Vexed in the Islands

Today is VexiDay, or World Vexillology Day, a day to celebrate flags of all types (vexillology is the study of flags). With the Paris Olympics and Paralympics still floating around in our memory I thought it would be appropriate to look at a couple of national flags designed by lgbt people.

A quick word about national flags. National flags do not necessarily represent an independent nation. The term has also come to be used for any flag adopted by a constituent nation, dependent territory or autonomous region that is recognised and used by them nationally and internationally. Wales, Guam and Hong Kong have national flags, even though none of them are independent.

Long-time readers may remember that I wrote about Prince George of Greece and Denmark (1869-1957) and his involvement with the first modern Olympics in 1896. I also mentioned how he became the High Commissioner and Governor General of Crete in 1898. In fact, he was often just referred to as the Prince of Crete.

During the years of fighting between Cretan Christians and Ottoman Turks over control of the island several flags flew over Crete, all claiming to be its national flag. Crete was part of the Ottoman Empire, so the Turks supported the flying of the Ottoman flag. Conversely, the Cretan Christians who wanted to become part of Greece supported the Greek national flag. There were also several other flags used by both sides.

The Ottoman Empire had reluctantly agreed to let Crete by governed by the Great Powers (UK, France, Russia and Italy) as a sort of peace-keeping force. As such they didn’t support the use of any of the flags. The Great Powers flew their own national flags over the areas where they had particular control, like Berlin after World War II partitioned in 1945 between UK, USA, France and the Soviet Union.

After the Great Powers appointed Prince George as High Commissioner the race was on to design a new national flag to be raised on his arrival to take up his position. The main concern was to choose a design that did not upset any of the ethnic or religious communities.

Prince George designed his own flag (labelled A below). Almost immediately, his design came under criticism, primarily because it contained a common symbol of Greek nationalism – a Greek Orthodox Christian cross. In fact, it had 2 of them. The white cross on a blue background was also used on flags by Cretan Christian groups attacking Muslims and Turks. There seemed to be an obvious bias by Prince George to promote Crete joining Greece.

The Russians proposed flag B above, but this went the other way – the crescent, red and green are Muslim and Ottoman symbols. With just 3 days before Prince George arrived on Crete the Great Powers decided on flag C, a variation of Prince George’s idea. Red and the star were intended to represent the Ottoman Turks and Cretan Muslims. They refused to fly it. However, the design stayed and was used on Cretan banknotes right up to the day Crete eventually fulfilled its desire to become part of Greece in 1913.

The flag of Crete was never displayed at an Olympic Games, but in 1906 the so-called Intercalated Olympic Games (which until 1949 the IOC regarded as official) took place. Although Crete was still officially part of the Ottoman Empire, 8 athletes were listed as competing for Crete, though in the official report they were counted as part of the Greek team.

Even if Prince George didn’t see his flag fly at the Olympics, one lgbt artist did, and it was there again in Paris 2024.

From a vexillo-historical point of view the national flag of the United Kingdom is the one that has appeared at the most Olympics due to its inclusion in so many past and present other flags of its colonies and territories. Though the UK’s flag wasn’t designed by someone in the lgbt community (as far as anyone knows), the original design which excluded the red diagonal cross was chosen by King James of England and Scotland, who certainly was.

The biggest increase in the creation of distinctive national flags came in the 1950s and 1960s as many current nations were attaining their independence from colonial powers (plus one or two nations, like Canada, who decided to change theirs).

The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago gained independence in 1962. Prior to that they were British colonies who used the flag illustrated below left, showing their coat of arms. This is the flag used by Trinidad and Tobago at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games up till then.

In May 1962, only 3 months before independence, Trinidad and Tobago decided to adopt a brand new flag and coat of arms. The Independence Committee appointed 7 people to form a flag and arms sub-committee. These people included museum directors, politicians and one designer.

The designer was Carlisle Chang (1921-2001), a gay artist born in Trinidad of Chinese immigrant parents. Today Chang is regarded as the father of Trinidadian Art. He designed carnival costumes, painted murals, and was an interior designer.

Chang was also no stranger to the world of flags and heraldry. In 1957 he was a member of the committee that designed the flag and coat of arms of the short-lived West Indies Federation (1958-1962). Although the design of the Federation flag is credited to Edna Manley, it is believed that the coat of arms (below left) was primarily Chang’s work.

