‘Hell Hath No Fury’: A Chronology of Genderfuck Insurrection
Hell hath no fury like a drag queen scorned.
- Silvia Rivera
The chronology below requires little introduction; the actions of all these rioters speak for themselves. Suffice to say that this chronology is a small attempt to address a fallacy in popular conceptions of insurrection—that insurrection is ‘macho,’ masculine, or that it reinforces gender norms. It should also address another fallacy in the commonly understood chronology of queer and trans resistance—the one that says “Stonewall was first.”
A note on language. Any terms we apply anachronistically will fail to reflect the ways these individuals and collectives identified. Moreover, we have first-hand accounts from none of these rioters, except some Stonewall and Compton’s participants. Since any language we choose for such a broad span of time, place and culture will be historically inaccurate, we just say genderfuck insurrection. It has the nicest ring to our ears.
Genderfuck is an active term; it speaks of a force that acts upon gender normality. This is more interesting to us than other terms that are passive and speak of identity, which attempt to freeze and quarantine gender transgression into special individuals.
Our tour begins in Greece, the cradle of democracy and the location of the most recent massive insurrection against the false hope of democracy…
390 – Thessalonica, Greece. Butheric, the commander of the militia, arrested a popular circus performer under a new law that punished “male effeminacy.” The people of Thessalonica, who loved the performer, rose up in rebellion and killed Burtheric. In response to the insurrection, authorities rounded up and massacred three thousand people.
1250 – Southern France. A small crowd of cross-dressed males pranced into the home of a wealthy landowner. They sang “We take one and give back a hundred,” and ignored the protestations of the lady of the house as they looted the estate of every possession.
1450-51 – Cade’s Rebellion in Kent & Essex, England. Led by the “servants of the Queen of the Fairies,” the peasants broke into the Duke of Buckingham’s land and took his bucks and does.
1530 – ‘New Spain.’ During his campaign of conquest against communities of resistance in western portions of “New Spain,” Spanish conquistador Nuño de Guzmán wrote of a battle. The very last indigenous warrior taken prisoner after the battle was, in the conquistador’s words, “a man in the habit of a woman” who had “fought most courageously.”
16th century – Europe. Urban carnivals throughout Europe integrated cross-dressing and masks as key elements. The festivals were organized by societies of unmarried ‘men’ with trans personalities. They were called the Abbeys of Misrule, Abbots of Unreason, ‘Mére Folle and her children,’ and others. During festival, they would ‘hold court’ with mock marriages and issue coins to the crowds. They made fun of the government, critiqued the clergy, and protested war and the high cost of bread.
1629 – Essex, England. Grain riot led by ‘Captain’ Alice, who was trans.
1630 – Dijon, France. Mére Folle and her Infanterie went beyond throwing carnivals and mocking elites. They led an uprising against royal tax officers. As a result, a furious royal edict abolished the Abbey of Misrule.
1631 – England. Riots again enclosure led by ‘Lady Skimmington’ drag mob.
1645 – Montpellier, France. Tax revolt led by La Branlaire, who was called by a term for masculine women.
1720 – The Caribbean Sea. Untold numbers of trans pirates sailed across the open seas in the Golden Age of Piracy. It was not altogether uncommon at the time for “women” to “pass as men” while sailing in the navy, on mercantile ships, and as pirates. The two most well-known trans pirates of the era are Read and Bonn. They sailed together with Captain John Rackham, and their stories are known from when they were put on trial for piracy. They were said to be the most fierce and courageous fighters in their crew. Like most pirates, they were faggots.
1725 – Covent Garden Molly House Rebellion, London, England. Since 1707, the Societies for the Reformation of Manners carried out systematic attacks on London’s queer underground. More than 20 “molly houses” were raided by police in London and many “mollies” (mtfs) publicly dragged and hung for cross-dressing. But on one day in 1725, the police attempted a raid of a Covent Garden molly house, and the crowd of mollies, many in drag, fiercely and violently fought back.
