“International Bear Brotherhood”
Part 3
Excerpted from Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions by Ron Jackson Suresha, including additional original material unpublished in the book.
Discussions with:
Eduardo Chavez (Mexico) • Seumas Hyslop (Australia) • Xavier Navarro (Spain) • Marcelo P (Argentina) • Glen Purdon (South Africa) • Mali Sahin (Turkey) • Woody Shimko (U.S./Japan) • Justin Spooner (Wales)
Go to: Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 4 • Contributor biographies
Ron: Mali, can you tell us about the Kirkpinar episode? It’s significant because it made international news. I should explain here that Kirkpinar is the annual Turkish wrestling competition, which is done by muscular men in leather pants with their bodies oiled.
Mali (Turk.): Well, it all started out when we decided to organize a tour to Kirkpinar to just to go and watch the event. Four days after we put the program on our Website, it appeared in national Turkish magazines. The next day, the governor of Edirne (where the wrestling event is held) banned gay people from the event and [international news wire service] Reuters spread the news to around the world. Then the madness really began. Our Website was featured on almost every national newspaper and on national TV news. Yet only two reporters contacted us for interviews, and the rest wrote what they wanted.
Justin (U.K.): What excellent advertising!
Mali (Turk.): Exactly — it was excellent advertising for the event. The wrestlers and organizers used gay people for their own self-promotion. Later, the media started a hunt for Bears of Turkey and they openly said that there’d be a gay/Bear hunt in Kirkpinar this year. They’ll be the hunters, of course.
Ron: And they weren’t looking for dates with you guys, for sure!
Ed (Mex.): Hunting for pics/interviews or hunting for nasty purposes?
Mali (Turk.): Both. We decided to cancel our tour and not to go there.
Ron: This story made not only gay newspapers around the world but also Salon.com and other international mainstream news.
Mali (Turk.): Can you believe that the local media added a picture of transsexuals in the news story that they wrote about Bears of Turkey? Our site still appears on TV news, and they still ask if we are there or not. They didn’t believe what we put on our Website about canceling the tour. I’m sure that next year this thing will be repeated, as it was an excellent and completely free advertisement for Kirkpinar.
Justin (U.K.): That’s what annoys me about the press, they think that all gay people are effeminate, transvestite child molesters.
Ron: Yes, Bears get lumped together with other, dissimilar queers. Which leads into my next set of questions for the group: how are Bears viewed by gay men and lesbians in your country or region? Are the Bear groups well known and respected? Do you do anything in particular to promote Bear visibility among gays in your region?
Woody (Jap.): I can’t really answer that — I do know that things are kind of underground there. There are a lot of gay bars in Tokyo but no one talks about being gay. If someone is, it might be okay — it’s just not discussed. And other gays whom I know never talk about Bears, per se — it is just that they are noticed to be big and hige (bearded).
Ron: Do Bears there do anything in particular to promote Bear visibility to other gay men and lesbians? It sounds like they wouldn’t be so forward.
Woody (Jap.): I think it’s all in the look, similar to the US: bigger, bearded, overalls, baseball caps with a Bear logo. That’s about all — they don’t scream there.
Mali (Turk.): Our Bear group is very well known here. We did nothing special for this, but a tour to Kirkpinar. We’re well known but not accepted, not respected, even by most of the gay population here. Sometimes I feel like we’re completely rejected: by gay people, because we don’t fit their image; by gay organizations, because we are too anarchistic; by Turkish people, because we are gay.
Justin (U.K.): Bear groups are mostly known about in the GLBT community here. I don’t think the straight community in general is aware of Bears, although the whole thing fascinates many of my straight friends. There is a small divide between the general gay community and Bears, as Mali said; we don’t really fit their image. But we are accepted as another part of the community.
Ron: I think the general perception among GLBTQ people here is that Bears are just another splinter group. Although Bears are generally well tolerated on the outside social level, they’re apparently not well understood by other gay men and lesbians — they just don’t get what Bears are about. On a deeper level, I think the larger cultural emphasis on youth in gay culture puts Bears in a situation where, as hairy/bearded/bigger/older people, we’re ignored.
Justin (U.K.): We have as many old Bears as young ones here.
