1992 Boston March with NAMBLA and Not

[anarchist of love]

The following report is published "as is" with minor editing for clarity in some spots. As well as emboldening text.

Note: I did another march in Boston but don't seem to have reported on it (?), where I walked largely solo while wearing a home-made g-string that had a FUNNY FACE drawn on the front of it!! This, while shouting slogans and stuff on my electronic loudspeaker!!

The report:
i want to speak up for my experience as an activist loud, proud, and gone not allowed in the NAMBLA Bulletin. (...)

This year's march in Boston's [gay] 'Pride' [march] was the second step in a powerful direction, i believe. Two [NAMBLA] members (including one Black member) took the risk to stand LOUD and PROUD with my "EGO" (why is "ego" so categorically Bad, anyway?). And is it my "ego" that is coming to the fore in my independence from NAMBLA?

One member in our march was even the [alleged] victim of [being on probation]--but that fear did not stop him!! as the Bulletin reported, i had the NAMBLA bullhorn (this was the one i bought for NAMBLA (? I don't recall that!); i later bought another from monies collected from my BL zine for my own use) and loudly ROARED (creatively!!) where no boylover-type has probably roared before.

Fellow NAMBLA members surely [called] me "crazy" for my actions with the bullhorn in Boston (like they do to many others who cannot defend themselves from categorical pronouncements, it seems: Like 'The Unicorn', age 12 and 13, whom used to write regular columns in the NAMBLA Bulletin, or those called "emotional vampires", etc.).

But let me say to you what i read [on that bullhorn]: i read passages and messages from the NAMBLA Bulletin and other zines of direct pertinence (like Minor Problems, the one-shot (?) Empathy journal, or the Dutch-based english-language Pan digest (which i understand is online somewhere in full, nowadays!), etc. As well as rhymes from my "ulterior personality" [Jazzy d.].

To the two members who went with me a second time to march --this time behind the gays' [main]stream newspaper "Bay Windows" [contingent]), being LOUD and "OBNOXIOUS" in the FACE of the cream of gay[main]stream society was a liberating experience. and i think that closet dudelovers, and dudes who like them, tho maybe taken aback at first (by our unorthodox approach) probably found energy in our LOUD and PROUD voice!

[Note: this part is just plain edited without "[ ]" mostly]

The effect of this bullhorn turned up as it was WAS a sight to be heard...and we were ruining the day of a community overrun by gay (read: homophile assimilationist violence).

Violence? oh, have you too forgotten all the men and dudes whose unjust jailings and tortures go unreported in our homophile brethrens' media--while their leadership, and thus their Trusting followers, FULLY accepts the scandalous half-truths of the Therapeutrick State? And all the adults and youngers who've killed themselves physically or emotionally/psychologically --(the term "turning" oneself "off" in order to "survive"comes to mind here)-- because of who they were born as...--yet NAMBLA elder members believe that our marching needs to take a "friendly" approach (read: without 'nerve', pacifist) within this fucked-up gay[main]stream community...

What kind of BULLSHIT is that? Honest history --i.e. read Bud and Ruth Schultz, Howard Zinn, even Studs Terkel-- tells us that every group of humans standing for their rights has had to confront opponents in their face and make them uncomfy with their mindset or things NEVER change. Even the Gay Mainstream had its Gay Liberation Front!!

It's one thing to choose, as a consenting group within an organization, only to use a quiet, academic-style pacifist approach, and completely different to coerce/push others--without even an attempt at serious communication of the values of a chosen path, all WHILE WE ALL RISKED OUR LIVES TO STAND PUBLICLY!

I for one think that groups which claim to represent a wide variety of people should at least be open to serious discussion with all those who want to do something more!


In the now defunct radical MAP zine Minor Problems --out of the United Kingdom-- they state on page 8 of their 1987 issue: "We do not subscribe to the middle class concept of 'avoid all conflict at all cost.' We cannot, because we are not middle class. The comfortable and well-to-do benefit from the lack of CONFLICT. Those without power are always expected to wear the trouble caused by avoiding conflict. And when such important issues are to be faced, discussed and resolved, of course there will be conflict."

I am not going to try to [further] divide us up by placing blame on [yet another] group of people, [however]. i think what the problem is is that it is basically a mindset and a 'Lack of Nerve' thing. The problem is, how do we persuade those [activists] "with power" or those who disagree with us that our method can be as important as theirs? How about by we who have the courage to delve into such acts of self-empowerment to take our own initiative. That is what my "I AM" zine is all about (where this report was first published).

i will say that NAMBLA's leadership-oriented agreed-upon method of marching works to a certain extent. when i first marched with them in new york city and boston last year, i felt pretty damn good--i was [for the first time] standing up and walking openly as who i was among others of my orientation!!

Yet, for me, that great feeling evaporated too quickly [whilst i marched with NAMBLA]; we were being ignored, our message was not heard (nor seen on our only official banner); people were shouting things at us that our leadership didn't seem to think [was] worth responding to [nor had they spoken to us about why such tactics might be good]...Finally, i felt that i wasn't doing as much as i could do.

Here i was, putting MY LIFE ON THE LINE and i felt that this was our chance to speak to the public directly, without media manipulation/censorship... --Oh, I had helped make signs in Boston [for marchers to carry; a group of "non-leadership" types had met before the march to do this!].

The local gay mainstream paper "Bay Windows" insinuated to me that these signs were what made us, as they soon reported, the "most creative" aspect of the Boston march.