Queens in the Kingdom

Each year, the Disneyland Resort and its two theme parks, Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure (DCA), play host to a variety of "mix-in" events. Mix-in events are not sponsored by the resort or theme parks. Groups of like-minded folks from schools, churches, corporations, and social organizations of all kinds gather throughout the year at Disneyland or DCA just to spend a day among friends.

One such event, which started out in 1998 as a relatively small one-day gathering, has grown into the largest unofficial three-day event to take place each year at the Disneyland Resort. This year, over the weekend of September 30 thru October 2, Gay Day 2, The Unofficial Gay Days at the Disneyland Resort, is expected to draw upwards of 30,000 gays, lesbians, their families, and friends to the resort, all of whom are asked to wear red shirts to help identify themselves to one another.

Gay Day 2, named after its "sister event" in Orlando, is organized each year by Jeffrey Epstein and Eddie Shapiro. At first blush, you might confuse Epstein and Shapiro with an old married couple. They playfully bait and argue with one another and frequently complete each other's sentences. In fact, they're two old college chums who share a common love for Disney's worldwide network of theme parks, resorts, and cruise lines.

Epstein and Shapiro met as students at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University where each was studying acting. Shapiro went on to become an actor specializing in children's theatre, and Epstein, after a period of self-discovery, became a writer, and is now a senior editor at Out magazine.

Recognizing that they needed an outlet for their mutual Disney theme park obsession, the pair organized the first mix-in Gay Day at Disneyland in 1998. For several years prior to that first Gay Day, Disneyland would be leased out on a weekday evening to a private party for Gay Night at the park.

Not satisfied with hosting the West Coast's largest gathering of gays and lesbians Epstein and Shapiro, in 2003, published Queens in the Kingdom, The Ultimate Gay and Lesbian Guide to the Disney Theme Parks.

Something for Everyone

For the past eight years, Gay Day 2 has grown in both size and scope in terms of the number of attendees and the variety of people from the gay and lesbian community that attend Gay Days.

"We want to provide more opportunities for things for people to do that are involved with Gay Days," said event co-organizer Jeffrey Epstein during an interview that took place in his office at Out magazine. He was speaking about the Gay Days Entertainment Center.

Located in the Balboa Room of the Sierra Tower at the Disneyland Hotel, the Gay Days Entertainment Center will play host to a series of film screenings that include selections form OutFest, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and a DVD screening of Walt Disney Pictures Herbie Fully Loaded. Herbie's openly gay director, Angela Robinson, will host the screening with a Q&A session afterward.

During that same interview, Eddie Shapiro noted that over the three-day course of Gay Days, some attendees may not want or be able to attend the events' two major dance parties, Wonderland and Kingdom.

"It's important that this is a free alternative," Shapiro said, "and an alcohol-free alternative, so if they're (attendees) looking for something younger people could do, people with different economic backgrounds and people from across the spectrum (of the gay community), they have choices of things to do."

When asked if providing an alcohol-free venue for Gay Days was something they had received many requests for, Shapiro said, "No, actually. Each year we try to broaden our scope in terms of the audience…all the people we see in the parks aren't party people and several people we know are sober, so we wanted to have that alternative."

From the beginning, Epstein and Shapiro recognized Gay Days potential for raising awareness and income, and made benefiting non-profits that support the gay and lesbian community a priority. Once again, this year the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center's Family Services Program will present a gathering for gay families at a Disney character breakfast.

The Trevor Project, a non-profit support group for gay and lesbian youth that offers the country's only twenty-four hour, year-round suicide prevention hotline for troubled and/or questioning gay and lesbian youth, is returning for its third year of helping make Gay Days for gay and lesbian teens a very special event.

"We really wanted to reach out to everyone," Jeffrey Epstein said, "and say this (Gay Days) is for you. This is for everyone."

"Not just party people," Eddie Shapiro interjected.

"Because the event itself doesn't generate a significant amount of income," Epstein continued. "It pretty much just sustains itself. We try to do other outlets for them (non-profits) to raise awareness and raise money. Although this year, Wonderland (the opening night dance party), one hundred percent of the proceeds, will benefit Trevor."

Cue da Fairy!

Gay Day 2 is significantly smaller in comparison to its sister event in Florida. Orlando's Gay Days draw well over 100,000 gays, lesbians, their families, and friends from the Southern, Eastern, and Midwestern sections of the country for a weeklong celebration that's grown to include the Universal Orlando Resort.

