One Can Make a Difference by Ingrid Newkirk Read Free Book Online

her, freedom wasn’t new. Even as we traveled together before the sanctuary existed, I would stop every day when on the road, somewhere interesting, let her out of her trailer so she could walk around, perhaps playing in a creek, river, or field. She was like a dog in that way, and we were best friends. Now, at the sanctuary we have eighteen elephants. They have come from all over: fifteen are Asian, three are African. Some of the needy elephants that come here are overwhelmed at first, shocked by the idea that they are free.
    They are incredibly pleased and they all eventually become quite accustomed to it. After all, that’s how it should be.
    There is a Persian proverb, “With kindness and a smile you can lead an elephant by a thread.” This is the founding principle that guides us at the Elephant Sanctuary: respect the elephants and they will do their best to respect you.

LADY BUNNY
    I Just Want to Be Me
    Lady Bunny has a wicked sense of humor and lives a “wicked” life, as she’ll point out below. “She” is also built like a Mack truck, standing nearly seven feet tall in her skyscraper heels and bouffant updo. With legs so long they should be insured (Bunny claims she tones them by raising them over her head whenever possible), it is hard, as with a Scotsman’s kilt, to resist the thought of taking a look up that micro-mini skirt to see how on earth she has so successfully hidden “her” various bits and bobs.The drag queen founder of Wigstock—New York’s festival of drag—is quite a sight!
    I first met Bunny (Jon Ingle behind all the pancake makeup), or The Bunion as she calls herself, at a PETA event. When one of the Humanitarian of the Year awardees graciously thanked his wife from the podium and the spotlight scanned the audience for a glimpse of this wonderful other half, Bunny leapt to her feet to take the bow as if she were the honoree’s wife. Paul McCartney, who was in the audience, howled with laughter! Later, I went to her “Taste of Bunny” show at the Fez in New York and found myself grinning from the moment her introductory “credits” were announced: thanks for makeup to Sherwin Williams, body by Crunch (Nestlé’s Crunch), and hair by Weed Eater. Over the years, I’ve learned that Bunny is always willing to help anyone who needs help, and not just with a quickie in the stairwell. She adds a unique contribution to this book because she has used her talents and chutzpah to challenge sexual stereotypes in the least serious ways imaginable: to have transexuality and homosexuality seen as something to celebrate rather than scorn.
    W hy did I become a drag queen, you ask? I say, well, honey, I don’t know exactly, but I was sketching Marlo Thomas’s flip from That Girl before I was six years old, as well as demanding dolls from my nervous religious parents. Years later, they confessed that they were worried that giving me dolls might make me gay. I told them,“If I was asking for them, I was already gay!” I’ve always identified with feminine things, even before I wore them myself. As a child, I wore my hair long and was sometimes confused for a girl. At ten or eleven, one Halloween I dressed as “a woman” with my best friend, Paul, as “my husband.” With each doorway that I darkened, the fact that I wore a dress, some of mom’s heels and a (totally tragic and frumpy) women’s wig confirmed many of my neighbors’ suspicions about my budding sexuality. Later, as was the fashion in the New Wave era, I wore makeup, and the wigs and heels weren’t far behind. Becoming a “gender-dysphoric freak” struck me as a very natural progression.
    Performing came naturally as well. As a little boy, I’d often tie a sheet between trees in our backyard and invite the neighbors over to watch my plays. I’m sure they were pitiful productions, but it’s telling