Feature

Ruining Burning Man? WTF?

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What is really ruining Burning Man? Is it being ruined at all? Every year there is a new source to blame. The position from this Admin (Toaster) is that Plug-n-Play camps are bad for burner culture. It is Commondification and those people cannot seem to grasp 10 Principles thinking. Yes, this is a blanket statement but the statement is against the general concept.

Will Pants (Right) Burning Man's voice
Will Pants (Right) Burning Man’s voice

When famous voice-box WillPants gets it twisted in an official Burning Blog he uses typical media spin to stir people away from the real issues at hand. He tried to use Virgins as the scapegoat… it is the dangling of the carrot  off to the side to distract from the fact that Plug-n-Play camps are a bigger problem for the event theology than wallets are willing to admit.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not apologizing for Turnkey Camps and virgins who may have mis-stepped … nor are we sweeping anything under the carpet. – original post by Will Pants

But that’s not all. We are not out to poo on the event or the people running it. Frankly the work being done by the Borg is a symphony. It is art unto itself. To manage and maintain something that has grown so much over all these years is magnificent. But willful disinformation just makes them look bad and while a lot of leader have progressed over time some are still in the 90’s Borg thinking.

We’ve been hearing and reading a lot about Turnkey Camps over the past couple months (haven’t we all?) and I have to say, I’m a little confused by people’s apparent willingness to make or buy into blanket statements and generalizations about Turnkey Camps, virgins, who should be allowed into Black Rock City, etc. – original post by Will Pants

There is well-enough naysayers out there. The embittered trolled on the Facebook Group to the fundamentally angry Burners.Me posts. Not a space we on Queer Burners want to participate in. We are looking for the Borg for leadership to help this culture stronger and better. We’re asking for more transparency and engagement on some levels. But truthfully we have something amazing.

 

Is Burning Man getting too Gay?

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Burning Man Gay Pride

The message that Burning Man started off with, the 10 Principles, are the same thing the LGBTQ community has sought from the world at-large as long as many of us have been alive. When a group of San Francisco based hippies are screaming it we believe it because the bay area has been the voice of independence and personal liberties for many years. But since June 28, 1969 we started fighting back for it. The messages attracting queers is:

  1. 08282012_burn-303Everyone is welcome
  2. No money needed, give from the heart expect nothing back
  3. Let’s get rid of the corporate bullshit
  4. Stand strong on your own
  5. Express yourself freely and honestly
  6. Stand strong on your own but a community is stronger
  7. Your community is stronger when it is responsible to itself and the environment
  8. Keep our world clean
  9. Get involved and no sitting on the sidelines
  10. …and act. Act now. Act up.

While these are interpretations of the official 10 Principles from the Burning Man web site the words are the dream of many LGBTQ++.

Demographics

See the data for 2013 and 2014 where we can clearly see a surge in fluid sexuality out numbering the self identifying heterosexual attendees.

“The largest percentages for the overall, male, and female samplings represented heterosexual Burners, however, for the group identifying as fluid/neither gender, only 17% of them chose heterosexual as their orientation. The overall data depicts the Playa as a largely hetero, but bicurious environment. The same was true for females Burners. However, the male population was largely hetero with the second-most reported orientation as gay, while the fluid/neither Burners were mostly bisexual and refused labels”. [quote]

The 2014 data was presented in much more detail than in previous years and put the details in a well written presentation. #demographics

The Gayborhood

3This space along the 7:30 corridor since 2013 is an attraction at Burning Man and an impact on the event itself. There has been a lot of information posted over the years under the category #gayborhood. It is huge! It’s a huge leap from the beginnings back in the late 90’s detailed here and on the Mudskippers web site.

What people are saying…

While the culture of Burning Man is that all their kids should be able to play nicely in the same sandbox many of us know homophobia on the playa in spite of the glitter in our eyes. But we have a huge gulf between ourselves and how we approach the culture we are a part of. While snarky queers look down their nose at the Gayborhood there are still others exploring it for the first time even with a lot of playa time behind them.

Burning Man is not a gay event. No, it is not. There is an undeniable effect on identity and orientation as people selectively explore the boundaries of their sexuality at the burn. There are more and more stories of gay men having self-identified straight boyfriends while out there.

While the diversity in our approach to our sexual orientation, lives and sexual identity are as diverse as our heterosexual community, snark and

all, tearing ourselves down or putting others down for who they are – is self destruction.

Burning Man Gay Pride

Conclusion

The demographics from Burning Man are amazing. We are a strong presence and more than what the census says. One simply cannot turn around without running into people who would be under the LGBTQ banner whether they accept the label or not.