Unlike Disney's Florida property, a dense population of nearly 20 million people surrounds the Disneyland Resort. Such ready access to the Happiest Place on Earth has caused more than a few Disney fans who would rather not see the park awash in red shirt-clad gays and lesbians to post the question on Internet discussion boards, "Why do gay people need their own special day at Disneyland?"

"We get this question about our book as well," Shapiro responded. "Need is an interesting word, but I think there's lots of good reasons for its (Gay Days) existence. It was founded initially in Florida, and we wanted to bring it here. It was just out of fun and a sense of play.

"There are many days in the park when you, as a gay person, can go there and feel envious of straight couples who are kissing or holding hands as they walk down Main Street, and if you do that with your partner you're likely to get angry stares… This is an opportunity for us to feel just like they feel the rest of the year."

Shapiro went on to say that there was actually a kind of a political statement in their Gay Days mix-in event as opposed to the old after-hours Gay Night private parties.

"Jeffrey and I went a couple of times," Shapiro continued, "and found it a little icky. We were kind of the 'dirty secret' after hours. We felt it was sort of this thing that happened in the dark, and we didn't want that."

"We never intended this to be a political statement," Epstein added. "It certainly has evolved into that….We've always looked at this as a day that we can go and feel comfortable in the park and if it has greater social significance down the road or opening people's eyes, that's great."

Epstein then mentioned an e-mail they received from the mother of a young girl following last year's Gay Days weekend.

"I was immediately on edge," Epstein began. "It started out, 'I wanted to write you a letter. I planned my daughter's birthday at Disneyland months in advance and then found out it was going to be Gay Day. All my friends told me this was going to be horrible, you're going to be embarrassed, there's going to be flagrant displays of promiscuity, it's just not appropriate. But she had already made these plans and didn't want to cancel.'

"She said (in the e-mail) imagine her surprise when she came (to the park) and it was nothing like that at all.

"Her daughter was wearing a (Disneyland Happy Birthday) sticker and more people, in red shirts, wished her a happy birthday than anyone else in the entire park. Her daughter was able to see gay people holding hands, being together as friends and family, and it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary, which is exactly how the mother said she wants her daughter to see the world."

Epstein went on to say that the woman and her daughter plan to come back to Disneyland to celebrate her birthday again this year during Gay Days.

This sort of story isn't all that unusual either. A quick scan of Disney theme park discussion board posts in defense of Gay Days finds quite a few self-identified straight people who say such things as, "you haven't lived 'til you ride the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland on Gay Day. I never laughed so hard in all my life."

Many people report that, gay or straight, the cast at Disneyland seems to be on its "A" game during Gay Days. As one man said, "playing to the hometown crowd."

"We hear so much from cast members," Shapiro said. "They vie to work those shifts. They want to work Gay Days."

Both Shapiro and Epstein confirmed what several Disneyland Resort cast members have said in the past. That it's great fun to "play" with a responsive audience, and the Gay Days crowds are perhaps the most responsive audiences to visit the resorts' parks each year.

This year, as it has for the past four years, Gay Days will coincide with the opening of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion Holiday, the decorative Christmas cum Halloween overlay of the park's popular Haunted Mansion ride, inspired by the Tim Burton film The Nightmare Before Christmas.

"I think its coincidence," said Shapiro.

"I do like the coincidence that Haunted Mansion Holiday," Epstein joined in, "was designed by openly gay Imagineer Steve Davison.

That being said, Davison, who also designs the parks' spectacular fireworks shows, might have enjoyed being in the center of Main Street just a few feet beyond Coke Corner for the 2003 Gay Day at Disneyland performance of his Believe There's Magic in the Stars fireworks show.

During that show, there was a brief lull in the music and the pyrotechnics as Tinkerbelle prepared for her flight high above Sleeping Beauty's Castle. On that particular night, the mostly red-shirted crowd momentarily fell silent anticipating the pixie's appearance. At that very second, a thin young man in a red shirt pointed to the top of the Matterhorn and in a voice that could be heard all the way to the castle, exclaimed,

"Cue da fairy!"

In Their Own Words - Video

Gay Days at the Disneyland Resort organizers Jeffrey Epstein and Eddie Shapiro
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Referenced Sites

Gay Days 2

OutFest

Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center's Family Services Program

The Trevor Project