As far as Trinidad and Tobago is concerned, both the coat of arms (above, next to the West Indies Federation coat of arms) and the familiar diagonally striped flag (above right) are Chang’s work. Official sources claim that several designs were submitted to the Independence Committee, but there is not record of anything but Chang’s design. The sources also claim that it was the sub-committee who designed the flag but, as the interview with Chang below makes clear, he was the only one truly dedicated to the project and the contribution of the other 6 members was negligible.

After I had finished writing this article, news emerged that the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Keith Rowley, had announced his intention of altering Chang’s design of the coat of arms. In a world where colonial symbolism is being replaced with traditional local emblems, Dr. Rowley has suggested that the 3 ships on the shield, representing those which brought Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean, should be replaced by 3 traditional steelpan drums. I like this idea.

The concept of decolonising national emblems is a good way to express national identity and to show a period of successful independence, but does it go far enough to justify de-colonisalism as a reason? I wonder if Dr. Rowley also supports that changing of his nation’s name. Trinidad is the name given to the island by the very colonists he wants to remove from the coat of arms.

Next time you see the flag of Trinidad and Tobago you can put a name to the gay man who designed it, Carlisle Chang, and ponder on the irony that Trinidad and Tobago is still one of the many homophobic nations in the Caribbean.

(Not Quite) 80 Gays Around the World - Recap

I haven’t continued the “(Not Quite) 80 Gays Around the World” series for a while. Before I continue, here’s a reminder to regular readers of the journey so far, and for those who are reading about my “80 Gays” series for the first time.

We began back in 2022 with –

1) Emperor Hadrian of Rome (76-138) on the 1,200th anniversary of the construction of Hadrian’s Wall in northern England which he ordered to be built. Continuing his tour of the empire after leaving Britain he met…

2) Antinous (c.111-c.130), a young Turkish lad who became his lover. The relationship lasted 8 years until Antinous’s death. In his grief Hadrian “created” a constellation in Antinous’s honour called Aquila. This represented Antinous as a new…

3) Ganymede, the boy lover of the Greek god Zeus. A modern retelling of the story of Ganymede and Zeus was written by…

4) Felice Picano (b.1944), a member of the Violet Quill Club, and group of gay writers who met in New York during 1980 and 1981. The most well-known of these today is…

5) Edmund White (b.1940), famous for writing “The Joy of Gay Sex”. His partner at the time, and another Violet Quill member, was…

6) Christopher Cox (1949-1990) who died of AIDS, as did another Violet Quill member…

7) George Whitmore (1945-1989). The Violet Quill Club came to an end after a meeting in which Whitmore read his story about a gay couple splitting up. It was the negative reaction to this story from fellow member…

8) Andrew Holleran (b.1944) that led to the collapse of the group. But, perhaps the most unexpected connection comes with the final two Violet Quill members,

9) Robert Ferro (1941-1988), and...

10) Michael Grumley (1942-1988). Together they set out to find Atlantis, which they chronicled in their book “Atlantis: The Autobiography of a Search”. On his own Grumley researched legendary hominids such as Bigfoot, a famous legendary cryptid which featured as a lonely, lesbian creature in a novel by…

11) Samantha Leigh Allen, which didn’t win a Ferro-Grumley Award for lgbt fiction, an award created in 1990 named after Robert and Michael, which gives the winner a 2-week residency at the Art Workshop International, founded by…

12) Bea Kreloff (1925-2016) and…

13) Edith Isaac Rose (1929-2018) who founded the Workshop in 1981. The Workshop runs several courses in art and literature and is based in Assisi, the Italian town made famous by…

14) St. Francis of Assisi (c.1187-1226), founder of the Franciscan Order of Friars. Although Roman Catholic, a faith not known for its progressive lgbt+ stance, the Franciscans appointed an openly gay friar to a position of high authority in 2022 with the appointment of…

15) Brother Markus Fuhrmann (b.1971) as Minister Provincial (similar to a senior bishop) of the Province of St. Elizabeth in Germany. Brother Markus had previously been a pastor in Cologne, a city famous for its cathedral which claims to house the remains of The Three Kings from the Christmas story. The traditional names of the kings are…

16) Caspar, …

17) Melchior, and…

18) Balhasar. The kings are famous for presenting gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby Jesus at His Nativity. Balthasar is traditionally said to have presented myrrh, an aromatic resin from the tree of the same name. The tree itself was named after the mother of the Greek mythological character…

19) Adonis.

And there I left it. Without wanting to sound like a broken record and repeat myself, research for the Paris Olympics took over so much of my time that I didn’t have time to finish researching the rest of the “80 Gays”.

