Flutterby™! : Looking back at D&S

Gloria Brame posted her Keynote Address to the Leather Leadership Conference 2009 to Facebook (she had, of course, previously posted it to her blog, and I think it's worth a read.

On my Facebook feed, a 20 something acquaintance recently posted a "hey, any of you guys bi and wanna hang out?" Now I was a particularly repressed 20 something, but I'm trying to imagine that message in a generically public space in which people of all ages (ie: his parents, us, his peers) interacted back in the late '80s or early '90s, back before the Internet started connecting sub-groups and revealing critical masses of people.

Now, Charlene and I square dance with a predominantly gay culture, and in looking at the history of that community I see it forming as a "separate but 'equal'" sort of community under the extreme prejudices of the '80s, where callers who called for a gay club would likely not be invited back to their gay clubs.

I think Gloria's got some good musings on what it means to transition a community from the "other", the dangerous closeted spaces, losing large numbers to HIV, into something that's still got its own identity, but that feels inclusive.