Editing Harry Hay (section)

===New Mexico and the Radical Faeries: 1971 to 1979===

In May 1971, Hay and Burnside moved to the [[Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico|San Juan Pueblo]] in [[New Mexico]], taking their kaleidoscope factory with them.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=230–235}} However, in June 1973, an accidental fire destroyed their kaleidoscope factory and mail order inventory, leaving them without a livelihood.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=237–238}} In New Mexico, Hay once again took part in activism; he volunteered for a radical newspaper, ''El Grito'' (''The Cry''), which aimed at a [[Chicano]] readership.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=235}} In 1975, he took a leading role in a water rights campaign to prevent the federal government from damming the [[Rio Grande]]. Local activists argued that it would devastate local farmland while benefitting the wealthy land owner Richard Cook, whose own land would be made fertile by the dam and who owned the company that was due to construct it. Hay organised the publication of literature on the subject, forming an umbrella activist group, and building it into a national campaign through the Nation-Wide Friends of the Rio Grande. The campaign was ultimately successful as the government rejected the plans in 1976.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=239–244}}<ref name="Hogan, et al., pp. 273–74">Hogan, et al., pp. 273–74</ref> During the campaign, his mother died, and he was unable to return to Los Angeles for her memorial service.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=243}}

After this, he involved himself in the foundation of a local LGBT rights group, the Lambdas de Santa Fe, designed to fight [[homophobic violence]] in northern New Mexico. The group sponsored a [[Cross-dressing ball|gay ball]], and in June 1977 they held [[Albuquerque, New Mexico|Albuquerque]]'s first [[Gay Pride Parade]].{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=245}}<ref name="Hogan, et al., pp. 273–74" /> Hay's fame had begun to grow across the U.S., and at this time he was contacted by the historians [[Jonathan Ned Katz]] and [[John D'Emilio]]  over the course of their independent research projects into the nation's LGBT history.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=238–239}} He and Burnside also appeared in [[Peter Adair]]'s documentary film, ''[[Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives|Word Is Out]]'' (1977).{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=247}}

[[File:Harry Hay (1929106169).jpg|thumb|right|250px|A Faerie gathering in 1986, with Hay in bottom left corner]]
In 1978, Hay teamed up with Don Kilhefner and [[Mitchell L. Walker]] to co-host a workshop on "New Breakthroughs in the Nature of How We Perceive Gay Consciousness" at the annual conference of the [[Gay Academic Union]], held at the [[University of Southern California]] in Los Angeles.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=261}} This event convinced Hay and his partner [[John Burnside (inventor)|John Burnside]] that they should leave their home in [[New Mexico]] and move to Los Angeles, where they settled into a 1920s house on the eastern edge of Hollywood.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=261, 264}} The three then decided to organise an outdoor conference at which they could teach other gay men about their ideas regarding gay consciousness. Kilhefner identified an ideal location from an advert in ''[[The Advocate (LGBT magazine)|The Advocate]]''; the Sri Ram Ashram was a gay-friendly spiritual retreat in the desert near [[Benson, Arizona]], owned by an American named Swami Bill.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=262}} Hay, Kilhefner, and Walker visited to check its suitability, and although Hay disliked Bill and didn't want to use the site, the others insisted.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=262}}

Their conference, set for Labor Day 1979, was to be called the "[[Spiritual Conference for Radical Fairies]]",{{sfn|Adler|2006|p=357}}<ref group = note>Hay and others switched to the older spelling, "faeries", after 1979. <br />Harry Hay (1996) ''Radically Gay: Gay Liberation in the Words of its Founder'', edited by Will Roscoe.</ref> with the term "Radical Faerie" having been coined by Hay. The term "Radical" was chosen to reflect both political extremity and the idea of "root" or "essence", while the term "Faerie" was chosen in reference both to the [[fairy|immortal animistic spirits of European folklore]] and to the fact that "fairy" had become a pejorative slang term for gay men.{{sfnm|1a1=Timmons|1y=1990|1p=250|2a1=Timmons|2y=2011|2p=33}} Initially, Hay rejected the term "movement" when discussing the Radical Faeries, considering it to instead be a "way of life" for gay males, and he began referring to it as a "not-movement".{{sfnm|1a1=Timmons|1y=1990|1p=250|2a1=Timmons|2y=2011|2p=32}} In organizing the event, Hay handled the political issues, Burnside the logistics and mechanics, Kilhefner the budgetary and administrative side, and Walker was to be its spiritual leader.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=264}} A flier advertising the event was released which proclaimed that gays had a place in the "paradigm shift" of the [[New Age]], and quoted [[Mark Satin]] and [[Aleister Crowley]] alongside Hay; these fliers were sent out to gay and leftist bookstores as well as gay community centres and [[health food store]]s.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=264–265}}