Now I am able to, but there’s another month or two to wait until after I publish the backlog of other articles that have built up. Rest assured, the series will return in January 2025. Among the links to look forward to are those that connect “Its Raining Men” to Flower Power, and puppetry to Benjamin Britten.

Parisian Olympic Review

NOTE: The information below is accurate on the date of publication. Further research may reveal information which changes or replaces some of the details. Check by selecting “Olympics” in the tag list for updates.

Let me apologise again for the delay in publishing this review of Paris 2024. There has been an immense number of athletes to add to the list and it has taken longer than planned to update it. This article is rather long, so if you just want to see the updated list skip to the end.

ORGANISING COMMITTEES – Paris was awarded the Olympics in 2017 in the first dual-award, with Los Angeles being awarded the 2028 Olympics at the same time. I haven’t had a good look at the Paris Olympic Bid Committee, but the Los Angeles Bid Committee contained lgbt Winter Olympian and International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Angela Ruggiero as its Chief Strategy Officer. It also included advisory members including Greg Louganis.

Within a year of being awarded, the IOC Athlete’s Commission for Paris began its work. The commission is made up of Olympic athletes, either elected or appointed, who advise the IOC and Paris organising committee on issues that effect athletes. They also have a voice in other IOC meetings. The Athlete’s Commission for Paris included two French lgbt Olympians, fencer Astrid Guyart and triathlete Jessica Harrison. Astrid was also a member of the French Olympic Committee’s own Athlete’s Commission.

QUALIFICATION – Different sports have different criteria and time spans for Olympic qualification. Technically, qualification for the tennis began in 2020 before the Tokyo Olympics, because in order to be eligible for Paris 2024 tennis players had to participate in at least two Davis Cup or Billie Jean King Cup tournaments from 2020. This meant that lgbt+ players such as Nadia Podoroska, Demi Schuurs and Greet Minnen, and others, were the first to compete in a Paris 2024 qualification event.

In addition to the lgbt Olympians who competed in Paris, there were another 169 lgbt athletes who competed in qualification events or were named in Olympic ranking lists. Almost half of these were Olympians from past games who didn’t make it to Paris.

CEREMONIES – On 23rd September 2022 the gay actor and director Thomas Jolly was announced as the Artistic Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Games opening and closing ceremonies. Although the concept of the opening ceremony taking place on the River Seine was made before his appointment, Jolly created the many tableaux that were acted out along the banks. The whole idea was a bold concept and, as such, worked logistically, though lacked the intimacy of a stadium setting and probably won’t be repeated (the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games made the best use of a river in an opening ceremony). The first water-based Olympic opening ceremony was at the 2010 Singapore Youth Olympics.

Of the tableaux created by Thomas Jolly, the fashion catwalk and drag queens didn’t go down very well with some observers. Jolly received a lot of abuse in the press and from what is becoming the curse of modern society, social media. To put it in historical context, there have been drag queens in previous Olympic ceremonies (most memorably Sydney 2000).

GENDER PARITY? – At the end of 2022 the IOC lifted their ban on male competitors in artistic swimming. This isn’t as progressive as first sounds, because male swimmers were restricted to just 2 per team, and banned from solo and duet contests. Unfortunately, no known male lgbt synchro swimmer was selected for Paris, so we were denied the chance to see the likes of Renaud Barral and Fabiano Ferreira become lgbt pioneers in Olympic synchronised swimming.

Claiming gender parity is invalid if it isn’t applied in every sport. Men are still banned from artistic gymnastics. There is no Olympic female Greco-Roman wrestling competition. They’re not banned, there aren’t enough at an international elite level to merit a competition.

PRIDE HOUSE – This is the latest in a series of venues established at major international sporting events since the 2020 Vancouver Winter Olympics. It provides an inclusive, safe social space for lgbt athletes and public. Pride Houses for future summer and winter Olympics are being prepared.

The Paris Pride House was officially launched on 17th May 2023. Among its many Ambassadors were top lgbt sports heroes like Matthew Mitcham, Greg Louganis, Kate Richardson-Walsh and Lauren Rowles.

TORCH RELAY – The torch relay provides a physical link to the ancient Olympics. The 2024 relay began on 16th April at Olympia, Greece, site of the ancient games. I’ve written before about the lgbt connections this site has.

There were a few lgbt torch bearers. Among those on the Greek leg was Ioannes Melissanidis, a 1996 Olympic gymnastics champion. Ioannes was a torch bearer at the 2004 Athens opening ceremony. He is also the lgbt Olympian who has taken part in more torch relays than any other. This was his 8th.

