities that make up the modern LGBTQIA+ umbrella. This is the reason that I always capitalize the word Gay when it applies to someone’s identity.
If you look at the five main elements that make up a culture according to sociologists, you can see how this is true for Gay men. Those elements are values and beliefs, norms, symbols, rituals, and language, and Gay culture has all of them.
Don’t believe me? Let me show you why I think this:
If you look at the history of the Gay liberation movement and the modern civil rights activism that came out of it, you can see a shared set of values and beliefs revolving around equality, love, and personal freedom. In challenging existing norms within the larger society, we are constantly in the habit of creating new norms, especially around the ideas of gender and sexuality.
From Oscar Wilde’s green carnation to the pink triangle of the Nazi camps, the handkerchief code, or the various versions of the Pride Flag––symbols, whether for good or bad, have always been a part of Gay culture. Pride is probably the most easily recognized communal ritual within the Gay community today, but it is not our only ritual.
Every Gay man in Western society goes through the rite of passage associated with “coming out of the closet.” We even have our own language as Gay men. It’s a “Lavender Language” called Polari.
While this culture is solidifying today, it is not an entirely new thing made from whole cloth. In fact, elements of Gay culture have been around since the dawn of civilization. We were the wisdom keepers, the temple priests, the shamans, and the magical workers for countless peoples. The winkte of the Lakota, the he man eh of the Cheyenne, the lhamana of the Zuni, the mahus of the South Pacific, the mugawe of the Meru in Kenya, even the gala and assinu priesthoods of ancient Mesopotamia––all give credence to the idea of a magical role being associated with Gay men.
As part of my work in empowering Gay men, I encourage them to uncover these historical perspectives and embrace their ancestral roles as magical workers and wisdom keepers.
