there’s more to being queer than our gender or sexuality

Our ancestors have been trying to tell us…

there’s more to being queer than our gender or sexuality

the reason why the LGBTQ belong together is because of our spiritual nature

which is what monotheism was really trying to suppress…

“And if the vulgar and malignant crowd
Misunderstand the love with which we’re blessed,
Its worth is not affected in the least;
Our faith and honest love can still feel proud.” Michelangelo

“The fact is well known, (sic! If it was well known then what happened to that knowledge?) of course, that in the temples and cults of antiquity and of primitive races it has been a widespread practice to educate and cultivate certain youths in an effeminate manner, and that these youths in general become the priests or medicine-men of the tribe; but this fact has hardly been taken seriously, as indicating any necessary connection between the two functions, or any relation in general between homosexuality and psychic powers.”

“The foundational occupations of human life – such as fighting, hunting, child-rearing, and agriculture having been laid down by the normal sex types, it was largely the intermediate types who developed the superstructure. The priest or medicineman or shaman was at first the sole representative of this new class, and … he was almost invariably, in some degree or other, of Uranian temperament.

“His work, to begin with, was prophetic or divinatory; but this soon branched out on the one hand into rude poetry, drama, dance and song – what we should call Art – and on the other into elementary observation of the stars and the seasons, medicine and the herbs – what we should call Science. The temples became centres of learning and of the development of the arts and crafts. And a god who combined in some degree the attributes of both male and female was commonly worshipped in their courts.”

– Edward Carpenter, Intermediate Types Among Primitive Folk 1914

“The treatment of sexual inversion by society and legislation follows the view taken of its origin and nature. Ever since the age of Justinian, it has been regarded as an unqualified crime against God, the order of the world, and the State. This opinion, which has been incorporated in the codes of all the Occidental races, sprang originally from the conviction that sterile passions are injurious to the tribe by checking propagation. Religion adopted this view, and, through the legend of Sodom and Gomorrah, taught that God was ready to punish whole nations with violent destruction if they practised the “unmentionable vice.” Advancing civilisation, at the same time, sought in every way to limit and regulate the sexual appetite; and while doing so, it naturally excluded those forms which were not agreeable to the majority, which possessed no obvious utility, and which prima facie seemed to violate the cardinal laws of human nature.”

– John Addington Symonds, A Problem in Modern Ethics 1896

“There were two brief moments, once at Athens and once at Florence, when amorous enthusiasms of an abnormal type presented themselves to natures of the noblest stamp as indispensible conditions of the progress of the soul upon the pathway toward perfection.”

–John Addington Symonds ‘The Dantesque and Platonic Ideals of Love’

“There are men in every walk of life whose sensitivity varies from the so-called Don Juan, to the normal, and in the direction of femininity. Men of amazing virility, great thinkers, athletes, organizers, writers, kings, philosophers, priests, soldiers, and poets-men powerful in brain stuff and muscle-have arranged their love relations toward each other as man does toward woman. The varieties and the emotions of the human being are endless, and cannot be despatched in sweeping generalizations as to whether such relations be normal or abnormal, except in accordance with dominant current mores.

“The study of primitive religions shows that there has always been a connection between the hermaphroditic, the epicene, and the priestly castes, and it was the priestly caste which was trained in the gift of divination. In Mediterranean cultures one can suppose that this element of femininity was intimately connected with the matriarchal nature of that society and the worship of the female principle. However that may be, evidence comes to us from all parts of the world, and from primitive cultures as far apart as Patagonia, Borneo, and the Congo, that what has been called the Uranian temperament has always been identified with prophetic utterance. Among the Eskimos and the North American Indians prophecy and priesthood were the duties of the youths of womanly appearance and bodily grace. Therefore, it is not perhaps wildly imaginative to assume that the male medium of today may have a stronger component of what is commonly called feminine intuition than does his seemingly more virile brother.”

• Eileen J Garrett, The sense and nonsense of prophecy, Chap 18 You meet such interesting people 1950

“…all of us are bisexual in both our physical and mental constitution. When this bi-sexuality is highly developed, at least on the psychic plane, you have the makings of a mystic.

