SPIRITS - Miss Dixie’s Past Lives
WHY PRIDE
A XIMER history of the struggle
Eve
eve
According to the ‘good book’ of those who call it that, Eve was the first and only female on Earth for a while. She was also the originator of sin. Her weakness and inability to control her desires biting into an apple is the root of all evil.
The first female on Earth is the reason for evil. Doesn’t sound like a good book for a young girl growing up and trying to find her way.
We’re turning this story on its head and diving into moments in LGBTQ history that forged our path—the path of the seemingly endless struggle to obtain equality for all. To begin our journey down this path, we start with Eve.
In our version, Eve tells quite a different story.
It’s a story that might inspire young children to love themselves as they are, and for all that they dream to become!
But Eve is just the first, the creator of the XIMER (shimmer), a lineage of pain derived from the moment Eve was turned into a villain.
rosemary clark
rosemary clark
Next stop on the persecution tour we have Rosemary Clark — a passionate lesbian living in the Americas during the late 1600’s.
It was a time when a woman
was hung or burned alive
just for looking at someone funny.
The fight was unable to be fought in public in her time and the only option was to hide due to what is now known as the law.
Around 1636, what could be called the first American ‘code’ was drawn. It was a list of offenses where the death penalty could be applied, including witchcraft and sodomy. Everywhere you turned, if you didn’t conform, you were persecuted in the worst way - death.
This was expanded over time to encompass much more and grew more aggressive.
penny fisher
penny fisher
Our next stop is with our beloved Penny Fisher— a beautiful trans-female living in Germany during the late 1800’s.
It was in this time the first gay rights movement almost came to be.
Some consider this the true beginning of the current gay rights movement.
Unfortunately, most of the literature documenting this information was destroyed by the Nazi’s. This is why so little is known about this movement and most people consider New York in the 1960’s to be the birth of the current movement.
Around 1871, Germany’s first legal code was created. This led to the conviction of men for homosexual acts by way of a law known as Paragraph 175, aka the anti-gay law. It was in this time the roots for the upcoming rise of the Third Reich would begin to grow. Between the 1870’s and the 1930’s, though many were incarcerated and attacked in the streets, Europe itself was growing more open-minded. You have brilliant lights that shined like Hans Hannah Berg who wrote about her experience as a trans-female in the very first issue of ‘The Third Sex’— a magazine dedicated to trans issues. Germany was becoming known around the world for their studies on sexuality, so much so that the law was nearly abolished in 1929. Sadly, the law was strengthened and many more innocent lives perished.
Often times our progress gets pushed backwards, and as we know, the Nazi’s destroyed any semblance of progress Germany and a lot of Europe had made. But alas, we carry on with our heads held high and our hearts ever closer to being out on our sleeves.
Onto happier times, or so it may have seemed.
joyce pearce
joyce pearce
We continue now into the 1980’s with Joyce Pearce—a loving, hippy child from the 70’s. Finds herself becoming an adult during the invisible pandemic that swept the gay community.
AIDS was a pandemic that the governments of the world decided
largely to ignore.
It was swept under the rug since the main population affected was the queer community —a fitting punishment the case would be made.
Time stood still for those poor souls when they heard that one little word...positive. To most, it sounds optimistic, happy even. But to anyone testing for HIV or AIDS, that word meant one thing - death.
For some, they chose to fight to the end knowing the whole time that it would be horrifying and miserable. A large number of people chose to take matters into their own hands and commit suicide rather than face the torment, pain, and suffering in their future. In 1988, a paper was published citing the risk of suicide had multiplied and was 36 times more likely among those who had been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS.
Somehow,
our queer story has a wicked way of bringing back the same conclusion.
Whether it’s at the hands of hate itself or by the inaction of hateful, bigoted leaders, we have had to fight off death and face down evil time and time again. It is a constant fight for our mere existence and an equal place at the table.
Hate crimes and violence against our beloved and beautiful LGBTQ community have become so frequent that we don’t stop long enough to grieve before the next has happened.
Join us as we journey through the lifeline of our heroine, Miss Dixie, stopping along the way throughout time and catching a glimpse of what life was like for some of our queer pioneers. Watch as the pain Dixie endures when her brother is murdered in a hate crime, turns her into something else —something more...
Justice!
By connecting with her past lives and the power of their collective pain, we get a glimpse of what a true LGBTQ hero might be like.