Later that same day was the handover ceremony from the Greek Olympic Committee to the Paris Organising Committee in the Panathenaic Stadium, Athens. Among the torch bearers was bisexual French figure skater with Greek heritage, Gabriella Papadakis.

My favourite part of the relay was when Sandra Forgues carried the torch on 19th May. Sandra is the 1996 Olympic champion in C2 (2-man canoe slalom) with Frank Adisson. Sandra is one of the more recent transgender Olympians, transitioning in 2018. She is also a Paris Pride House Ambassador. For the relay she reunited with Adisson after 20 years and they took to the water again to canoe down the River Adour in Bagneres-de-Bigorre. A short video of the highlights of that day can be seen here. Sandra and Frank can be seen receiving the torch in their canoe 46 seconds into the video. Frank is seated in front, Sandra in the back. Sandra is then briefly seen carrying the torch under an archway of oars.

Towards the end you’ll see the Celebration Cauldron being lit. This is a tradition in which every day of the relay ends with the lighting of such a cauldron. Not shown is the cauldron lighter receiving the flame from French lgbt basketball Olympian Céline Dumerc, though she is one of those lined up behind her. There were several other lgbt Olympians who lit Celebration Cauldrons, such as Amandine Buchard in Verdun, Jérémy Stravius in Amiens, and Astrid Guyart in Vernon.

GENDER CONTROVERSIES – The controversy which attracted the most attention was the presence of 2 female boxers. I won’t go into the long and complicate twists of this case, so here are the basics. In 2023 the IOC suspended the International Boxing Association (IBA – led and sponsored by Russia) for irregularities in its finances and governance. Many nations left the IBA and others boycotted the 2023 IBA World Championships. During the Olympics the IBA claimed 2 female boxers had failed gender tests at those championships. Their claim that the tests were verified by the World Anti-Doping Agency was proven false. The IBA refuse to reveal which gender tests they used against international protocol (or even prove they exist). The IOC’s tests, and tests taken since Paris, have proven the boxers are both women.

Two female Zambian footballers were also accused of having failed gender tests. While it is true that both players have hyperandrogenism the IOC followed standard international regulations and accepted them into the female tournament.

THE OLYMPIANS – As Outsports reported, there were 199 lgbt+ Olympians in Paris, including 14 alternate athletes. The subject of alternates is confusing. It can be best explained by something that occurred in Paris.

Nico Keenan was selected as an alternate for Argentina’s huckey team. He originally attended the Olympics as a spectator but on Day 5 he was called up to play in the match against India because Argentina didn’t have a full squad. In doing so, Nico became eligible for an Olympic Participation medal (and possibly an Olympic Diploma for finishing in 8th place – I’m not sure if the IOC award diplomas for 8th place in hockey), which he wouldn’t have got as an alternate.

Also originally selected as an alternate and ending up on the full Olympic team was Sharn Freier (Australia, football).

At the opening ceremony there were 5 lgbt Olympians carrying their team flags – Tom Daley (GB), Cindy Ngamba (Refugee team), Michelle-Lee Ahye (Trinidad and Tobago – I’ll write about this flag’s lgbt history in October), Nesthy Petecio (Philippines), and Yulimar Rojas (Venezuela). Yulimar presented an unusual, but not unique, situation. She had qualified for Paris but was injured before her team was selected, but was chosen as flag bearer because she was the reigning Olympic triple jump champion.

At the closing ceremony, Lara Vadlau (Austria) and Ana Patricia Silva Ramos (Brazil) carried their flags, both having become Olympic champions at the games.

There were 76 athletes making their Olympic debut in Paris. Most of them had competed in qualification events for previous Olympics. Of the returning Olympians Carl Hester (GB, equestrian dressage) was making his 7th appearance, equalling the record achieved by the retired Brazilian footballer Maraildes “Formiga” Mota. Two Olympians were making their 6th appearance – Diana Taurasi (USA, basketball) and Tom Daley (GB, diving). They equal Robert Dover’s (USA, equestrian dressage) Olympic appearances. The British media kept referring to Paris as being Tom’s 5th games, but I include the 2010 Youth Olympics which was his 2nd.

Going back to Carl Hester (b.1967), in Rio and Tokyo he was the oldest lgbt competitor. Although he was the oldest medal winner (bronze) in Paris he wasn’t the oldest lgbt competitor this time round. Spanish dressage rider Juan Antonio Jiménez (b.1959) was the oldest. He returned to the Olympics after 20 years having last competed in Athens 2004. This is the biggest gap between appearances for an lgbt Olympian, though he has competed in qualification events in between.