1728-1749 – Toll Gate Riots in England. “To cite but four examples, toll gates were demolished by bands of armed men dressed in women’s clothing and wigs in Somerset in 1731 and 1749, in Gloucester in 1728 and in Herefordshire in 1735.”
1736 – Edinburgh, Scotland, “the Porteous Riots, which were sparked by a hated English officer and oppressive custom laws and expressed resistance to the union of Scotland and England, were carried out by men disguised as women and with a leader known as Madge Wildfire.”
1760s – White Boy commons restoration movement in Ireland. The ‘White Boys,’ a peasant guerrilla group who called themselves ‘fairies’ and did mischief at night, were a central feature of the rural class war. They destroyed enclosures, sent threatening letters to elites, reclaimed properties seized by landlords, and freed bound apprentices. They were finally put down by armed force. Their spirit inspired the formation of the ‘Lady Rocks’ and ‘Lady Clares’ in the 1820s and 1830s, and the later Ribbon Societies and Molly Maguires—all were involved in Ireland’s anti-enclosure and anti-colonial struggles and all cross-dressed.
1770s – Beaujolais, France. ‘Male’ peasants dressed as women attacked surveyors assessing their lands for a new landlord.
1812 – ‘General Ludd’s wives’ loom riot, Stockton, England. One of the early Luddite Rebellions against the Industrial Revolution was led by “General Ludd’s wives,” two cross-dressed workers. The mob of hundreds broke windows, stoned the house of Joseph Goodair, a factory owner, and later set fire to his house. They destroyed the products in the steam loom factory, smashed the looms and burned the factory to the ground. The rioting went on for four days until it was stopped by the military at Stockport, and then broke out again at Oldham.
1820s – Ireland. The ‘Lady Rocks’ militant Irish resistance group active; inspired by the White Boys, they wore bonnets and veils.
1829 – The War of the Demoiselles in the Pyrenees. A peasant uprising against restrictive forest code in which the peasants cross-dressed.
1830s – Ireland. The ‘Lady Clares’ militant Irish resistance group active; inspired by the White Boys, their ‘official’ costume was cross-dressing.
1839-1844 – Welsh Toll-gate Riots, carried out by ‘Rebecca and her daughters.’ One well-documented instance was on May 13, 1839. At dusk, a call of horns, drums and gunfire are be heard across the western Welsh countryside. Armed male peasants, dressed as women, thunder up on horseback, waving pitchforks, axes, scythes, and guns. As they storm the toll gate their leader roars: “Hurrah for free laws! Toll gates free to coal pits and lime kilns!” These demands are punctuated by a cacophony of music, shouts, and shotgun blasts. The rebel troops smash the toll barriers and ride away victorious. They call themselves “Rebecca and her daughters.” The Rebeccas are active for four years in Wales, leading thousands of cross-dressed “daughters” in the destruction of turnpike toll barriers. They receive widespread popular support.
1843 – Militant resistance group the ‘Molly Maguires’ active in Ireland. Inspired by the White Boys, the word “Molly” was the vernacular equivalent of what we might call “queen” today.
1959 – Cooper’s Donuts Riot, LA Los Angeles, May 1959. Police attempted a raid on Cooper’s Doughnuts, a late-night hangout for drag queens, butch hustlers, street queens and johns. The cops demanded IDs. The queers fought back. Doughnuts and coffee cups become projectiles. Fighting spilled out onto the street. The cops, taken by storm, called for backup. Rioters were arrested and the street was closed off for a day.
1966 – Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, San Francisco, August 1966. Compton’s Cafeteria, an all-night hangout for drag queens, and hustlers in the Tenderloin neighborhood. The restaurant management called the police on a group of young queens who were being rowdy. A police officer who was used to roughing up Compton’s regulars grabbed a queen. She threw her coffee in his face. A fight broke out. Plates, trays, cups, and furniture were thrown. The plate-glass windows of the restaurant were smashed. Police called for backup as the riot took the street. The windows of a cop car were smashed and a newspaper stand went up in flames.