QB Leadership

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Our community is expansive. We are part of the Burning Man community and by the latest numbers it appears to be somewhere around 66,000 people who show up in the desert and up to 200,000 around the world.

Where does leadership come into play with these numbers

  1. The Borg : The Burning Man Organization who are based out of San Francisco
    There is an annual event called the Burning Man Global Leadership Conference / Regional Contact Conference that focuses on major projects and community leaders.
  2. Regional Contacts : R.C.’s are official representatives of Burning Man who are volunteers who help guide communities all over the world and help protect the brand.
  3. Community Leaders : also voluntary roles where people take on various Burning Man related projects that are on all kinds of scales. They often are a source of leadership for groups.
  4. Camp / Project / Art Leaders : often involved in smaller groups but are engaged on some level with any of the above.

Queer Burner Leadership

There is no one in charge of anything related to the Queer Burner Community. The work through the Queer Burners pages is also voluntary and many of the people who are self identifies leaders in the LGBTQ Burning Man scene have also gone to the Global Leadership Conference in order to better engage our community.

Since 2012 (3 years) Queer Burners host Toaster has held a leadership conference in San Francisco. The Queer Burner Leadership Network operates under handle Quire : Queer and Fire. We have had great success at these events and hope to see them continue in whatever form they take in the future.

Who’s Who in Queer Burner Realness

Several people have been very responsible for helping make this successful. We have leadership throughout the LBGTQ who have great successes in their own areas but occasionally amazing people reach out past that.

Mario CisnerosA personal note from Toaster: While I have many people to thank it cannot go without mentioning Mario Cisneros of Moonbow camp who left us in 2012. He called me on the phone days before he left the earth and gave me the most amazing pep-talk.

He started the Gay Pride parade at Burning Man and was the host of the Offcial Queer Burner Meet & Greet which I took over for now at least until the mantel is taken over by someone else.

Kitten CaffeeOne of the earliest people on the queer burner train was Kitten from Comfort & Joy. He has been a fantastic ally in many of the projects initiated by this group.

08282012_burn-3033 of the Mayors of Camp Beaverton have also been fantastic partners in this process and that includes Bucket, Foxy and Glo. It was hard getting in and meeting this amazing group of people but what fantastic people.

Scott BeardetteScott Beardette from camp Conception has also been a huge asset and partner over the years. His ability to network, troubleshoot and respond to community issues is amazing.

1959620_614030481983786_1056781635_nCyndi Vee and Pink Pants from Gender Blender have been  rock stars in this community. Running the largest trans/fluid sexual identity camp at Burning Man. Not only that, has really brought it to San Francisco Decom and have been a great ambassadors for Trans issues in our culture.

A lot of thanks and love out to many many others as well. Catcher and Red from the Down Low Club have allowed us to host the Official Meet & Greet at the Down Low Club the last 3 years and were strategic partners with Mario too.

Ranger Sirius from BloAsis who has been a great asset to the community and has also been helping Toaster on some additional projects beyond the QB banner.

manAndEdAnd Ed Edmond and all his amazing people out of Burner Buddies who have also hosted the after party for the Gay Pride parade for… more years than I can count. The also hand out the official Gay Cards!

It is more than a handful of people. Because voices make up a chorus and that is what Quire is all about either directly or indirectly. Kelly Kidd from Mudskippers, Matty from Yes,Please, Tom and Matt from Camp Stella, Turtle from Coffee Camp and more more more.

When Brian from Crisco Disco, Chickpea – Cody – Blitzy – Coop – Poohbear … oh so many from Comfort & Joy … all these people are more engage they are bringing something amazing.

So what about it?

The people talked about here have been real givers. They believe in this community and are engaged and always willing to give to their communities; not just queer burners but their regional and social communities.

THANK YOU!!!

2014 Census Results

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2013 Census Results
2013 Census Results

In the 2013 post census report there was a radically different report when it came to LGBTQ++ people who attended Burning Man. It was more detailed than previous years, but one of the most notable factors was that queer presence was growing.

Not everyone wants to be associated with the gayborhood. In fact, there are a number of active Burning Man participants that do not even know the gayborhood exists.

  • there are queers who actively see out the Gayborhood and seldom venture beyond it for a variety of reasons.
  • there are queer / questioning that float in and out of the Gayborhhood to tap into that energy to get-off or just touch base
  • there are some that are just seeing it for their first time and may or may not come back
  • and there are some who call it the Gay Ghetto and dismiss the validity of the Gayborhood for all it is without rhyme or reason….

