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Friend of Pride flag designer oversees release of posthumous memoir

Late seamster fond of gender-fuck photo shoots, wearing dresses and wigs to meetings

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Gilbert Baker, gay news, Washington Blade
Gilbert Bakersewing the mile-long gay Pride flag in 1994. Baker as pink Jesus at San Francisco Pride, 1990. (Photos courtesy Charles Beale)

ā€˜Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Colorā€™ 

By Gilbert Baker

Chicago Review Press  

$26.99    

256 pages

In his entertaining and historical memoir, the Pride flag creator recalled an early debate over which way to hang the flag for its inaugural flight. The solution was to fly two of them.

ā€œWeā€™d hang one with the pink stripe on the top and the other with the pink strip on the bottom,ā€ the late Gilbert Baker writes in his book ā€œRainbow Warrior: My Life in Color.ā€

ā€œā€˜We are a versatile peopleā€™,ā€ he adds, quoting a friendā€™s joke regarding ā€œtalk of tops and bottoms.ā€

ā€œRainbow Warriorā€ is Bakerā€™s deeply personal memoir which weaves together his process for creating an iconic LGBT symbol of hope, in contrast to the Nazi-era pink triangle, with his own struggle for identity and freedom. 

It opens with his difficulties as a queer youth in a repressive 1950s household, discovering love and sexuality in the Army and eventually blossoming as a seamstress for the early San Francisco gay rights movement. The work also details Bakerā€™s activism during the AIDS crisis, culminating in the creation of the worldā€™s longest Pride flag in time for Stonewallā€™s 25th anniversary celebration in New York City.

ā€œOne of the funnest memories was when he was doing the mile-long rainbow flag he was represented by a company called Stadtlanders,ā€ says Charley Beal, Bakerā€™s friend and estate manager, while in New York celebrating Stonewallā€™s 50th anniversary. ā€œThey were essentially a mail order pharmacy (during the AIDS crisis) and the corporate sponsors for the flag.ā€

He remembered ā€œall these straight peopleā€ at Stadtlanders pretending to be sympathetic to the cause while complaining about Baker wearing dresses to board meetings. Beale, who is also gay, is more conservative in his attire.

ā€œSo, Gilbert read them the riot act about Stonewall,ā€ Beal says. ā€œAnd how Stonewall was started by drag queens and trans people, not rich, white gay people down on Wall Street and said, ā€˜You canā€™t talk to me that way. You canā€™t tell me not to wear a dress.ā€™ He was furiously sewing when I showed up. He explained what happened and I said, ā€˜Oh God, youā€™ve been driven to drag.ā€™ā€

Baker returned to the meeting dressed even more flamboyantly in his best black sequined gown and Barbra Streisand wig. 

This empowering moment underscores Bakerā€™s lifelong struggles with gender identity, which is an intriguing undercurrent in his memoir.  

ā€œThe idea of a sex change had first crossed my mind in childhood,ā€ he writes. ā€œIt was more than just wearing dresses. I wondered if I was a woman trapped in a manā€™s body. Ultimately, I didnā€™t surgically remove my penis, but I didnā€™t stop wearing dresses.ā€

Beal, went on to describe that while the photogenic Baker would often wear long hair and luxurious gowns in pictures, ā€œhe would keep his beard and mustache.ā€

ā€œVery genderqueer,ā€ Beal says. ā€œI have photographs of him in some of the ā€˜genderfuckā€™ photography. That is a term used for people posing using very clear male and female imagery.ā€

While in New York for World Pride, Beal spoke with trans flag creator Monica Helm. He tried to better understand his friendā€™s femme gay expression.

ā€œSo he did not identify as a woman by gender, but he questioned it,ā€ Beal says. ā€œBut reading Monicaā€™s book, Monica felt like she had to have the surgery. I think Gilbert liked to express himself by dressing in dresses but he never expressed any interest in becoming physically a woman.ā€

For Beal the matter seemed relatively settled, Baker was a gender non-conforming gay man. But Bakerā€™s thoughts revealed in his memoir seem more fluid, similar to his ā€œversatileā€ decision to fly his flag in both directions simultaneously.

These historical gems and insights from Bakerā€™s memoir illustrate why Beal felt it was important for LGBT youth to go to primary sources and their LGBT elders instead of just ā€œGooglingā€ their past.

