He had a particular sissy style that resonated with me-- gentle, cultivated, and subtly powerful. He was one of the people who helped clarify for me the incredibly powerful role of sissies in the world.
Chris Bartlett remembers John Burnside
John Burnside (on right of picture), partner of Harry Hay (on left of picture), an inventor of kaleidoscopes and an important figure in the history of gay liberation, died on Sunday, September 14th, 2008 in San Francisco, CA of complications due to brain cancer. He was 91.
I really loved John. He lived for the past decade or so in a pretty little house on 17th Street between Sanchez and Church in the Castro. The house has clouds painted all over it. He and Harry Hay lived there together until Harry died in 2002. They were watched over by a group of Radical Faeries called the Circle of Loving Companions.
I owe my meeting with Harry and John to SF faerie David Smith who, one day in 1999 ran into me on Castro Street and said, "Do you want to come meet Harry Hay and John Burnside?" That was like asking me if I wanted to meet Ethel Merman--- OF COURSE!!
Read the rest here, on the blog for the Gay Men's Health Leadership Academy.
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