1969 – Stonewall Riot, New York City, June 28. The police conduct a ‘routine’ raid of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. They began to round up trans people, drag queens and kings to be arrested for cross-dressing, which was illegal. Hostility grew and grew until an officer shoved a queen, who responded by hitting him on the head with her purse. The crowd became fierce. Cops were pelted, first with coins and then with bottles and stones. When a bull-dyke resisting arrest called to the crowd for support, the situation exploded. The crowd tried to topple the paddy wagon while the police vehicles got their tires slashed. The crowd, already throwing beer bottles, discovered a cache of bricks at a construction site. Cops were forced to barricade themselves inside the Inn. Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. Rioters ripped up a parking meter and used it as a battering ram. The mob lit garbage on fire and sent it through the broken windows; squirted lighter fluid inside and lit it. Riot police arrived on the scene, but were unable to regain control of the situation. Drag queens danced a conga line and sang songs amidst the street fighting to mock the inability of the police to re-establish order. The rioting continued until dawn, and for the next four days. Crowds filled the streets and smashed more cop cars, set more fires, and looted stores.
1970 – New York City. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, veterans of the Stonewall riots, formed the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). Marsha and Sylvia opened the STAR house for homeless drag queens and runaway queer youth to stay in. The house mothers hustled to pay rent so their kids wouldn’t have to. The youth, in turn, stole food to bring home. STAR linked up with the Young Lords, a revolutionary Puerto Rican group, and with the Black Panther Party.
Hell hath no fury like a drag queen scorned. – Silvia Rivera
The chronology below requires little introduction; the actions of all these rioters speak for themselves. Suffice to say that this chronology is a small attempt to address a fallacy in popular conceptions of insurrection—that insurrection is ‘macho,’ masculine, or that it reinforces gender norms. It should also address another fallacy in the commonly understood chronology of queer and trans resistance—the one that says “Stonewall was first.”
A note on language. Any terms we apply anachronistically will fail to reflect the ways these individuals and collectives identified. Moreover, we have first-hand accounts from none of these rioters, except some Stonewall and Compton’s participants. Since any language we choose for such a broad span of time, place and culture will be historically inaccurate, we just say genderfuck insurrection. It has the nicest ring to our ears.
Genderfuck is an active term; it speaks of a force that acts upon gender normality. This is more interesting to us than other terms that are passive and speak of identity, which attempt to freeze and quarantine gender transgression into special individuals.
Our tour begins in Greece, the cradle of democracy and the location of the most recent massive insurrection against the false hope of democracy…
390 – Thessalonica, Greece. Butheric, the commander of the militia, arrested a popular circus performer under a new law that punished “male effeminacy.” The people of Thessalonica, who loved the performer, rose up in rebellion and killed Burtheric. In response to the insurrection, authorities rounded up and massacred three thousand people.
1250 – Southern France. A small crowd of cross-dressed males pranced into the home of a wealthy landowner. They sang “We take one and give back a hundred,” and ignored the protestations of the lady of the house as they looted the estate of every possession.
1450-51 – Cade’s Rebellion in Kent & Essex, England. Led by the “servants of the Queen of the Fairies,” the peasants broke into the Duke of Buckingham’s land and took his bucks and does.
1530 – ‘New Spain.’ During his campaign of conquest against communities of resistance in western portions of “New Spain,” Spanish conquistador Nuño de Guzmán wrote of a battle. The very last indigenous warrior taken prisoner after the battle was, in the conquistador’s words, “a man in the habit of a woman” who had “fought most courageously.”
Later Middle Ages to 16th century, Europe. Urban carnivals throughout Europe integrated cross-dressing and masks as key elements. The festivals were organized by societies of unmarried ‘men’ with trans personalities. They were called the Abbeys of Misrule, Abbots of Unreason, ‘Mére Folle and her children,’ and others. During festival, they would ‘hold court’ with mock marriages and issue coins to the crowds. They made fun of the government, critiqued the clergy, and protested war and the high cost of bread.
1629 – Essex, England. Grain riot led by ‘Captain’ Alice, who was trans.
1630 – Dijon, France. Mére Folle and her Infanterie went beyond throwing carnivals and mocking elites. They led an uprising against royal tax officers. As a result, a furious royal edict abolished the Abbey of Misrule.