ā€œI just kind of laugh because Google is just so notoriously corrupted,ā€ he says. ā€œGoogle is only going to show you what (its formulas) decide you want to see. It keeps you in your silos and itā€™s terrible. Itā€™s not a reliable source of data for history. They should learn from their elders directly instead of just Googling it.ā€

Beal also felt the internet could encourage divisiveness and discourage LGBT youth while the intention of the Pride flag was to show ā€œwe all share universal values despite our differences.ā€

ā€œThey were getting it,ā€ Baker originally wrote after seeing the crowds gathered to witness the Pride flag fly for the first time. ā€œOwning it, feeling it as part of them, understanding the diversity of sexual freedom it represented for everyone: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, straight, whatever your sex, whatever your color. Visible, with liberty and justice for all.ā€

Beal agrees, believing Bakerā€™s greatest legacy is when Pride flags are used to create LGBT safe spaces throughout the world.

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Books

Examining importance of queer places in history of arts and culture

ā€˜Nothing Ever Just Disappearsā€™ shines with grace and lyrical prose

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(Book cover image courtesy of Pegasus Books)

ā€˜Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Queer Historiesā€™Ā 
By Diarmuid Hester
c.2024, Pegasus Books
$29.95/358 pages

Go to your spot.

Where that is comes to mind immediately: a palatial home with soaring windows, or a humble cabin in a glen, a ramshackle treehouse, a window seat, a coffeehouse table, or just a bed with a special blanket. It’s the place where your mind unspools and creativity surges, where you relax, process, and think. It’s the spot where, as in the new book “Nothing Ever Just Disappears” by Diarmuid Hester, you belong.

Clinging “to a spit of land on the south-east coast of England” is Prospect Cottage, where artist and filmmaker Derek Jarman lived until he died of AIDS in 1994. It’s a simple four-room place, but it was important to him. Not long ago, Hester visited Prospect Cottage to “examine the importance of queer places in the history of arts and culture.”

So many “queer spaces” are disappearing. Still, we can talk about those that aren’t.

In his classic book, ā€œMaurice,ā€ writer E.M. Forster imagined the lives of two men who loved one another but could never be together, and their romantic meeting near a second-floor window. The novel, when finished, “proved too radical even for Forster himself.ā€ He didn’t “allow” its publication until after he was dead.

“Patriarchal power,” says Hester, largely controlled who was able to occupy certain spots in London at the turn of the last century. Still, “queer suffragettes” there managed to leave their mark: women like Vera Holme, chauffeur to suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst; writer Virginia Woolf; newspaperwoman Edith Craig, and others who “made enormous contributions to the cause.”

Josephine Baker grew up in poverty, learning to dance to keep warm, but she had Paris, the city that “made her into a star.” Artist and “transgender icon” Claude Cahun loved Jersey, the place where she worked to “show just how much gender is masquerade.” Writer James Baldwin felt most at home in a small town in France. B-filmmaker Jack Smith embraced New York ā€“ and vice versa. And on a personal journey, Hester mourns his friend, artist Kevin Killian, who lived and died in his beloved San Francisco.

Juxtaposing place and person, “Nothing Ever Just Disappears” features an interesting way of presenting the idea that both are intertwined deeper than it may seem at first glance. The point is made with grace and lyrical prose, in a storyteller’s manner that offers back story and history as author Diarmuid Hester bemoans the loss of “queer spaces.” This is really a lovely, meaningful book ā€“ though readers may argue the points made as they pass through the places included here. Landscapes change with history all the time; don’t modern “queer spaces” count?

That’s a fair question to ask, one that could bring these “hidden” histories full-circle: We often preserve important monuments from history. In memorializing the actions of the queer artists who’ve worked for the future, the places that inspired them are worth enshrining, too.

Reading this book may be the most relaxing, soothing thing you’ll do this month. Try “Nothing Ever Just Disappears” because it really hits the spot.

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Books

Upcoming books offer something for every reader

From a history of the gay right to a look at queer womenā€™s spaces

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(Book cover images courtesy of the publishers)

Daylight Savings Time has arrived, giving you more sunlight in the evening and more time to read. So why not look for these great books this spring?

If your taste runs to historical novels, you’re in luck. When Yorick spots his name on the list of the missing after the Titanic sinks, he believes this to be an omen: nobody’s looking for him, so maybe this is his opportunity to move to Paris and open that bookstore he’s been dreaming about. In The Titanic Survivors Book Clubby Timothy Schaffert (Doubleday, $29.00) his decision leads to more than a bucolic little business. Out April 2.

If you’re looking for something a little on the lighter side, discover Riley Weaver Needs a Date to the Gaybutante Ball by Jason June (HarperTeen, $19.99). Young adult books are perfect light reading for adults, and this one is full of high-school drama, romance, comedy, and more drama. What fun! Out May 23.

