La Fraternitié PO Box 1124
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The Legend of Shape-shifters, beings that can change their physical form, are found in many cultures, from tricksters to fierce warriors. Tricksters often employ their shape-shifting abilities to aid or educate humans, and more than one shape-shiftiner is credited with bringing humans the gift of fire. Shamans and warriors, the spiritual and physical protectors of society, often seek animal forms to assume the strengths of those animals to aid in their tasks. Wolves are powerful, social animals that live and hunt together, like humans. The entire pack as a hunting unit can bring down larger game than a lone individual. Everyone in the pack is responsible for the nurturing and education of the cubs, insuring the survival of the group. No wonder humans have taken to them over the centuries. The wolf, in many cultures, was represented in iconography and ideology, often portrayed as strong, brave, honorable and intelligent. In lore, wolves were credited with rescuing and adopting human children, some of the most famous being Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, and Mowgli from the Jungle Book. Many tribes of Native Americans placed important significance on wolves. Were-wolves are enchanted beings, not necessarily evil, sometimes blessed, sometimes cursed, to walk in two worlds. Shape-shifters, and were-wolves especially, strike a chord with many transfolk. Whether we transition or not, we know what it is like to walk in the skin of another. While snowed in at the last True Spirit Conference in 2003, Jake Arthur and Ethan Young met Dale Bogucki and began talking about the idea of trans/masculine only leather club. It was an idea Jake and Ethan had been working on for a while. They had already come up with a name, La Fraternitié Du Loup-Garou, a French phrase that means the brotherhood of the were-wolf. With the addition of Dale to the circle, the pack began to take shape.
The Club: La Garou is a traditional levi/leather club whose main focus is masculine gender outlaws: people born female or intersexed and raised female but whose gender identity is male or masculine including but not limited to trans/men, tg butches and butch women. It is also for people who are interested in showing support for masculine gender outlaws in the leather community. La Garou's purpose is to provide social and service opportunities in the levi/leather community for trans male/masculine people, masculine gender outlaws and their allies. Within in the scope of this Statement of Purpose, it is the purpose of La Garou to: provide camaraderie and support for masculine gender outlaws and their allies; provide masculine gender outlaws with identity and recognition in the traditional levi/leather community: promote solidarity with and within the levi/leather community; raise awareness and understanding about masculine gender outlaws within the levi/leather community; and engage in various charitable and educational activities. La Garou's emblem is a transgender symbol in black surrounded by a wolf's head outline, to represent the trans/loup-garou, on a circular yellow field to represent the moon, the catalyst associated with the were-wolf's transformation. La Garou's motto is Courage, Unity, Pride: the Courage to be who we are as loup-garou and leatherfolk, the Unity to come together with all our brothers and sisters in leather, and the Pride in what we do as loup-garou and leatherfolk.
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