Exploring Our Queer Spiritual Roles with Don Kilhefner

Queerly Beloved

The LGBTQ History Project maintains that Don Kilhefner is the most dangerous gay activist alive in America. For over 50 years, he has fought to secure civil rights for LGBTQ people. Without a doubt, the fruits of his work have changed the world. He was a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front in 1970, one of the first organizations to bring gay rights to the general public’s attention. He co-founded the Los Angeles LGBT Center, which has become the model of all LGBTQ Centers around the world with a $172 million yearly budget and nearly 800 employees. In 1978, he co-founded the Radical Faeries, a counter-culture network and movement that explores queer consciousness and queer spirituality and is alive and well today all around the world. He has dedicated the second chapter of his life to the exploration of queer consciousness and his community-based psychology practice.

We start this interview by discussing the importance of intergenerational connections in the LGBTQ community. Next, we get into a juicy conversation addressing how heterosupremacy defined who we are based on sex, and now it’s time to re-envision who we are and what it means to be gay beyond sex. We explored the possible purpose and roles of LGBTQ folks from a historical and anthropological perspective. Two possible roles we identified are the altruistic impulse, and the cooperative principal which Don describes.

Don then shares the origin story of the radical faeries and the part he played in starting the radical faerie movement along with Harry Hay. Delightfully we get to learn some of the beautiful details from the very first radical faerie gathering.

We end with Don sharing his thoughts on what our community’s biggest challenges. This included a concept called "elite capture" meaning we’ve moved from a grassroots community-based movement to a movement where the elite have monopolization the LGBTQ community and it’s fight for rights. This shift is failing, and Don and I consider what needs to change.

This is a pretty epic interview with a very epic figurehead of the LGBTQ history!

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