RFD 202 Summer 2025 1 Number 202Number 202 Summer 2025 Summer 2025 $11.95$11.95 ResilienceResilience2RFD 202 Summer 2025 Issue 203 / Fall 2025 THE CLOSET Submission Deadline: August 15, 2025 www.rfdmag.org/upload As the world grows increasingly repressive toward the LGBTQ community, many of us find ourselves navigating renewed threats of homophobia, sexism, and transphobia. While our prior issue focused on resilience and resis- tance remains essential, we ask you to consider the role of “the closet” as a tool for safety, a means of controlling our visibility based on circumstance, and a space for self-exploration. For many, being “out” has been a defining aspect of identity. However, as bias and vio- lence resurface on a larger scale, some must now retreat to protective spaces. But how do we safeguard ourselves while maintaining our sense of community? Historically, the “closet” has been viewed as a place of isolation, yet for others, it provided a crucial space to understand their identities be- fore revealing them to trusted allies. It has also served as a metaphor for creativity—where we explored our butch, femme, S/M, and campy sides, where drag closets became sanctuaries of self-expression through fabric and perfor- mance. The closet has never been just about hiding; it has also been about shaping, refining, and preparing ourselves to step into the world on our terms. Now, without regressing into complete conceal- ment, how can we repurpose the closet as a space for both safety and self-affirmation? How do we balance the need for protection while opening our doors to those in need? We have faced repression before and persevered—what lessons from the past can guide us in resisting today’s challenges? As we approach Coming Out Day on October 11, we invite you to share your reflections—im- agery, poetry, essays—on the power of the closet. Together, let’s explore how to stay safe, stay seen, and stay strong in these conflicted times. RFD 202 Summer 2025 1 Resilience Frustrates Demagogues Vol 51 No 4 #202 Summer 2025 Between the Lines While much of the world seems upside down with war, political conflict and shifts to undemocratic rule as face ecological uncertainty, we wanted to focus on the role resilience can play in staving off letting go of hope as well as enabling us to find imaginative ways of moving forward in difficult times. Our readers really surprised us with a pile of submissions! Thanks so much to everyone and sorry we couldn’t include as much as we would have liked. This issue takes us from childhood memories of hiding one’s Wicca practices, the platinum anniversary of Folleterre, a reflection of a gay boy and the ladies who lunch, seeking sanctuary for safe space for healing and reflection, reflecting on past challenges in the GLBTQ community and how resilience at the time may reflect options for to- day, exploring a biracial couple’s journey trying to create a “gay town” in Nevada, people coming together through queer kickball and facing loss of a teammate, and the passing of two well know faces to many of RFD’s readers—Sequoia and Mo Hanan. This issue is also filled with some wonderful poetry and artwork to help all of us regroup, shine and shift forward. Speaking of shifting forward, we’re looking for your support as we attempt to shift some of our back issues into archives and libraries. We’ll be sending out our usual email with notice of our campaign to put RFD in hands of archives and libraries all over. Be in touch if you can help, we’re mostly looking for financial support to help pay for some rare issues as well as shipping. The crew at RFD loves to come together four times a year and celebrate our role in bringing RFD into your hands by cranking it out in breakneck speed but also kicking back to visit friends in the Upper Valley and this go around we got to give Matt a surprise “Happy Birth- day” while out for our traditional Mexican meal and margaritas, the limon cake was so tasty! From the Mill’s love puddle —the RFD Collective2RFD 202 Summer 2025 RFD is a reader-written journal for gay people which focuses on country living and encourages alternative lifestyles. We foster community building and networking, explore the diverse expressions of our sexuality, care for the environment, Radical Faerie consciousness, and nature-centered spirituality, and share experiences of our lives. RFD is produced by volunteers. We welcome your participation. The business and general production are coordinated by a collective. Features and entire issues are prepared by different groups in various places. RFD (ISSN# 0149- 709X) is published quarterly for $25 a year by RFD Press, PMB 329, 351 Pleasant St., Ste B, Northampton, MA 01060-3998. Postmaster: Send address changes to RFD Press, PMB 329, 351 Pleasant St., Ste B, Northampton, MA 01060-3998. Non-profit tax exempt #62-1723644, a function of RFD Press, Inc., with office of registration at 231 Ten Penny Rd., Woodbury, TN 37190. RFD Cover Price: $11.95. A regular subscription is the least expensive way to receive RFD four times a year. First class mailed issues will be forwarded. Others will not. Send address changes to submissions@rfdmag.org or to our Northampton, MA address. Copyright © RFD