Witchcraft & the Queer Counterculture II: By Blood, Tooth, and Nail

Cooper's  Do-nuts, Compton's Cafeteria, Stonewall Inn... many of us have never  forgotten the uprisings/riots at these historical sanctuaries by LGBTQ+  patrons against the state-sponsored violence against us. And yet the silenced  horror of the HIV/AIDS pandemic over the 80s and 90s still took from us a generation of elders after the hard-won liberation of being openly  allowed in the daylight. We still had our parades and eventually legislated the rights to marriage and wider "acceptance," but these liberal victories have not made us significantly more free; we still fear for our livelihoods, our families, and our safety.

For in recent days we must now remember and add to the names of our dead from the atrocities at PULSE Nightclub in Orlando and Club Q in Colorado  Springs.

We  are still wanted, outlaws, a threat to those who would continue to  silence us. Open violence is still being perpetrated against us in our  sanctuaries, "behind closed doors," where we revel in the pleasures of  being ourselves. And at the state legislative level, open attacks are  being made to disappear our trans and queer youth, and demonize us as  "groomers." We remain an unspeakable horror to many; plainly, they want us dead and gone.

We are in a war - a culture war, but no less deadly, for the body count grows.

As those who would call ourselves witches, we must stand with and as the oppressed, the dispossessed, and the marginalized. And we must fight. We do not have the privilege of remaining both silent/apathetic and alive.  If we wish to be truly free, we must continue to fight this war, take up  active resistance, and win!

In  Witchcraft & the Queer Counterculture II: By Blood, Tooth, and  Nail, we will revisit our modern history of resistance by remembering such groups as Queer Nation, ACT UP, and the Pynk Panthers and Street Patrol. I will  present charms, spells, and workings for magical resistance, a toolbox  for war-wizards (for we must be warriors and not worriers!). And we will discuss the need and how-to for both the creation of the Oasis and in revivifying our deviant gazes that we may  include, celebrate, and revel in the depth and breadth of our queer  wholeness.

There will be three scholarship spots reserved for community leaders without ability to pay. Email horseandhattock@gmail.com to ask for one of those.