The youngest lgbt Paris Olympian was 19-year-old Linda Caicedo (Colombia, football). She was also the youngest lgbt athlete to compete in a Paris 2024 qualification event. The youngest lgbt medallist in Paris was 20-year-old Evy Leifbarth (USA, bronze, canoe slalom).

Four Olympians won multiple medals. Winning gold and silver were María Perez (Spain, race walk), Sha’Carri Richardson (USA, track athletics), and Lauren Scruggs (USA, fencing). Winning gold and bronze was Amandine Buchard (France, judo). Interestingly, all of their gold medals were won in team events.

In total, 65 members of Team LGBTQ won medals in 43 medal events. This is a record for an “active” Olympic Games. Tokyo 2020 and Rio 2016 have higher medal counts due to medals being added as Olympians at those games came out afterwards. Both Rio and Tokyo had lower medal counts at the close of their games (does that make sense?). As more lgbt Paris Olympians are identified in the future the 2024 medal count is certain to rise.

When it comes to position on the overall medal table, you can look at it two ways – the official way, or the American way. The USA count the total number of medals won regardless of which colour they are (this method allows for nations who, for example, win only 12 bronze medals being placed higher than a nation who win just 11 gold medals). Being an Olympic champion means nothing in this method. So, instead of Team LGBTQ ending up 7th in the overall medal table, the US places us in 3rd place.

There are so many more facts and figures, such as the Olympian who has overtaken the great Ian Thorpe’s medal count to top the Summer Olympic all-time medal table. That can be left for another time, as I’m sure you want to see the new lgbt Olympian list. So here it is.

Delayed Post

I had hoped to bring you a review of the Paris Olympics and an update Olympian list yesterday, but because of the mass of results from the many lgbt+ athletes who competed, and because of some health-related issues, I have to postpone it until 1st September. Oh, the “joys” of getting old! Sorry to let you all down, and for the delay. The post that was provisionally planned for 1st September will appear next year.

Parisian Pride

NOTE: The information below is accurate on the date of publication. Further research may reveal information which changes or replaces some of the details. Check later postings to keep up to date by selecting “Olympics” in the search box or the tag list.

With the Olympic opening ceremony tonight it is time to celebrate the achievements of our many lgbt+ athletes in their journeys to Paris 2024. As in previous years I have been collaborating with Outsports to compile list of lgbt+ athletes. My full all-time list of over 770 Olympians will be published after the games have ended and the newest results have been added.

From the day I dedicated myself to researching lgbt+ Olympians in 2010 I have also been researching those who had competed in qualification events, ranking lists, and national Olympic trials. I haven’t published this list before, and I was hoping to publish it today. Unfortunately, I’ve had health issues which have been slowing me down and there’s no way it would have been ready today.

Instead, I’ll present some research I did while researching the Paris 2024 qualification competitions.

For the past 6 Olympics (since Sydney 2000) the sport with the most lgbt+ competitors has been women’s football. This year is no different, and it has provided a remarkable new statistic.

In previous years qualification to the Olympics for European women’s football teams has been based on their results in the most recent Women’s World Cup finals. This year the IOC decided to use the 2024 UEFA Women’s Nations League as the qualification event for Paris 2024 instead.

With 51 national women’s teams in UEFA the IOC decided to restrict qualification to teams in the top division only, League A. This year League A contained 16 national teams, and 51 matches (including the Nations League Finals) were played. Every match had at least 1 openly lgbt+ player in one or both teams. I don’t think there has been a team qualification tournament in any other sport that has had 100% lgbt+ representation in every match. I’ll keep checking, but I’m fairly confident that this is the case.

The team with the most openly lgbt+ players was Sweden with 10. Sadly, they didn’t qualify for Paris 2024. If you combine the players on the English, Scottish and Welsh teams they came to 14. However, the IOC does not recognise these three teams as eligible for the Olympics, only if they play as one team, Team GB. None of those three teams reached the required final placing to qualify for Paris 2024. If one of them had, then the IOC would have accepted that Team GB had qualified.

In fact, a smaller-scale version of this will occur in pool stages of the women’s football, because all 4 teams in Pool A – France, Canada, Colombia, and New Zealand – all have at least 1 lgbt+ player.