1631 – England. Riots again enclosure led by ‘Lady Skimmington’ drag mob.
1645 – Montpellier, France. Tax revolt led by La Branlaire, who was called by a term for masculine women.
1720 – The Caribbean Sea. Untold numbers of trans pirates sailed across the open seas in the Golden Age of Piracy. It was not altogether uncommon at the time for “women” to “pass as men” while sailing in the navy, on mercantile ships, and as pirates. The two most well-known trans pirates of the era are Read and Bonn. They sailed together with Captain John Rackham, and their stories are known from when they were put on trial for piracy. They were said to be the most fierce and courageous fighters in their crew. Like most pirates, they were faggots.
1725 – Covent Garden Molly House Rebellion, London, England. Since 1707, the Societies for the Reformation of Manners carried out systematic attacks on London’s queer underground. More than 20 “molly houses” were raided by police in London and many “mollies” (mtfs) publicly dragged and hung for cross-dressing. But on one day in 1725, the police attempted a raid of a Covent Garden molly house, and the crowd of mollies, many in drag, fiercely and violently fought back.
1728-1749 – Toll Gate Riots in England. “To cite but four examples, toll gates were demolished by bands of armed men dressed in women’s clothing and wigs in Somerset in 1731 and 1749, in Gloucester in 1728 and in Herefordshire in 1735.”
1736 – Edinburgh, Scotland, “the Porteous Riots, which were sparked by a hated English officer and oppressive custom laws and expressed resistance to the union of Scotland and England, were carried out by men disguised as women and with a leader known as Madge Wildfire.”
1760s – White Boy commons restoration movement in Ireland. The ‘White Boys,’ a peasant guerrilla group who called themselves ‘fairies’ and did mischief at night, were a central feature of the rural class war. They destroyed enclosures, sent threatening letters to elites, reclaimed properties seized by landlords, and freed bound apprentices. They were finally put down by armed force. Their spirit inspired the formation of the ‘Lady Rocks’ and ‘Lady Clares’ in the 1820s and 1830s, and the later Ribbon Societies and Molly Maguires—all were involved in Ireland’s anti-enclosure and anti-colonial struggles and all cross-dressed.
1770s – Beaujolais, France. ‘Male’ peasants dressed as women attacked surveyors assessing their lands for a new landlord.
1812 – ‘General Ludd’s wives’ loom riot, Stockton, England. One of the early Luddite Rebellions against the Industrial Revolution was led by “General Ludd’s wives,” two cross-dressed workers. The mob of hundreds broke windows, stoned the house of Joseph Goodair, a factory owner, and later set fire to his house. They destroyed the products in the steam loom factory, smashed the looms and burned the factory to the ground. The rioting went on for four days until it was stopped by the military at Stockport, and then broke out again at Oldham.
1820s – Ireland. The ‘Lady Rocks’ militant Irish resistance group active; inspired by the White Boys, they wore bonnets and veils.
1829 – The War of the Demoiselles in the Pyrenees. A peasant uprising against restrictive forest code in which the peasants cross-dressed.
1830s – Ireland. The ‘Lady Clares’ militant Irish resistance group active; inspired by the White Boys, their ‘official’ costume was cross-dressing.
1839-1844 – Welsh Toll-gate Riots, carried out by ‘Rebecca and her daughters.’ One well-documented instance was on May 13, 1839. At dusk, a call of horns, drums and gunfire are be heard across the western Welsh countryside. Armed male peasants, dressed as women, thunder up on horseback, waving pitchforks, axes, scythes, and guns. As they storm the toll gate their leader roars: “Hurrah for free laws! Toll gates free to coal pits and lime kilns!” These demands are punctuated by a cacophony of music, shouts, and shotgun blasts. The rebel troops smash the toll barriers and ride away victorious. They call themselves “Rebecca and her daughters.” The Rebeccas are active for four years in Wales, leading thousands of cross-dressed “daughters” in the destruction of turnpike toll barriers. They receive widespread popular support.