Press, Inc. The records re- quired by Title 18 U.S.D. Section 2257 and associated with respect to this magazine (and all graphic material as- sociated therewith on which this label appears) are kept by the custodian of records at the following location: RFD Press, 85 N Main St, Ste 200, White River Junction, VT 05001. Production Managing Editor: Bambi Gauthier Production Editor: Matt Bucy Submission Deadlines Fall–August 15, 2025 Winter–November 15, 2025 See inside covers for themes and specifics. For online issues, advertising, subscriptions, back orders and other information visit www.rfdmag.org. Visual Contributors Inside this Issue Artwork not directly associated with an article. Front Cover Artboydancing Back Cover Artboydancing Robbie Perry ................................2 Keith Gemerek.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Neecho Mosby (Artsy Nemo). ................11 Vojislav Radovanović. ...............15, 21, 50 Tim Tune. .................................19 Sweet Marie/Philip Hare. ...................23 Artboydancing. ....Front and Back Covers, 39, 54 Richard Vyse. .......................40, 44, 49 Ronnie W. .................................52 "Sprouting" by Robbie Perry. Mixed media: darkroom silver print, transparent oil paint, pen. RFD 202 Summer 2025 3 CONTENTS The Four Elements ........................Metaphor .............................4 Twenty Years of Folleterre— Five Stories of Resilience ...............Luna .................................6 YWCA ..................................Leo Racicot ..........................10 Re-sillyance: A Year at Faerieland ...........Fury ................................12 Resilience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Don Shewey .........................16 The AIDS Quilt: Resilience and Creative Resistance ......Murray Edelman .....................17 Between You and Me… ....................e.c. patrick ...........................20 What’s A Boy To Do? .....................Dan DeSantis ........................22 The Biggest Little Gay Dream In Nevada ....C McCombs .........................24 The Red That Binds Us ....................Graham Griffith ......................41 Passionate Outlier: Gay Writers and Allies on Their Work ....Leo Racicot ..........................48 At the Townhouse Bar ....................Bruce E. Whitacre ....................51 Sustain the flame .........................qweaver .............................53 Oh Marsha ..............................D. Scott Humphries ...................55 I asked him what he needed ...............Ed Madden ..........................56 Woman in the Grocery Line: ...............Nonbeaunary ........................57 Staring Death in the Eyes ..................Ziji .................................58 Remembering Mo ........................Mountaine ...........................604RFD 202 Summer 2025 In 1995, in a trailer park in Flint, Michigan, I was a twelve year old witch. Our family was too poor to give me an allowance, so twice a year, I would spend my birthday and Christmas money buying spell books from the Waldenbooks at the mall. Scott Cunningham. Silver Ravenwolf. Amber K. Raymond Buckland. All the Llewellyn greats. I would go into the mall bathroom, shove the books down the back of my pants, and head to the parking lot where my parents were waiting to pick me up. My mother is a born-again Christian with an obsession for end-time prophecies. “Jesus is com- ing back any day now”, she tells me. But when I ask her when, she quotes the gospel of Matthew—“No one knows about the day or hour, not even the angels in heaven.” As a child, this led me to perform a private daily ritual to avert the apocalypse. Perhaps it was my first spell. Alone in my room, I would proclaim to no one, “Jesus is coming back today.” If I could spoil Jesus’ surprise, then I could stop him from ending the world. In my family, dabbling in the occult was the worst thing one could ever do. Even worse than be- ing gay—my other big secret. Smuggling these spell books into our home was the worst betrayal of my mother that I could ever inflict. But I couldn’t resist. Magic was calling to me. It was my only real inter- est, and yet it made me an abomination. Once home from the mall, I would run to my bedroom, pull the books out of my pants, and hide them under my mattress. Later that year, my mom got engaged to a man she met at church, and we all moved into a rental home. My bedroom was in the partially finished basement, so I hid my spell books in a new location - above my bed, in the ceiling, where a hole exposed the rafters. As everyone knows, witchcraft involves a lot of shopping. Candles, knives, chalices, oils, herbs. As a preteen with no allowance, I did what I could. I stole candles from the supermarket; a serrated steak knife and a bottle of vegetable oil disappeared from our kitchen; weeds from the empty lot next door were harvested and dried as “herbal remedies”. All of it went into the ceiling. In October, my mom and step dad’s wedding finally arrived. The day of the ceremony, I spent most of my time hiding in the church kitchen, avoiding all of the guests. On the counter was a sterling silver cream and sugar set. My soon-to-be step grandmoth- er