While on the subject of female footballers, there are many sites on the internet which publish lists of footballers they claim are openly lgbt+. Most of these sites are fan sites, and often gossip machines, and rarely provide definitive proof of any players’ sexuality. The only reliable site for listing female lgbt+ footballers is Oustports.com who actually obtain evidence of each players’ sexual and gender identity. And I’m not saying that because I collaborate with them. Even Wikipedia invariably offers nothing more than a gossip fan site as a source. The Wikipedia lists of lgbt+ Olympians is similarly untrustworthy and not to be taken as fact. I have written in the past of at least two people on their list who should not be there, interestingly both of them competed in the previous 2 Paris Olympics (Robert Graves and Count Robert de Montesquiou).

Let’s finish with some of my most recent research into past Olympics. In September last year I mentioned that Leonard Chalmers and Léon Curia was the first Olympians to transition gender. It seems I was wrong, and that there was one before that.

In the 1936 Berlin Olympics there was a Czech javelin thrower competing as Stefánie Pekarová (b.1913). In 1938 the Czech press printed news that Stefánie had undergone gender reassignment surgery and was referred to as Stefan Pekar. In the few online references to him it seems that he may have been born intersex and assigned female at birth. Those references also day that all of Stefan’s sporting results in female competition were annulled. This wouldn’t happen today, though there were a few calls for Caitlin Jenner’s Olympic results to be removed and his medals returned.

It also appears that Stefan’s attendance at the Berlin Olympics may have been nominal. He did not compete in the events into which he was registered. This was not unusual in those days. I suppose we could consider him as the equivalent of a modern alternate athlete (until 1992 the IOC permitted alternates the right to call themselves Olympian and share in any medal their team won – the IOC don’t now, but I still do).

However, we do know that Stefan competed in the Women’s World Games, the games created in 1921 by female athletes who were refused the right to compete in the Olympics at that time. At the 1934 Women’s World Games in London Stefan won bronze medals in the shot put and triathlon (javelin, high jump and 100m sprint).

Sadly, there is no record of Stefan Pekar after his transition was reported in 1938. No-one has yet discovered his date of death, so he will remain an enigma.

International Olympic historians like myself are always unearthing new information about those early Olympians. Not all Olympians were mentioned by name in the very early days, especially if they were part of a team event in which only the team name was recorded. There are historians who specialise in identifying these anonymous Olympians, and I hope that I am playing my own part in this research by recognising the Olympians within the lgbt+ community.

Schedule for the Rest of the Year

Here is a provisional list of articles I intend to publish for the rest of the year. The schedule may alter. I decided to not publish anything in the rest of June and most of July because I am concentrating on preparing a new Olympic list.

24 July 2024 – Olympic preview, and a new list of lgbt+ athletes to add to the Olympians.

13 August 2024 – Olympic review and updated lgbt+ Olympian list.

1 September 2024 – 80 Gays Around the World 6.

19 September 2024 – (Talk Like a Pirate Day) Extraordinary Life.

1 October 2024 (International Vexillology Day) Designs for a Nation.

15 October 2024 – Buried Alive?

31 October 2024 – (Hallowe’en) The Transgender Bogeyman Is Coming To Get You.

14 November 2024 – Game of Gay Thrones 9.

1 December 2024 – (Advent Sunday 1).

8 December 2024 – (Advent Sunday 2).

15 December 2024 – (Advent Sunday 3).

22 December 2024 – (Advent Sunday 4).

Heraldic Alphabet 2024

Welcome to my 2024 Heraldic Alphabet with coats of arms in the lgbt+ community, celebrating the annual International Heraldry Day

Continuing elements I introduced last year, two letters have double entries because there are more people whose names begin with those letters who have coats of arms. Also continued is a black background to the arms of people who died in the past 18 months.

Some nations (e.g. England) don’t let women display their arms on a shield, only ovals or lozenges. For the sake of visual uniformity I use shields throughout. To indicate which individuals would officially use a lozenge, I place a diamond around their letter in the illustrations.

I show just the shields and not the helmet, crest, motto, supporters, or insignia to which a person may also be entitled. Individuals are listed according to the name by which they are most popularly known. Aristocrats are listed under their title unless they are popularly known by another name.

Some Quick Basic definitions

Arms of Office – arms of an institution or office of which the person is the nominal head and who may use the arms of the institution (in performance of official duties only). I extend this practice to similar institutions of any nation.

Assumed – arms adopted by an individual or family in a country where no state heraldic authority exists, or are not registered by such an authority that does exist.

Attributed – arms assigned to an individual, whether historical or legendary, after that individual’s life time.