“Anthropologists have shown that in every society, from the aborigines of Australia to the Eskimos of Alaska, bi-sexuality and homosexuality have existed. In Tahiti_men who dressed and lived as women were, called Mahoos. The Sakalaves of Madagascar choose young boys who are pretty, delicate and effeminate to be brought up as girls. They are called sekatra. The Aleuts of Alaska called theirs schopan, meaning girl-like. All of the American Indian tribes had girl-boys and many of them were selected as such when they were children. The Montana called the deviate a bote, meaning “not man, not woman.” The Washington Indians called him a word meaning half-man, half-woman. All of these wore female clothing, lived and acted as women, and were tribally accepted, respected, or at the least tolerated. What is of special note here is that the majority of priests, witch-doctors and shamans were of bisexual temperament, if not openly homosexual.”

• Please note that the author here, gay witch Leo Martello who was an activist in the Gay Liberation Front (but left it to focus on teaching paganism as he found the gay activist world too blind to spirit) is using the term bi-sexual here to mean both male and female in one person. Quote from The Weird Ways of Witchcraft, 1970

“Throughout the ancient world, both male and female prostitution was associated with religion. Such was the case in the worship of Baal-Peor, Moloch and Astarte (Syria); Osiris and Isis (Egypt); Venus (Greece and Rome); Mithra (Persia); Myllita (Assyria); Alitta (Arabia); Dilephat (Chaldea); Salambo (Babylonia); and Diana Anaitis (Armenia)…

‘The religious prostitute seems simply to be a historical extension of the practice of having ritual sex with the shaman, either male or female. In tribal societies (where cities, temples, and money are unknown), we have seen the common practice of ritual sex with the shaman, individually or in orgies. As early Mediterranean societies fell victim to urbanism and a money economy, the function of shaman in the countryside was transformed into that of priest in the temple, and money then entered in as a form of religious donation. So we see how Gay history, the history of prostitution, and the religious history of non-industrialized societies are all tied together…

“The Christian oppression of women and Gay people was no accident. Their freedom and high status in the old religion made them prime targets for the new religion, which was profoundly anti-sexual.”

• Arthur Evans, Witchraft and the Gay Counter-Culture, 1978

“Out of the mists of our long oppression,

We bring love for ourselves and each other,

And love for the gifts we bear,

So heavy and so painful the fashioning of them,

So long the road given us to travel them. A separate people,

We bring a gift to celebrate each other,

‘Tis a gift to be gay!

Feel the pride of it!”

“Our beautiful lovely sexuality is the gateway to spirit. Under all organised religions of the past, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, there has been a separation of carnality, or shall we say of flesh or earth or sex, and spirituality. As far as I am concerned they are all the same thing, and what we need to do as faeries is to tie it all back together again.”

– Harry Hay, 1912-2002, gay rights activist and one of the founders of the global Radical Faerie Community.

At the first-ever conference on Gay Spirituality held in Berkeley, California, January 1986, participants were recorded as saying:

“Gay people hold the key to the next stage of human evolution — a world in which it is possible to cooperate without competing,” said a teacher of meditation.

“We stress that gay people are different and that if we deny this we become second-class nongay people — that is, homosexuals,” declared a Buddhist priest.

“We’re different, a germ of an androgynous tradition,” explained an Anglican scholar.

“Being gay is about being in the world in a different and essential way. Androgyny permits all things,” said a lesbian psychic.

“There’s something about gay people that goes beyond sexual orientation. All throughout history we’ve been very different from heterosexual people. I believe there is something about gay people that is profoundly religious,” said a shaman.

“A gay person cannot live an unexamined life,” concluded a poet.”

• These quotations come from Gay Spirit, a book of essays edited by Mark Thompson, published in1987 as the AIDS crisis was reaching its peak.

The conversation about the spiritual qualities and gifts of queer people needs to expand and fast, but it is already happening…

Where to find queer people embracing our spiritual history, nature and destiny?

Here: Queer Spirit Festival