HIGH GEAR/FEBRUARY 1977
GODMOTHER'S
1014 E. 63rd Street
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Nikki!
ONE BLOCK NORTH OF ST. CLAIR JUST EAST OF E. 55TH.
OVENTRY BOOKS
Largest Selection of Gay Literature in Town NOW: Back in stock...
ChristopherStreet
the Best Gay Magazines Too!
We have just received a large selection of Lesbian and Feminist novels, poetry, essays, non-fiction; such as: Rita Mae Brown's
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PLAIN BROWN RAPPER
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THREE DRAWER
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some
Surely women have responsibility for their own actions. Do men really force rhinestones?
women
to wear Spike heels? It seems to me that any woman who is determined can walk into a store and buy a comfortable pair of shoes. Who forces them to buy spike heels? Do men really enjoy walking with a woman who has to totter along like a cripple? Similarly, if woman is oppressed by cosmetics, then I suggest that liberation lies no further away than the nearest sink, with the aid of a little soap and water.
a
seen
Now who is supposed to be hurt by drag queans? Women? How many women in the U.S. have ever even a drag quean? What would happen if they did see one? Would they suffer? The only group of transvestites can think of, who have oppressed and persecuted others, are ecclesiastical transvestites that is to say, priests, bishops, cardinals and popes -but so far the feminists have shown no inclination to attack ecclesiastical transvestitism.
If anybody at all is hurt by drag queens, it would surely be gay men so I believed at one time. I believed that since the stereotyped image of homosexual man is a man who wants to act and look like a woman, that therefore drag queens tended to reinforce the stereotype.
on, then why not? We only live once.
When I entered the gay world, many years ago in Boston, I had a hard time of it, though i had certain advantages. It was drag queens in a seedy Boston cafeteria, the "Bick," who first let me laugh at things which had been the shame and terror of adolescence. I laughed till I cried and after that it was easy. I would expand the Nietzschean aphorism to say: "Oh my brothers: Camp! and be hard!" I have also known sensitive
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would be as welcome as anyone else. Unlike the "homophile" movement, we were not so concerned with respectability that we would turn away any of our gay brothers and sisters.
(John Lauritsen's presentation to the 1976 Gay Academic Union Conference, "Dangerous Trends in Feminism" is available in pamphlet form from the author for $1 postpaid. John Lauristsen, 76 St. Mark's Place, N.Y. N.Y., 10003.)
young men who did not have my WINTER WALK
advantages -who had run away from fathers who beat them and mothers who cursed them -who were not intellectuals -who had no assets other than a sudden will to be themselves. They did not know what it meant to be "gay," so they plucked their eyebrows, or set their hair; they wore an earring, or a necklace; they sullied their complexion with makeup; or they wore something that put them beyond the pale of masculine normalcy. They were naive.
Usually the phase passed, especially if they were fortunate enough to acquire a lover or friend who accepted them as they essentially were, without the extreme role-playing of either butch or femme.
It frightens me to think that such a young man, assailed by doubts and fears, facing pitfalls and dangers on a every side, might be subjected to further cruelty from gay men who have been influenced by the censorious feminists. We must be firm. Not only must we reject without qualification the claim that drag queens oppress women, we must also make sure that none of our brothers are hurt through malice instigated by the censorious feminists. Our lifestyle is none of their business.
I have changed my opinion. If, to use H.L. Mencken's term, "Boobus Americanus" wishes to believe in the stereotype, then I'm sure he will do so, with or without the aid of transvestites.
I now believe that transvestites should not merely be tolerated, but actually encouraged to do as they please. If they want to dress up and carry
HAL'S
In the very early days of the Gay Liberation Front, we made the decision that transvestites
Two men walk along a swift river.
Winter walks with them heavily present. Refrozen snow gleams porcelinwhite, antartic hot star white. Stars blaze, radiance melds with radiance, the sky blazes radiates, from many places one light.
Where's the moon tonight? In its indifferent phase, face turned, tired of being barked at.
Orion stands over the river, tall as god.
His body is dark, his bones are stars tied to other stars.
Two men walk home into the wind.
They find the big dipper hung over night black trees. Pointing out constellations they begin to see
how tenuous their way is how frail the ropes between stars are. S. Blevins
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FEB. 20 (from noon on) Bear Creek Toboggan Run... all day trip...Beer, Snacks, Toboggan Riding $5.00 in advance. Steak House available at Bear Creek with reasonable prices.