Cadency mark – a specific symbol added to a family coat of arms to indicate the place in order of birth of the individual (i.e. 1st son/daughter, 2nd son/daughter, etc.).

Family – arms officially borne by the family’s senior bloodline member. Other family members may be required to add cadency marks. Some nations allow all family members to use the arms unaltered.

Marital – In some countries spouses and same-sex couples can place their arms side by side on one shield. Spouses who are have no coat of arms can use those of their spouse’s or place a small blank shield (if male) or lozenge (in England if female) upon it.

Personal – Arms granted to an individual by an official heraldic authority. Also inherited family arms specific to the individual.

Quarters – 4 or more divisions of a shield showing 2 or more different coat of arms. Some individuals bear many quarters.

Without further ado, here is 2024’s Heraldic Alphabet:

A) St. AELRED of Rievaulx (1110-1167). Cistercian abbot, “patron saint” of male couples. Attributed arms of office. These are the arms of Rievaulx Abbey of which Aelred was abbot. They are first recorded in 1530. They are the arms of the Roos family, the abbey’s then patrons, surmounted by an abbot’s staff.

B) Jacques Gordat, 6th Marquess of BELBEUF (1850-1906). French aristocrat. Personal arms. The arms of the Gordat family. They depict spurs worn by medieval knights. His wife was the artist Mathilde de Morny (see D below). In France married couples display their arms on separate shields side by side rather than together on one shield.

C1) Marina CICOGNA (1934-2023). Italian film director (Countess Marina Cicogna Mozzoni Volpi di Misurata). Inherited family arms. Cicogna is Italian for “stork”, which the family adopted as their coat of arms. In heraldry a stork is often shown standing on one leg holding a rock in the other because legend says this is how storks sleep – if they drop the rock they wake up. In 1580 the Count Cicogna married the heiress of Count Mozzoni, bringing her arms of three eagles into the family.

C2) Margaret CUTHBERT (1887-1968). Pioneering Canadian/US media executive. Inherited family arms. The original Cuthbert arms was the serpent. Legend says that in 1411 an ancestor captured the battle standard of a Scottish Lord and the King granted him the right to add a bar across his shield. The flowers had been added by the time the Cuthberts moved to Canada in 1778, and were registered with the Court of Lord Lyon in Scotland by Hon. James Cuthbert (Margaret’s 2 times great-grandfather) on 24th January 1778. They were registered with the Canadian Heraldic Authority of the Governor General’s Office on 15 August 2012.

D) Mathilde DE MORNY (1863-1944). French artist. Inherited family arms. Mathilde’s father was an illegitimate half-brother of Emperor Napoleon III of France who created him a duke in 1863, granting him a border of dolphins (a French royal emblem) and eagles (a Bonaparte emblem). The black merlettes (birds with no beak or feet) are from the arms of the Duke’s father, the Count of Flahaut. Mathilde married the Marquess of Belbeuf (B above).

E) Miquel ENESENYAT RUITORT (b.1969), Mayor of Esporles, Majorca, 2005-15. Arms of office, being the arms of Esporles. They incorporate the red and yellow stripes common in Spanish (particularly Catalan) heraldry. On light blue are the cross keys and papal tiara of the Vatican.

F) St. FRANCIS of Assisi (c.1181-1226). Founder of the Franciscan Order of Friars. One of several attributed arms. The design symbolises Christ crucified with the five stigmata, the wounds he received on the cross. St. Francis is said to have borne temporary marks of the stigmata in 1224. Brown is the colour of the habit worn by Franciscans.

G) GIVENCHY (1927-2018). French fashion designer (Count Hubert Taffin de Givenchy). Inherited family arms. The Marquess de Givenchy is the title given to his ancestor in 1713. The family name is Taffin, and these are the family’s arms used since medieval times.

H) Juliet HARDINGE (1877-1970). Bisexual British actor, stage name of Mrs. Janette Thesiger (née Ranken). Marital arms, being those of her husband Ernest Thesiger (featured last year). She may have had a family coat of arms, but I have been unable to identify it, so I adopt the modern practice of placing a lozenge at the top of her husband’s shield.

J) Melvyn Gwynne JEREMIAH (1939-2023). British civil servant, Secretary of The Heraldry Society 2003-9. Personal arms granted by the College of Arms on 29 October 1994. The blue and white pattern is called vair - pieces of squirrel fur (“varus” is Latin for squirrel) sewn to form the lining of a medieval cloak (blue is back fur, white is belly fur). The Welsh dragon represents Melvyn’s nationality.

