Queerness and Gender in Faire Season

To address the pink elephant in the Court. Queerness and Gender in Faire Season.

This game is an expression of my lived experiences as a Queer person participating the middle ages historical reenactor and Ren Faire community. That includes cultural Shibboleths like the terms “Blue Feather”. 

All humans feel a strong connection to our gender as a core aspect of identity. I was deeply inspired by Avery Adler and Jay Dragon's work to step outside of the binary framework of gender so many of us are indoctrinated into. That is why Faire Season offers gender options that get to the root of who a character is, not what is ascribed to them by a binary, hetero-normative hierarchy.

In the Current Middle Ages it is the norm for folks to play with gender via their personas and have it respected via appropriate address. If that person is dressed in a Tudor gown and introduces themselves as Lady Guinevere, you will address them as such. It was in historical reenactment communities where I first learned to be respectful of people’s preferred pronouns as an ignorant cis gay teenager. A lesson I took to heart and still carry with me to this day.

That is not to say homophobia and transphobia does not exist in these communities, it does! Clan Blue Feather was formed for a reason and has been fighting an uphill battle for respect and equality for decades. So many folks want to erase the existence of queer idenities in history. “Oh no, those nuns writing love letters to one another were just good friends.” They say without a hint of irony in their tone. It's infuriating at times.

Faire Season celebrates and embraces queerness as a reflection of the outsider status many folks already have when they first become involved in Ren Faire and Current Middle Ages Reenactment. This game isn’t just about the straight white cis able-bodied men who work blue collar jobs and pretend to be Knights on the weekend and their ambiguously ethnic seamstress wives and girlfriends they want to crown the Queen of Love and Beauty. It’s about all kinds of outsiders. Transmasculine Knights, Pansexual Bards, Elderly master weavers in chariot wheel chairs, Women Jousters, Ace Merchants selling unisex garb, Black Vikings, and so much more. In Faire Season, everyone has a place in The Dream.