1843 – Militant resistance group the ‘Molly Maguires’ active in Ireland. Inspired by the White Boys, the word “Molly” was the vernacular equivalent of what we might call “queen” today.
1959 – Cooper’s Donuts Riot, LA Los Angeles, May 1959. Police attempted a raid on Cooper’s Doughnuts, a late-night hangout for drag queens, butch hustlers, street queens and johns. The cops demanded IDs. The queers fought back. Doughnuts and coffee cups become projectiles. Fighting spilled out onto the street. The cops, taken by storm, called for backup. Rioters were arrested and the street was closed off for a day.
1966 – Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, San Francisco, August 1966. Compton’s Cafeteria, an all-night hangout for drag queens, and hustlers in the Tenderloin neighborhood. The restaurant management called the police on a group of young queens who were being rowdy. A police officer who was used to roughing up Compton’s regulars grabbed a queen. She threw her coffee in his face. A fight broke out. Plates, trays, cups, and furniture were thrown. The plate-glass windows of the restaurant were smashed. Police called for backup as the riot took the street. The windows of a cop car were smashed and a newspaper stand went up in flames.
1969 – Stonewall Riot, New York City, June 28. The police conduct a ‘routine’ raid of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. They began to round up trans people, drag queens and kings to be arrested for cross-dressing, which was illegal. Hostility grew and grew until an officer shoved a queen, who responded by hitting him on the head with her purse. The crowd became fierce. Cops were pelted, first with coins and then with bottles and stones. When a bull-dyke resisting arrest called to the crowd for support, the situation exploded. The crowd tried to topple the paddy wagon while the police vehicles got their tires slashed. The crowd, already throwing beer bottles, discovered a cache of bricks at a construction site. Cops were forced to barricade themselves inside the Inn. Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. Rioters ripped up a parking meter and used it as a battering ram. The mob lit garbage on fire and sent it through the broken windows; squirted lighter fluid inside and lit it. Riot police arrived on the scene, but were unable to regain control of the situation. Drag queens danced a conga line and sang songs amidst the street fighting to mock the inability of the police to re-establish order. The rioting continued until dawn, and for the next four days. Crowds filled the streets and smashed more cop cars, set more fires, and looted stores.
1970 – New York City. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, veterans of the Stonewall riots, formed the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). Marsha and Sylvia opened the STAR house for homeless drag queens and runaway queer youth to stay in. The house mothers hustled to pay rent so their kids wouldn’t have to. The youth, in turn, stole food to bring home. STAR linked up with the Young Lords, a revolutionary Puerto Rican group, and with the Black Panther Party.
Tranny Reclamation Riots
.
“But trannies can’t be that scary.”
“Are you kidding me, robo-roids? They’re thousands strong…“
Rod Townsend sometimes receives phone calls from The Future, a mysterious entity that knows where things will be in New York after the Starbucks and Whole Foods have blanketed the town and then disappeared.
“Hello?”
“Zhe shi shenme? Is that you, nanonips? I must have hit the wrong avatar on my iPortal! I meant to call the police!”
“The police? Are you okay?”
“I was just having lunch at CNNZone in Times Square when all hell broke loose.”
“Is it a terrorist attack?”
“A what? … No. Far worse. It’s a Tranny Reclamation Riot.”
Communique from the Gender Liberation Front
London, 2009
Welcome to the struggle of all genders to be free.
We are the burning rage of millions trapped within a dying gender binary. The war against gender expression ravages our spirits and gender-free people are killed and assaulted every day. Gender Liberation Front works to encourage the collapse of the gender binary, to scare the genderstraights, and to undermine the foundations of the state. We embrace genderfuck as an absurd resistance movement. We show the enemy that we are fucking serious about destroying the binary they hold sacred. Together we have the fabulousness and genderjuice to match our dreams. Our greatest weapons are imagination and the ability to strike when least expected.
Since 1995, a series of mass gender attacks and has been unleashed on the genderstraight population of the world. All GLF actions have been kept secret, until now. We are finally speaking out to incite others to take action.
