Halloween: The Ultimate Homosexual Holiday | Views
Our LGBTQ community observes and celebrates a number of
holidays, such as Transgender Day of Remembrance, National Coming Out Day, and
Pride Month, just like other groups.
But Halloween,
"the great gay holiday," is our most celebrated celebration; it
predates written history and better encapsulates the essence of sex and gender
variation than any activist holiday. Despite being long believed to be a
child's celebration, adults enjoy Halloween, also known as Hallowe'en, almost
as much. Halloween has developed into a significant adult party night, possibly
the most significant after New Year's Eve, according to Nicholas Rogers, author
of "Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party
Rich Wandel, a gay
high priest of Wicca, told the writers of "The Gay Almanac" that
"Samhain is a time of connection to those who have gone before and will
return again. It is my favorite ritual, and we never let the students lead. Like
other Christian holy days, Halloween was adapted from a pagan festival, in this
case the Celtic feast of Samhain (pronounced sow-end).In "Another Mother
Tongue," Judy Grahn's cultural history of queer communities, she wrote
about Halloween's significance to LGBTQ people, who in many societies served as
priests, witches, shamans, healers, and intermediaries between the mortal and
spirit worlds. "Impersonating a spirit is the only safe way to travel
outdoors on Halloween," Rogers reminds us space, and hierarchy. Indeed, it
is the gay community that has been most responsible for Halloween's adult
rejuvenation."And who could better play the part of spirits than gay people,
whose customary job as priests called for precisely this kind of communication
with the afterlife? The reason Halloween is the most important gay holiday can
be attributed to the skills of imitation and the risky nature of traveling
between worlds.William Stewart states, "The LGBT populations have
historically had more liberties throughout the Halloween season. Halloween was
the one fairy-tale evening when drag queens could come out without fear, even
during the height of police harassment of homosexual establishments in the
1940s and 1950s. Beyond the historical or religious significance of the event,
Halloween appeals to the LGBT and queer populations.Our unique ability to have
fun, our propensity for genderbending and cross-dressing, our love of the
strange and fantastic, our ability to find humor in life's tragedies and
absurdities, our fascination with festive costumes and make-believe, and our
outsider status all play a significant role in it, in my opinion. LGBTQ
individuals celebrate and enjoy Halloween as a day and night when we may let go
of the everyday, dull, and dumb world and embrace our fun, exotic, and sexy
selves. For others, the holiday may just be a trick or treat for kids.