K) Mary KENDALL (1677-1710). Partner of Lady Caroline Jones (see 2023). Inherited family arms. The Kendall arms show 3 heraldic dolphins. In the other quarters are the arms of her mother, heiress of the Hallet family. Mary’s arms are shown on her memorial in Westminster Abbey.

L) Cam LYMAN (1932-c.1987). US transgender dog-breeder (whose murder is featured here). Assumed family arms. Assumed by descendants of the 17th century immigrant Richard Lyman, of which Cam was one. However, research in the 1950s proved that immigrant Richard Lyman was a different man to the one whose arms the family assumed and still use today. The 1st and 4th quarters are the Lyman arms, the 2nd quarter are the arms of Richard’s heiress wife Sarah Osbourne, the 3rd are the arms of his heiress ancestor Elizabeth Lambert. All recorded arms of the Osbornes have blue corners instead of red. I retain the colour assumed by the US Lymans.

M1 and M2) Barnaby MILN (b.1947). Magistrate, and member of the General Synod of the Church of England. In 2018 I did a full examination these coats of arms (see here). Basically, the blue arms were granted to an ancestor, and the green arms were granted to his father.

N) Florence NIGHTINGALE (1820-1910). Pioneer of nurse training, opponent of Votes for Women. As Florence features in many lgbt+ lists I’ve included her here, even though there’s no definitive evidence of her sexuality. Her father, William Shore, was heir to his grandmother’s family, the Nightingales. He adopted their name in 1815 and their arms shown here in 1874.

) Diego ORTIZ GONZALEZ (b.1982). Mayor of Pinto, Madrid, Spain, 2019-23. Arms of office, being those of the town of Pinto. The arms have been in use since before 1756 but were only officially registered on 17 September 2007. Red and yellow are the national colours of Spain. The dot on the map represents Pinto’s location at the exact centre of Spain.

P) Richard PARES (1902-1958). British historian. Inherited family arms. Richard descends from John Pares of Leicester (1635-1712) whose arms are the black and white design. The lion is the arms of the Lightbody family whose co-heiress married into the Pares family.

R) Eleanor RATHBONE (1872-1946). British politician and family rights campaigner. Inherited family arms. The arms were granted to Eleanor’s grandfather, William, by the College of Arms in 1841. The symbolism is unclear, though the fasces (bundle of sticks around an axe) is a Roman symbol of authority, and William was a magistrate.

S) Prince Janusz SANGUSZKO (1712-1775), Polish prince and bloodline heir to King Harold II of England. Inherited family arms. Basically, the arms of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania used since 1366, readopted by the republic of Lithuania in 1991. The Sanguszko family, like others who descend from the Grand Dukes, added the castle at some unknown date.

T) Hallam TENNYSON (1920-2005). BBC radio producer, murdered (unsolved). Inherited family arms. Hallam was great-grandson of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (who may or may not have been queer). This is a modified version of the arms of Archbishop Tenison of Canterbury (1636-1715) to whom the Tennysons may be related. In turn, the Archbishop’s arms were modified from those of Bishop Cantilupe of Hereford (d.1282). The laurel wreath was granted to Lord Tennyson by the College of Arms on 2 February 1883. The crescent signifies Hallam’s descent from Lord Tennyson’s 2nd son.

V1) Dries VAN NOTEN (b.1958). Belgian fashion designer. Personal arms granted by the Belgian Crown when he was created a baron in 2017. The nut tree alludes to his surname (Noten is Dutch for “nut”), as well as representing the Tree of Life. The two hands are taken from the arms of Antwerp, where Dries was born.

V2) Sarah VEATCH. Associate Professor of Biophysics, University of Michigan. Inherited family arms. Prof. Veatch is a distant cousin of Olympian Dan Veatch (see here). Both descend from the Veiches of Scotland. Although Sarah’s and Dan’s line of descent has been questioned by some, DNA has proven they and the Scottish Veiches are the same family.

W) Lana (b.1965) and Lilly (b.1967) WACHOWSKI. Transgender US film directors (“The Matrix” films). Inherited family arms. Their great-grandfather arrived in the US from Poland in 1905. The Wachowski family is one of many connected to the Szeliga “clan” and can use their arms. The design dates from the 1300s, being used by Archbishop Bodzanta of Gniezno, Governor of Krakow, in 1366.

Z) Brother Thomas ZERAFA (1951-2023). Franciscan friar. Inherited family arms. Brother Thomas’s father was born on Malta with an old and distinguished ancestry. The arms are probably of medieval origin.