Mali (Turk.): Do you mean “old, hairy, fat, ugly faggots,” Ron?
Ron: Exactly my point, Mali. That’s how the rest of gay culture characterizes Bears.
Xavi (Sp.): Ron, that’s because of your [American] culture, not gay culture by itself. There has always been variety in this world and it’s up to each person to accept or not accept it. In the end, Anglos are very intolerant, in my opinion. In Latino cultures, people think, “it’s ultimately up to him.” We can gossip, we can criticize, but in the end, it’s all up to you. Of course some queens say, “Aaaarghhh, a Bear! Shave that back,” but we just reply, “Shut up, bitch,” and we all keep on dancing and having fun. That’s the one-on-one stuff. Organizationally, the Bearclub here is federated with all the rest of gay organizations of Catalonia. On our Pride Day, we do everything together. The Spanish gay press also gives us a lot of support because there’s a feeling of “all together, we’ll be stronger.” It’s quite cool.
Seumas (Aus.): I have a friend who went to a particular bar and was greeted by a young twink that said loudly, “Why don’t these Bears fuck off back to another hotel where they belong and leave us alone?” The guy decked the twink.
Justin (U.K.): The twink must have felt threatened.
Seumas (Aus.): Bears stand up for things when they get pissed off about what they believe in.
Mali (Turk.): That happens here sometimes, too. Not just by twinks, but by the owners of the places, too. We’ve been refused admittance when we wanted to go to a gay disco, or have been made to pay a higher entrance fee than others.
Ron: That kind of blatant discrimination is terrible.
Mali (Turk.): That old, outmoded gay image is what we (gays of Turkey) are trying to change. But I think we (Bears of Turkey) are the only group who has effectively and significantly changed this image.
Ron: How can you be sure that you’ve changed the mainstream image of gay men?
Mali (Turk.): Bears of Turkey and this wrestling tour event was listed at #14 in a national article of “100 Most Popular Topics in Media.” Nine of the first thirteen subjects are about soccer, one is about the earthquake, and the others are about politicians.
Ron: What does the article say about the wrestling event?
Mali (Turk.): I’ll translate: “The international group of gay men who call themselves “Bears” rocked the news agenda of Turkey. Some said, ‘It’s an insult to our traditions,’ while others replied, ‘They’re human and have rights, too.’ When at last we learned that the “Ayilar” are as burly as the wrestlers, a profound silence followed.”
Ron: Meaning that they all had to shut up because you weren’t the little fag-boys they expected you to be.
Mali (Turk.): Essentially, yes. The great thing is that is has opened up a whole new dialogue about gay and lesbian rights in Turkey.
Ron: Bravo! Justin, are Bears respected by other segments of the GLBT community in the UK?
Justin (U.K.): They’re recognized rather than accepted, although I think that lesbians respect Bears more. That’s just my personal opinion.
Ron: Have you experienced discrimination as a Bear by other gays?
Justin (U.K.): Yes, some people just think we’re fat old men. It’s bizarre how someone can think you’re old just because you’re a Bear!
Ron: Has being in a group helped you to deal with that sort of encounter?
Justin (U.K.): Sure, as soon as I heard of the Bear movement, I was able to deal with a lot more in life. It was good to know that there were others in the world who felt like me. Once when I was in a club, an extremely thin guy came up to me (one could describe him as a “twink”). I talked to him for a while and, at the end of the conversation, he thanked me for talking to him. He said that all the other Bears ignored him. He said he liked Bears but hated getting shunned by them because of his appearance. It was sad, really.
Ron: That sort of reverse discrimination by Bears is also very disappointing.
Xavi (Sp.): In Barcelona, we’re just beginning our specialization.
Ron: Ed, why don’t you tell us about your recent Pride Day event?
Ed (Mex.): This year was the first time ever that a Bear organization attended gay pride. To many Mexicans the gay pride event is like a gay costume parade, so we were typecast by some as “gays in Bear costumes,” yet to the gay community at large we were really a shock.