Around 220 men turned up to the event, despite the fact that the Ashram could only accommodate around 75.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=265}} Hay gave a welcoming speech in which he outlined his ideas regarding [[Subject-SUBJECT consciousness]], calling on those assembled to "throw off the ugly green frogskin of hetero-imitation to find the shining Faerie prince beneath".{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|p=265}} Rather than being referred to as "workshops", the events that took place were known as "Faerie circles",{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|p=265}} and were on such varied subjects as massage, nutrition, local [[botany]], healing energy, the politics of gay enspiritment, English country dancing, and [[auto-fellatio]].{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|p=267}} Those assembled took part in spontaneous rituals, providing invocations to spirits and performing blessings and chants,{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|p=265}} with most participants discarding the majority of their clothes, instead wearing feathers, beads, and bells, and decorating themselves in rainbow makeup.{{Sfn|Timmons|1990|p=266}} Many reported feeling a change of consciousness during the event, which one person there described as "a four day [[LSD|acid]] trip – without the acid!".{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=266–267}} On the final night of the gathering, they put together a performance of the [[Symmetricon]], an invention of Burnside's, while Hay gave a farewell speech.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=268}}

After Hay and the others returned to Los Angeles, they received messages of thanks from various participants, many of whom asked when the next Faerie gathering would be.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=268–269}} Hay decided to found a Faerie circle in Los Angeles that met at their house, which became known as "Faerie Central", devoting half their time to serious discussion and the other half to recreation, in particular English circle dancing. As more joined the circle, they began meeting in [[West Hollywood]]'s First Presbyterian Church and then the olive grove atop the hill at [[Barnsdall Park]]; however they found it difficult to gain the same change of consciousness that had been present at the rural gathering.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=269}} The group began to discuss what the Faerie movement was developing into; Hay encouraged them to embark on political activism, using Marxism and his Subject-SUBJECT consciousness theory as a framework for bringing about societal change. Others however wanted the movement to focus on spirituality and exploring the [[psyche (psychology)|psyche]], lambasting politics as part of "the straight world".{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=269–270}} Another issue of contention was over what constituted a "Faerie"; Hay had an idealized image of what someone with "gay consciousness" thought and acted like, and turned away some prospective members of the Circle because he disagreed with their views. One prospective member, the gay theater director John Callaghan, joined the circle in February 1980, but was soon ejected by Hay after he voiced concern about hostility toward heterosexuals among the group.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=270–271}}

The second Faerie gathering took place in August 1980 in [[Estes Park, Colorado|Estes Park]] near [[Boulder, Colorado]]. Twice as long and almost twice as large as the first, it became known as Faerie Woodstock.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=272–273}} It also exhibited an increasing influence from the U.S. [[Paganism|pagan]] movement, as Faeries incorporated elements from Evans' ''Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture'' and [[Starhawk]]'s ''[[The Spiral Dance]]'' into their practices.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=272}} At that gathering, Dennis Melba'son presented a shawl that he had created with a crocheted depiction of the Northwest European Iron Age deity [[Cernunnos]] on it; the shawl became an important symbol of the Faeries, and would be sent from gathering to gathering over subsequent decades.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=273}} There, Hay publicly revealed the founding trio's desire for the creation of a permanent residential Faery community, where they could grow their own crops and thus live self-sustainably. This project would involve setting up a non-profit corporation to purchase property under a community land trust with tax-exempt status. They were partly inspired by a pre-existing gay collective in rural Tennessee, Short Mountain.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=273–275}}

In 1980, Walker secretly formed the "Faerie Fascist Police" to combat "Faerie fascism" and "power-tripping" within the Faeries. He specifically targeted Hay: "I recruited people to spy on Harry and see when he was manipulating people, so we could undo his undermining of the scene."{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=275}}

At a winter 1980 gathering in southern Oregon designed to discuss acquiring land for a Faerie sanctuary, a newcomer to the group, coached by Walker, confronted Harry about the power dynamics within the core circle. In the ensuing conflict, the core circle splintered. Plans for the land sanctuary stalled and a separate circle formed.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=277–78}} The core circle made an attempt to reconcile, but at a meeting that came to be known as "Bloody Sunday", Kilhefner quit, accusing Hay and Burnside of "power tripping", while Walker resigned.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|pp=282–83}} Walker and Kilhefner formed a new Los Angeles-based gay spiritual group called Treeroots which promoted a form of rural gay consciousness associated with Jungian psychology and [[ceremonial magic]].{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=284}} However, despite the division among its founders, the Radical Faerie movement continued to grow, largely as a result of its egalitarian structure, with many participants being unaware of the squabbles.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=285}} Hay himself continued to be welcomed at gatherings, coming to be seen as an [[wikt:statesman|elder statesman]] in the movement.{{sfn|Timmons|1990|p=288}}