We’ve used soy to make kids gay, we’ve introduced gender-bending hormones into milk, and now the authorities have just discovered that the entire bottled water supply is contaminated with gender-bending chemicals. We aren’t finished yet, not by a long shot.
taking over the means of reproduction
“Let us abolish the gendarme” (!)
- Errico Malatesta, Democracy and Anarchy (1924)
which literally means, abolish the armed french policemen (agreed!), but the author also intended: abolish the gender (!)
fuck marxism: we destroy the means of production and take over the means of reproduction. we render our bodies sterile and give birth to aborted cyborg genderkill babies that live only in ones and zeros and dreamworlds.
the marxist dialectical theory of history is a mental masturbatory fantasy based on heteromonogopatriarchal babymaking. observe the similarity:
- man + wife -> baby
- thesis + antithesis -> synthesis
in conclusion, marx was probably not a trannie.
some cold, hard facts:
- 55% of corn and soy grown in the “united” states is used as animal feed in the production of animal products, 90% of its calories being lost before it’s consumed in the form of meat, egg, and dairy products.
- 56% of human labor in the “united” states is used in the production of binary gender ideology, 90% of its creativity being lost before it’s consumed in the form of male and female and unisex gender-enhancement products.
of Busters and Poseys
Gender advice for Cancers (week of May 7), courtesy of Rob Brezny:
Buster Posey is an up-and-coming baseball player for the San Francisco Giants. The poetic incongruity of his name is so apt a symbol for your imminent future, I’m making him your patron saint. According to my reading of the omens, you’ll be called on to be like a “Buster” — a macho, pushy, no-nonsense dude who gets things done — but you will also find power in being as delicate and lovely and innocent as the small flower bouquet known as a posey. Sometimes it’ll make sense to be one or the other. On other occasions, you’ll benefit from being in both modes simultaneously.
Though, as I recall, this Buster, from the cartoon book and TV show Arthur was a rather queer bunny.
In fact, Buster’s TV show Postcards from Buster featured a lesbian couple on one episode (click Buster for the story).
Poseys are also known as nosegays.
Crab Revolution
Cancer Horoscope, week of April 23, from Free Will Astrology:
This would be an excellent time for you to lead a populist revolt to overthrow the abusive authorities or out-of-touch elites who have been working their dumb magic for far too long.
It would also be a perfect moment for you to stop cooperating with energy-draining situations that undermine your autonomy.
The Age of Passivity is ending, thank Goddess. Launching the Age of Awakening may not be easy or fast, but you will attract extra help and encouragement if you do it now.
La Revolution des Crabes (The Crab Revolution):
Trotsky’s ashes stolen and baked in cookies
(repost, English translation)
Eighty eight years of the day Trotsky directed the suppression of the anarchist uprising in Krondstadt, a group of bandits scaled the walls of his former house in Mexico City during the late hours at night. We broke the lock on his mausoleum and we expropriate the content inside it: a silver large vase that bears the inscription of his name, wrapped in the red scarf that he carried around the neck, containing the ashes of the corpse inside. We replace with care the lock in the monument with a reproduction that was similar in the appearance and escaped into the night.
formerly a man, Trotsky is now a cookie
The vase along with its content then was taken far away to a place where the vase was discarded and the content (a combination of ash and bone) were baked in cookies. These cookies then were sent, along with a letter that explains our actions, to newspapers, to organizations of Trotskyists, and to the groups of anarchist around the world.
While we will not repeat everything of our full letter, briefly we propose to give new light to the idea that history does not end with the past and still a small group of bandits can give new direction to fights thought long to be frozen in the time. We want to expand the fight to include dead objects of the past that hold hostage us in the present.
Nevertheless, if Trotsky is right about the history, we do not determine anything, but we are only characters whose actions were written in the revolution of October. As was his destiny, coincidentally, to come to be a cookie.
The ones that receive these cookies have a decision. Through time, the act to consume enemies have been seen as a way to absorb their powers. On the other hand, consuming the body and the blood of the dead person as a sacrament have also been a form of worship. We would want to indicate that, at any rate, the result is always shit.
For those a little delicate, we have tried them, and although they be a little sandy, they are delicious. The green dots, by the way, they are just candies.