The gayborhood has, however, become an attraction at the burn. The carnival like, high visibility, feature inclusive has blossomed especially since 2012. Since the Gayborhood migrated into the 7:30 corridor we have been given a chance to really show our talent!

Below is a copy of the census report re:LGBTQ : to read the whole report click here.

Identity: LGBT

Posted by brccensus in Uncategorized

Black Rock City’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Burners are 15.4% of the overall population, but that data alone cannot paint the wider panorama that is gender and sexual orientation on the Playa. Remember as you review the information that both gender and LGBT status is self identified, and that these questions were asked of all Burners, not just the subsection of those identifying as LGBT.

LGBT
Of all females, 15.6% identified as LGBT, compared to 14.1% of males.

Of Burners who listed their gender as “fluid or neither,” 61.7% identified as LGBT.

Another Census question asked about sexual orientation, with options wider than just “gay, straight, or bi*.”

LGBTorientation

The largest percentages for the overall, male, and female samplings represented heterosexual Burners, however, for the group identifying as fluid/neither gender, only 17% of them chose heterosexual as their orientation. The overall data depicts the Playa as a largely hetero, but bicurious environment. The same was true for females Burners. However, the male population was largely hetero with the second-most reported orientation as gay, while the fluid/neither Burners were mostly bisexual and refused labels.

LGBTcomparison.update
If you compare Black Rock City to these cities in the United States, it is most similar to the urban areas of San Francisco or Seattle, which is representative of where many Burners come from, and where the event was originally birthed.

How does this compare to your (other) hometown or nearest urban area?

Written by: Tabicat
Edited by: Wendi Corbin goulette

————————— end copy / paste

Burning Man is a community event and we are a distinct and contributing part of that. We are a part of that culture. We are also Burning Man.

 

Plug and Play & Other Bad Things

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There has been a lot of talk about things that went down at Burning Man in 2014 that people got fired up about. The big noise has been the value of Plug and Play (PnP) camps at Burning Man and how they (generally speaking) have failed to comprehend the 10 Principles. The MOOP map this year was a clear example of complete failures when it came to those kinds of camps on the playa.

PnP Camps: Pro or Con

Gypsy Flower Power abandoned moop, Burning Man 2014
Gypsy Flower Power abandoned moop, Burning Man 2014

This year the postmortem came with a stinging post by The Hun that asked about a specific PnP camp called Gypsy Flower Power International; a felonious level badly run camp. Take a look at the 9:00 & BFE as well as the 3:00 and BFE areas where such camps were positioned and see the bright red markings.

This site already did the finger wagging over the MOOP Issue in a previous post. What this post talks about is the problems or PnP camps versus the virtues. We have a lot of people with too much money injected into the Burning Man scene without the slightest grasp of this sense of community created by Larry and his cronies.

As for PnP camps there seemed to be more successes than failures in that department. But the failures were pretty big. Travis Puglisi has been making a lot of noise on Facebook and Burner.Me* [link] in defense of that system. He makes his money off of that business.

It seriously pays to read these if you have any feelings on the subject and read the comments on the pages. The Burning Man blog site has had some great posts while *Burners.Me has been more the Fox News of the Burner Community I would definitely read their posts but form your own opinion before leaning on them too hard.

Burner Express hates Radical Self-Reliance

Another issue stemming form this year’s burn we could learn from is the disconnect that Burner Express forced on a lot of camps. People who rode on BE were only allowed to bring limited personal items and not much at that.

src: itsallmadeup.org
src: itsallmadeup.org

While if the rider was in a plug and play camp where all their needs were met they should have been fine. People camping on their own would have probably been fine. But participating in a theme camp there was no way riders could bring their share.

Word was that the Borg told theme camp participants that their fellow camp mates would have to bare the brunt of addition items needed to make the camp happen. While that makes sense on many levels it took away the individuals ability to do more than the basic. That also included taking out camp trash at the end of the week because the rider was only allowed to take 1 bag of trash and 1 bag of mixed recyclables.

Many participants had to pay a lot extra to ship their camp gear on containers from their regions which in some cases was rather expensive.

Wrapping up

The enigma of PnP camps and their growing association with the Borg since 2013 has been a mind-boggling curiosity that has definitely sent Burning Man down a path (along with other things) of commodification and becoming that main-streaming juggernaut people joked about for all these years. Somehow the spirit of the event is still alive in spite of it.

While this author hates the PnP camps and their effect on the event it is not going to divert the path of the bullet already in flight.