As the parade started, everybody wanted to be next to the Bears, when we were moved from position #9 to position #3. One of the gay parade deputies approached us just to tell us that we were dignifying the gay community. Families with children standing on the sidewalks were cheering us, giving us thumbs up, and just plain supporting us. We made it in the newspaper and TV for our fifteen seconds of fame. We sang a gay hymn (translated from German into Spanish) and people sang along, and even had a group of Deaf gay guys “singing” along in sign language.
The most amazing part was when lots of gay/straight people approached us because we look like regular guys and they couldn’t believe gay people are like that. We were a real eye-opener for some folks. I must say all of this success is the result of hard-working Bears such as Armando, Eduardo, and Pedro (current president, public relations, and secretary), who actually came up with the idea of building a nine-foot-tall teddy bear to carry on a pickup truck. Those guys really got us into the gay scene with style.
Justin (U.K.): Cool, Ed!
Xavi (Sp.): The Mex Bears are really cool!
Seumas (Aus.): Bears were really on the fringe in this country until 1997. There had been Bearclubs here since 1990, but in terms of visibility in the mainstream GLBT community, it wasn’t until two events happened.
The first event, Bear Essentials, hosted by Harbour City Bears, included an entry in the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras parade — somewhat similar to the Osos Mexicanos. We carried a series of twenty polystyrene bears on poles, dressed in flannelette, leather, and the like. They were like holy icons, and the crowd loved them. It put the Bears on the map! We’ve developed our exposure from television broadcasts of the following years’ parades, where up to 350 Bears have marched.
The second major event was the development of the Mr. Australian Bear and Cub Competition in 1997, which was a focus for the Bear community in Melbourne, and which received incredible media coverage within the community (including live radio coverage of the event). These were the “big two” events that made people in the broader GLBT community sit up and take notice.
To a lesser extent, it’s also had to do with several of us being small-time “Bear activists.” I for example led a campaign against Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Party Ltd. over its handling of Bears recently — most Bears got behind it, too. And as a bit of light relief with a tinge of activism, I run NAPBIS (the National Association for the Promotion of Beards in Society), where I just write to prominent politicians and media personalities and suggest that they might want to grow their beards back.
These days, the Bears seem to command a lot of respect from the broader community. There even exists an Internet-based female (dyke) Bears community, known as “Grrlbears,” which subscribe to the ethos of Bears.
Ron: That’s awesome — dykebears are barely a blip on the map here in US. And the idea of having 350 Bears marching together is truly inspiring. Glen, has there been any sort of national South African Bears event?
Glen (S.A.): Not yet. I am, however, trying to plan one for May 2001. SA is having its first Gay “Mardi Gras” in Knysna, called the Knysna Pink Lourie Festival. I am hoping that the Bears around the country can put in a float at the parade. Maybe we can borrow the float from Mexico’s parade.
Ron: Good idea! But really “out” gay social life is still relatively new there, right?
Glen (S.A.): That depends on where you live. At present, it’s cool to be gay in Cape Town. If you don’t have gay friends, then it’s a problem. In larger cities like Johannesburg and Durban, it’s fine. I’ve had no problem in Port Elizabeth and I am open to everyone, even workmates. I think if you live in a small conservative community in the middle on nowhere, it becomes a problem to come out.
Ron: It’s usually easier for gay men and lesbians to live in urban settings.
Glen (S.A.): You must note that South Africa has the most liberal constitution in the world at present. Gays and lesbians are well protected.
Ron: Yes, I’ve read about how South Africa wrote protection for gays into the new constitution. Bravo! Marcelo, are there any plans for a major South American Bear happening?
Marcelo (Arg.): Next October, our club will participate in PELO: Primer Encuentro Latinoamericano de Osos (First Latin American Bear Meeting), to be held in Rio de Janeiro. We and Ursos do Brasil are organizing the whole thing.
Ron: ¡Fantastico!
Marcelo (Arg.): Bears from all over the region and beyond are expected. Brazil, Argentina, and Chile will participate – and we hope Mexico, Venezuela, and Costa Rica will, too!
Ron: Great — I’m sure we all wish we could be there to join you for the event!
End of Part 3
Go to: Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 4 • Contributor biographies
Excerpted from the complete interview, with additional material previously unpublished, in Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions, by Ron Jackson Suresha. Copyright © 2002 Ron Jackson Suresha. All rights reserved.
