GROUPS
luna 1.2001
............... w ...............
t’s an overcast Sunday afternoon. Five
women stand out on a deck in a Portland
neighborhood, lighter fluid and Zippos at
their feet. A cat looks on warily.
One of the women, Dawn, holds a burn
ing stick out in front of her, tilts her blond
head back and puts the fire in her mouth.
“Just close your lips— it’s easy once you try
it,” she tells Annie Otis, a new recruit.
Otis hadn’t known they would be eat
ing fire, but she agrees to try if only to
“add it to my repertoire.” She takes the
flaming stick and lifts it toward her face.
“Oh my God,” she laughs, “this is real
fire!” But she still does it, extinguishing
the flame in her mouth to the congratula
tions of others around her.
Eating fire seems to be an initiation cer
emony for the Lesbian Avengers. Come to
one of their Sunday meetings and be pre
pared for Dawn to coax you outdoors to put
a ball of fire into your mouth.
There is history behind this act, the
Avengers will remind you. During the first
No on 9 Campaign in 1992, a homophobe
threw a firebomb into the home of a lesbian
and a gay man. The fire-eating is an act of
remembrance and an act of defiance.
“The fire will not consume us,” the
Avengers chant when fire-eating in public.
"We take it and make it our own.”
You can decline this fire-eating lesson, if
you wish. There are plenty of other things to
do. This particular meeting is a work party to
prepare signs for the annual Dyke March.
A core group of six women make up the
Portland Lesbian Avengers, although many
more show up at events. They are excited
about this year’s march and encourage aspiring
Avengers to join them in the planning process.
Otis is on the Lesbian Community Project
board of directors. She says she had known
about the Dyke March in the past but never
had a chance to get involved until now. She
likes how the Avengers focus on lesbians, as
opposed to the all-inclusive Pride.
Well-known writer Sarah Schulman found
ed the first Lesbian Avengers chapter in New
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York City in 1992. She and other politically
active lesbians wanted to form an in-your-face
direct action group that would ensure the sur
vival and visibility of lesbian, bisexual and trans
dykes around the world. The Avengers now
have as many as 55 chapters, at least five of
which are outside the United States.
Sarah Barnard has been an Avenger for
four years, participating in the Dyke March for
five years. She says she heard about the group
in college and joined after moving to Portland.
She thrives on the “screaming nonconformist
dyke voice” of the Avengers, noting a need for
loud lesbian collectivism and presence.
Barnard thinks the women’s flagrancy
sometimes causes others to push them away
unfairly; she says the No on 9 Campaign
asked them not to participate in certain
events. “They basically wanted everyone to
shut up,” she says, which is exactly what the
Avengers refuse to do.
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Most of the women
who join are in their
late teens to mid-30s,
and the group wel
comes bisexual and
transsexual women. “Join us,” Barnard says,
noting that the meetings and work parties
are casual and direct action based. N o “Dear
Mr. Congressman” envelope licking here;
just loud, public events.
Dawn, the fire-eater extraordinaire, says she
wants this year’s march to reflect a diverse
group, from senior citizen dykes to the Radical
Cheerleaders. She says the march will feature a
large papier-mache cunt as well as homemade
signs. Cunt-shaped objects seem to be a theme
among the Avengers— they were able to fund
the march partly through selling lollipops in
the shape of every lesbian’s favorite sex organ.
The beer has arrived, and everyone is out
on the deck, opening paint and tearing up
cardboard. One women writes a letter to the
Oregon Citizens Alliance on her sign: “Dear
O C A , We fuckin’ won! Love, the
Avengers.”
The cat has to have paint washed
from its paws. The signs keep piling up,
yelling out in bold strokes phrases like
DYKE POWER and TO O PRETTY
T O BURN IN HELL.
If social change begins on the local
level, then it is here, on this deck on
an overcast Sunday in May. It is in
these women, here to paint on card
board, talk and laugh. In a way these
signs all say BEWARE— these dykes
have learned to eat fire and are getting
ready to spit it back. J H
The D yke M a rch gathers 6 p.m. June 16
at the North Park Blocks and winds its way
toward Waterfront Park. Come make signs
and safe-sex kits at noon June 3; make safe-sex
kits and be trained to marshal the march June 10.
Call 503-452-5408 for locations.
JESSICA C ittì is a Portland free-lance writer.
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