And Burner Express has been around a few years but became the only player left on the board with 2014’s change in strategy, but still ultimately provided an amazing service for a lot of people. It really is up to the individual who is traveling to make sure their sucks are in a row and that they are not the sparkle pony in the dust.

Ello? Is this the answer for Facebook?

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It’s not just jumping on the bandwagon when it comes to the #mynameis movement sweeping Facebook with drag performers and other people trying to use pseudonyms on social media. No! Facebook has been cheating our community for a long time.

Queer Burners on Facebook has had a Page for as many years as it has existed. The Admin followed the rules and created a Page associated with a personal profile so there was a solid chain and a solid respect for their policies.

  • In return, Facebook throttled our posts to 200 to 400 people max out of 2000
  • Deleted photos reported without any cause and limited the account for reasons that were never clear
  • Crammed ads down our throats
  • Gouged for more money at every turn without any return on investment
  • Lied about it or simply showed no interest in anything that ultimately did not line Mark Zuckerburg’s pockets

So the potential of something new and better is exciting. Something more in line with our burner ideology (10 Principles) than corporate greed makes something like Ello.Co [link] look very sexy.

What is Ello doing?

ello.coWe currently hold the i.d. @queerburers on Ello but unless you are invited you cannot see that that means. Ello is by invitation only and is officially in Beta mode but between burners and the fae community battling the #mynameis movement the roles are being flooded with networked  artsy types.

Ello is a simple social networking mechanism with a User Interface that is basic and nothing like Facebook… NOTHING. It’s almost like Tumblr at this stage without the fancy dress. There is a whole list of ideas coming and hitting the site regularly. Ello is the new darling of social networking; not social ad placement networking.

Articles

#mynameis

mynameisThe #mynameis campain [link]  is creating a crater or Facebook who snubbed queer royalty (Sister Roma Roma of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence) and others who represent voices of the community. Our Queer Community and voices of people who seek anonymity on the web.

Mark Zuckerberg called it “integrity” while the real bottom line is his ability to shove ads at subscribers and gouge for fees as noted above. Thank you pious white mail heterosexual established and entitled.

The End is Nigh

While AOL, Friendster, mySpace and others never thought their day would come their reality is a distant memory for most. AnyBeat.Com almost made something happen many burners remember. Tribe.Net still holds some distant fond memories but has since been bought out by Cisco and was essentially mothballed.

If someone got hold of Tribe.Net and updated the software, defined it’s policies and made it a little safer for public use [gear down the porn] it would be a killer on the social networking scene.

Yet, right now everyone is looking at Ello.Co as a fresh platform with no ads and a fairly liberal platform that really is – so far – conducive to burner thinking as well as fae.

MOOP: the word of the week

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Burning Man calls out a camp on one of the first renditions of the MOOP Map published on their blog and it is spawning a lot of discussions that are very important for the future of Burning Man. Is Burning Man devolving into a Coachella? Oh, that there is still icing for that cake!

MOOP: Matter Out Of Place: LNT: Leave No Trace: 1 of the 10 Principles

It does not happen very often, especially in these later Burner years, when the Borg calls someone out for their ultimate fail. Gypsy Flower Camp run by John Moonshine (whose profile says he is from Gerlach but it looks like he was from San Francisco?) left behind one of the largest messes seen on the playa.

Not only with MOOP, but it seems there was some unseemly behavior by the camp coordinator for his bad

Gypsy Flower Power abandoned moop, Burning Man 2014
Gypsy Flower Power abandoned moop, Burning Man 2014

attempt to create a plug and play (pnp) style camp that fell way short of it’s promise to people who bought into the camp.

Failure of the plug and play scenario seemed to be the permission needed for people who ended up camping there to leave the trash and other items behind. Read the comments on the September 19th post from The Hun (a member of the Playa Restoration Team) because there were people who made sincere efforts to make up for the failure of camp leadership but there is a stink going on here that is not just trash.

Poo? Human Poo? In bags left to be picked up by other people? Yes… shocking as hell to think about it. We have used pee-bottles casually enough and a whole new level has been reached.

Burning Man 2014 Highway CleanupThe article posted today sites trends of found items. They track these things in order to address them in future conversations:

  • bags of poop. That’s human feces, in bags, undoubtedly left behind by the people who were forced to camp along the embankments [quote]
  • arge numbers of broken hexayurt panels wound up littering the highway, scattering little bits of styrofoam through the sage. [quote]

180 miles of Deluge

garbage_final1Leaving the Burn every year there was clearly abandoned bundles of garbage left all along 447 heading into Wadsworth, running through Gerlach, Empire, Nixon that made one’s stomach turn. In our minds we may chose to believe that these were accidental, but the deluge was shocking.