found me playing with it and said “Oh, aren’t these precious?” Yes, I agreed. Very precious. I eyed the sugar bowl, and imagined it to be a chalice. I could call down the powers of water and the moon with this bowl. After my step grandmother left, I slipped the bowl into the pocket of my Goodwill dress pants, and proceeded down to the ceremony. My thirty-four year old mother, in her black and white wedding dress and fresh tan from the tanning salon, looked like a raccoon wearing lipstick. The reception ran late, and my aunt took my brother and I home early. My parents returned even later than expected. They told us they had been digging through the trash cans at church all night. Looking for some- thing that had gone missing: a silver sugar bowl. The cream and sugar set had been lent to my parents by a couple at church. This couple had received the set as a wedding gift, and had lent it to my mom to use at her wedding. Worried that it had been inadvertently thrown away, my parents stayed late after the reception and dug through all the trash cans. I tried to keep my facial expression neutral as I imagined my mother in her wedding dress, up to her elbows in garbage, her transforma- tion into a raccoon complete. Little did she know that what she was searching for was hidden in the ceiling of my bedroom. Over the next few days, the sight of silver glinting from the ceiling sent me into a panic. If someone found this bowl, I’d be exposed as a thief and a witch. Feeling that it would be too risky to smuggle back to church, I decided to throw it into the creek behind my house, like I was disposing of a corpse. I returned that silver bowl to the element of water, where it belonged. It sank to the bottom of the creek and I never saw it again. Unbeknownst to me, the rest of my sacred witch- craft possessions would also soon be returned to the four elements. That November, my step father eavesdropped on a late night phone call I was having with another neighborhood witch. I was discussing my plans to become immortal by allowing demons to possess my body, when my step dad suddenly cut in and threatened to call the police. After I hung up, my parents decided that my proximity to the earth was The Four Elements by Metaphor RFD 202 Summer 2025 5 encouraging demonic tendencies. They pulled all of my clothes out of my room, and my bedroom door was boarded shut. I was to live in the living room and sleep on the couch indefinitely. On Christmas morning, while I was away at my father’s house, my mother unsealed the basement bedroom and searched it for any trace of the occult. Finding very little, she prayed to God for help and He led her to the hole in the ceiling above my bed. My mother collected all my books, journals, books of shadows, candles, herbs, sigils, wands, potions, and incense, and carried them to the firepit in the backyard. Unconsciously reenacting the Yule sacri- fices of her Norse ancestors, she burned everything that was sacred to me. All of my magical possessions now belonged to the elements of fire and air. The bedroom now opened, I went inside to look for any items that she might have missed. I only found one item, hidden in a different hole in the ceiling: a serrated steak knife with a wooden handle, into which I had carved runes. But like the sugar bowl, I was afraid to keep it. If my parents ever found it, they would destroy it. That spring, my parents took me to the com- munity mental health clinic to start therapy. I was thirteen, failing school, using drugs, and had developed a habit of cutting my arms. During my intake appointment with a therapist named Rose, my parents asked her, “Have you heard of this Wicca stuff?” She answered authoritatively, “Oh yes. I have.” Satisfied that they had found an appropriately Christian therapist, they allowed me to see her. But she had fooled them. She was a goddess worshipper and a Buddhist, and she had a pack of tarot cards hidden in her desk. Over the next few sessions, I began to see Rose as the only trustworthy adult in my life. One session, I decided to bring my magical steak knife to therapy with me. “Can you take this?”, I asked. “I’m afraid my parents will find it and destroy it.” She accepted the knife without telling me what she would do with it. At our next session, she told me that she had buried the knife in her backyard, under the full moon, near to what she called the “Madonna stone”—a large boulder in her backyard that looked like the Virgin Mary. As if completing a grand elemental ritual, she returned my last remaining magical tool to the ele- ment of earth. Like the Virgin Mary devouring the goddesses of the seven continents, the four elements had devoured the magic of my childhood. And like the Virgin Mary, who shelters those lost goddesses un- der her mantle until the hour of their return, I know that the four elements still contain everything that I have lost. When I touch the earth, light a fire, wade into a river, or listen to the wind in the trees, I feel that lost power returning to me. “the proletariat is enraged and rising” by Keith Gemerek. From the Faeries of All Colors Together gathering.6RFD 202 Summer 2025 As the sanctuary in France celebrates its 20th anniversary, the stewards