Can’t get enough of graphic novels? Then look for Escape from St. Hell: A Graphic Novel by Lewis Hancox (Graphix, $14.99). It’s the continuing story of Lew, who just wants to live his life as a guy, which he started doing in the last novel (“Welcome to St. Hell”) but you know what they say about one door closing, one door opening. In this new installment, Lew grapples with the changes he’s made and how his friends and family see things, too. This book is fresh and honest and great for someone who’s just transitioned. Out May 7.

For the mystery lover, you can’t go wrong with Clean Kill: A Nicky Sullivan Mystery by Anne Laughlin (Bold Strokes, $18.95). As the manager of a sober living home in Chicago, Nicky Sullivan has her hands full with 10 other residents of the home. But when one of them is murdered, Sullivan reaches back into her past as an investigator to find the killer by calling on her old partner. Fortunately, he’s still working. Also fortunately, he’s got a new partner and she catches Sullivan’s eye. Can love and murder mix? Out May 14.

Can’t get enough of politics? Then you’ll be happy to find Coming out Republican: A History of the Gay Right by Neil J. Young (University of Chicago Press, $30). In the fractious political atmosphere we have now, it’s essential to understand how gay conservatives have influenced politics through the decades. Find this book before November. It may be one of the most eye-opening books you’ll read. Out April 3.

The reader who loves her “space” will want to take A Place of Our Own: Six Spaces That Shaped Queer Women’s Culture by June Thomas (Seal Press, $30) there to read. It’s a book about historically safe places for queer women to be themselves ā€“ and some are surprisingly very public. Interviews with iconic feminists and lesbians round out a great look at the locales that queer women have claimed for their own. Out May 28.

And now the housekeeping: Release dates can change and titles can be altered at the last minute, so check with your favorite bookseller or librarian. They’ll also have more recommendations if you need them because there’s a lot of time for reading now.

The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.

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Books

Gay author takes us on his journey to fatherhood in ā€˜Safeā€™

One man’s truth about the frustrations and rewards of fostering

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(Book cover image courtesy of Atria Books)

ā€˜Safe: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Familyā€™
By Mark Daley
c.2024, AtriaĀ Books
$28.99/304 pages

The closet is full of miniature hangers.

The mattress bumpers match the drapes and the rug beneath the tiny bed. There’s a rocker for late-night fusses, a tall giraffe in the corner, and wind-up elephants march in a circle over the crib. Now you just need someone to occupy that space and in the new book, “Safe” by Mark Daley, there’s more than one way to accomplish that dream.

Jason was a natural-born father.

Mark Daley knew that when they were dating, when he watched Jason with his nephew, with infants, and the look on Jason’s face when he had one in his arms. As a gay man, Daley never thought much having a family but he knew Jason did ā€“ and so, shortly after their wedding, they began exploring surrogacy and foster-to-adopt programs.

Daley knew how important it was to get the latter right: his mother had a less-than-optimal childhood, and she protected her own children fiercely for it. When Daley came out to her, and to his father, he was instantly supported and that’s what he wanted to give: support and loving comfort to a child in a hard situation.

Or children, as it happened. Just weeks after competing foster parenting classes and after telling the social worker they’d take siblings if there was a need, the prospective dads were offered two small brothers to foster.

It was love at first sight but euphoria was somewhat tempered by courts, laws, and rules. Their social worker warned several times that reunification of the boys with their parents was “Plan A,” but Daley couldn’t imagine it. The parents seemed unreliable; they rarely kept appointments, and they didn’t seem to want to learn better parenting skills. The mother all but ignored the baby, and the child noticed.

So did Daley, but the courts held all the power, and predicting an outcome was impossible.

“All we had was the present,” he said. “If I didn’t stay in it, I was going to lose everything I had.ā€ So was there a Happily-Ever-After?

Ah, you won’t find an answer to that question here. You’ll need to read “Safe” and wear your heart outside your chest for an hour or so, to find out. Bring tissues.

Bring a sense of humor, too, because author and founder of One Iowa Mark Daley takes readers along on his journey to being someone’s daddy, and he does it with the sweetest open-minded open-heartedness. He’s also Mama Bear here, too, which is just what you want to see, although there can sometimes be a lot of tiresome drama and over-fretting in that.

And yet, this isn’t just a sweet, but angst-riddled, tale of family. If you’re looking to foster, here’s one man’s truth about the frustrations, the stratospheric-highs, and the deep lows. Will your foster experiences be similar? Maybe, but reading this book about it is its own reward.

“Safe” soars and it dives. It plays with your emotions and it wallows in anxiety. If you’re a parent, though, you’ll hang on to every word.

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