Hope Along the Wind: A Film About the Sussex Man who Started Two Queer Revolutions in the USA!

Gay Socrates talks to Harry Hay's friend and carer Joey Cain about Hay, the man, and the movie made about his life, coming to the Brighton Fringe next month.

Harry Hay (1912-2002) was born in Worthing. As an adult he became a gay activist in the US and founded the first Gay Liberation movement (The Mattachine Society) in 1950. He then went on to co-found the Radical Faeries.

'Hope Along the Wind...' is a lovely movie which sets this unlikely story in its historic context and captures rare interview footage of this iconic character in his later years.

Joey Cain knew Harry in person and was one of the devoted band of 'Loving Companions' who tended to the care of Harry and his partner in their closing years. For the 100th anniversary of Harry’s birth in 2012, he curated a major exhibition about his life and times in San Francisco and co-organized a conference about Harry in New York City.

Joey is flying from his home in San Francisco to present a screening of this movie as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival next month. 

GS: Who was Harry Hay to you?

JC: Harry was a dear friend, political comrade and gay visionary the likes of which we probably won’t see again. Without his tenacity, deep thinking and integrity, the LGBT revolution, at least as far as the USA goes, would have been a much longer time coming. He traversed many worlds, as Gay people often do.

A Communist activist and great music lover who was a trained baritone, he read long and deep in history and anthropology to find the hidden history of our People.

GS: Why are you bringing Harry Hay's story to the Brighton Fringe?

JC: Harry was born in Worthing, his birth house still stands, and we thought it would be a lovely idea to “bring Harry back” to this part of England, where he started out. This whole area is so rich in Queer history what with Edward Carpenter being born in Brighton, Oscar Wilde writing “The Importance of being Ernest” practically around the corner from where Harry was born. And that’s just scratching the surface.

GS: Why do you think conceiving of the Radical Faeries was important to Harry?

JC: Harry always said that the Radical Fairies was the realization of the dream he had when he started The Mattachine Society in 1950. The essence lies in the 3 questions he posed to be answered by both groups: Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? For Harry, the Fairies were about answering those questions and acting on the answers.

'Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay' is showing at the Fabrica Gallery, Tuesday May 8 7.30pm 

Tickets: https://www.brightonfringe.org/whats-on/harry-hay-founder-of-the-radical-faeries-124999/

Radical Faeries: Why Are We Here?

There are times in the history of our humanity when, suddenly, unexpectedly, and dramatically, human consciousness shifts. When this happens, historians are usually curious about how these changes came about. Who did what to whom, and when?

The development of an LGBTQI+ liberation movement is one such event. We all know there was a time, back in the dark ages, when queerness didn’t even seem to have a consciousness of itself. And then there was a time when queers were vilified and persecuted- even killed and eugenicised. And then came the time when one queer said ‘No!”

There is a scientifically recognised phenomenon known as ‘morphic resonance’ (discovered by biologist Professor Rupert Sheldrake) whereby, a puzzle or dilemma solved by one living creature is immediately more likely, and more rapidly, to be solved by another, regardless of geographical proximity. Maybe it is by this little understood process that historic shifts of consciousness occur. However, in terms of queer liberation, there must have been that moment when, not only did one particular queer say “No! This is not acceptable” but then went on to say “And this is how we’ll go about changing it...”

It is quite possible that the name of that queer was Harry Hay. He was one of the founders of the first gay liberation movement organisations in the U.S.- the Mattachine Society. The story of how that small group brought hope and then ultimately tangible human rights equality to a growing number of nations across the world is told in a short, gripping movie biopic ‘Hope Along the Wind’ coming to the Brighton Fringe Festival in May.

Interestingly, Harry Hay’s involvement at the inception of the LGBTQI+ liberation movement was not the end of the story. After the movement’s historic successful legal challenge of a cottaging charge, the movement was flooded with ‘assimilationists’ (who believed ‘we’re just like straights apart from our sexualities’). He stepped away from the movement believing steadfastly that having sexualities was one of the few things that queers did have in common with the mainstream. He believed that queerness gave us a unique window through which we are able to view society and that we then favourably influence society through our own individual cultural engagements.

He threw himself into research constantly asking his famous three questions:  “Who are we?’ , ‘Where do we come from?’ and ‘Why are we here?’

Following his discovery of a resonance with the Native American identity of Berdache or ‘Two Spirit’, he began to see queers as a tribe of magical spiritual creatures with a unique role to play in the development of human consciousness. 

As Faeries, we locate our own unique purpose by celebrating our wild and mysterious natures together in community......

‘Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay’ is showing at the Fabrica Gallery, 40 Duke Street, BN11AG 

TUESDAY May8 at 7.30pm. Tickets £8 & £6: 

https://www.brightonfringe.org/whats-on/harry-hay-founder-of-the-radical-faeries-124999/

Come along and say hello to the Brighton Faeries!