Highway cleanup reports picking up “24 pickup beds’ worth of roadside detritus”. While the blogs give out props to some people for making strong efforts the results of humans invading the desert are creating an impact that is disastrous.

“My truck alone picked up 64 contractor bags of trash, 30 tires, 20 yurt panels and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff,” Ninjalina says.

~ Leaving No Trace ~
The Burning Man community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.

Conclusion

Leave No Trace is one of the fundamentals that allow us access to the Black Rock Desert and if it were not for the playa restoration team our access would have been withdrawn a long time ago. Seems like in 2014 patience was running thin, at least according to the Sept 20th blog post by The Hun, when “Highway Cleanup began out of respect for local communities, who were tired of their environment being littered with Burner detritus” and with good reason.

The argument of PnP camps impact on the community is an argument for another post. The failures at Gypsy Flower Camp is not especially shocking in the scope of things though the September 19th blog post seems to imply it was the most shocking ever seen. Witnesses in the comments section share similar failings of other camps, but anyone who stayed late on the playa will tell you (including this author) that Leave No Trace and self responsibility is waning.

Decompression

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What is your decompression? Starting from the moment of Exodus in anticipation of that 6 to 8 hour wait to get to 447? Seeing Gerlach ahead, the steaming hot springs in the tall grass along the road, a dead Gypsum Mine in the distance? The Default World was just ahead, past the curve in the road and down a long path dotted with rabbit and squirrel poop. ss

Before the playa dust has completely settled and our heads have stopped spinning, many gather in the months after Burning Man to “decompress” by taking one more communal plunge into the depths of what we found so affirming and memorable at Burning Man, sharing playa art, performances, theme camps, photos, videos and stories from the playa. We re-connect with family and friends, and collaborate to create new art. Decompression is, at its simplest, a reunion. But more significantly, it is a powerful way to bring Burning Man inspiration to our home towns!

– quote: Burning Man Home Page

There are a lot of ways locally and the the BMorg to make your decompression even better. Regional events will pepper the world and there is the wing-doodle big ass decom  in San Francisco in October.

How was your burn?

That depends on your level of responsibility with the burn. From Theme Camp Organizers to Sparkle Ponies. A theme camp leader is someone to be appreciated if that person was successful and led a camp that lasted the whole week without chaos let alone a single argument. 628x471Camp mates who appreciate that and are knowledgeable of the 10 Principles are ideal to that mini-community.

Burgins and Sparkle Ponies are the special spices in the pot and their success or failure really ends up being a reflection of their support network. While each person is responsible for themselves, we intentionally want our Burgins to succeed. Sparkle Ponies – well let’s just do our best to keep them alive.

And who watches out for “all the above”? Rangers and LEO have to decompress too. While Queer Burners has a lot of Rangers in it’s ranks it seems we added a lot of more swept into their ranks this year. So exciting!

So was yours the highs or the lows?

Where does it start?

Does it begin in the Grilled Ham and Cheese at Bruno’s in Gerlach? The Wigwam in Wadsworth? The Sand Hotel and Casino in Reno? Or is it after the long journey to wherever your reside in the world?

Burning-Man-ClosedSome us have an official chance, at least by Burning Man’s definition, soon. San Francisco Queer Burners are hooking up Monday the Lookout September 21st and there is the big one by BMorg October 12.

*Header image is the Comfort & Joy breakdown team.

Queer Camps Directory

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The AstroPups in front of BAAAHS 2014
The AstroPups in front of BAAAHS 2014

The Queer Camps list have been updated. With some reservation there are things about it that I struggled with when making it. The camps listed were from any list of any year I made in the past, BUT the landscape changes quite a bit:

  • not all the camps listed identify as queer
  • I know very little about some
  • and some are brand new

check out the new listing here at this link

If you have a camp you would like to have listed please use the contact form. Please include the name of your camp, some details and your social networking links.

Queer Burner History Updated

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One of our projects for 2014 pre-burn was to write a detailed history about LGBT Burners and how the Gayborhood came into creation. Along with it is some sordid history with the BMorg. It is all very illuminating and we find that some of those people who started the earliest incarnations of the Gayborhood in 1993 are still going.

Have something to add?

Feel free to contact the admins of this site through the contact form with your updates. Of course information with be verified and as soon as we can we will publish it.

Follow this link for the whole article!