asked me to write a commemorative piece for RFD. I thought that an interesting way to weave this issue’s theme with our history would be to revisit five moments when Folleterre faced significant challenges and found the strength to overcome them. I first arrived at the sanctuary in 2017, so every- thing I recount from before my time comes from one of our cherished elders, Junis. If someone were to sift through old newsletters and back issues of RFD, it might be possible to piece together a more documented version of Folleterre’s past. But in truth, the real history of the sanctuary lives in our oral traditions, and it is from that living memory that I draw to tell this story. With that in mind, I invite you to read these recollections with a pinch of salt. While Junis is my source for the earlier days, any errors in retelling are entirely my own. One more caveat: the views expressed here are mine alone and do not necessar- ily reflect those of the Folleterre stewards. Let’s begin. The Never-Ending Land Search Junis, along with Habibi and Trish Trash, was one of the initiators of the very first Faerie gather- ing in Europe. It took place on the Dutch island of Terschelling in the summer of 1995. Junis remem- bers those gatherings with great fondness, but also recalls that renting the house was expensive, and having just one gathering a year wasn’t remotely satisfying. Over time, a dream began to take shape: the creation of the first Faerie sanctuary in Europe. By 2001, the community had managed to save around €20,000 in a bank account, and there was hope that this would be enough for a down pay- ment to turn that dream into reality. Junis and others didn’t hesitate. They liked to call themselves “practical Faeries,” and rather than sitting through endless visioning circles, they were eager to begin the search. Alongside other Faerie friends, they rented cars, booked hotels, and set out to visit po- tential properties—all travel and accommodation expenses paid out of their own pockets. Their search began in southern France, but the prices were too high, and the climate was too dry. So they shifted their focus to the northeast. For three long years, whenever they could take a holiday or spare a few days, they hit the road, land- hunting with hopeful hearts. But finding the right place was harder than expected. They were looking for somewhere in nature that was isolated from the rest of the world. Yet every property they visited came with a flaw: neighbors too close, a road cut- ting through, a factory nearby. Disappointment followed disappointment. Just as they were growing weary and ready to take a break, Herr Vogel—a German real estate agent working in the area—told them of a rare list- ing: a secluded plot of land in the hills, surrounded by forests. Junis and a few other Faeries went to see it. It was the end of February, and snow still blanketed the land. The house was a bare concrete structure, ugly, overshadowed by tall fir trees, with garbage and rubble strewn all around. The front yard was littered with the ashes of burned trash. The whole place felt bleak and derelict. That night, they camped in the freezing cold, spirits low and hearts heavy. But the next morning, they went for a walk in the woods. They saw the valley opening below them, and then the sun broke through the clouds. When they’d first arrived at the house, doubts had gnawed at them, but during that morning walk, something shifted. They sensed that this seemingly godforsaken place brimmed with potential. The rest, as they say, is history. Drowning in Debt To buy Folleterre, the community had to take on a mortgage of €120,000. That meant raising about €1,000 every month just to keep up with payments. In the early days, that was a heavy burden. As Junis recalls, during the first three years, Faeries were either not coming to Folleterre at all or not in suf- ficient numbers. Only a few gatherings took place each year, far from enough to cover the mortgage. Back then, going to Folleterre meant one thing: work, work, and more work. The land was littered with debris. For the first two years, the Faeries hardly touched the house, instead focusing on clear- ing trash—old fridges, cars, washing machines, you name it—dumped in the ravine and surrounding Twenty Years of Folleterre— Five Stories of Resilience by Luna RFD 202 Summer 2025 7 areas. All of it was removed by hand, piece by piece, without the help of cranes or machinery. It wasn’t until the third year that they began working on the house itself, which was in a terrible state. Thick, greasy soot coated the walls. Wood- worms had infested the planks and staircase. The floor of the Friendship Room was rotten, with a gap- ing hole right in the middle. Entire beams needed to be replaced. The list of repairs seemed endless. Those first three years were the toughest, es- pecially financially. At times, it seemed the whole project was unsustainable, and the Faeries feared they might have to sell the house. But they held on, thanks to the extraordinary generosity of individual donors. One Faerie even emptied her lifelong sav- ings to support Folleterre. It was through these acts Early years, bEaT scrubbing the kitchen. Photograph by Junis.Next >