In Remembrance

2012 has seen the passing of many members of the lgbt community who influenced the world around us. Here is just a short list of some of them.

JANUARY

19^th      Rudi van Dantzig, choreographer, aged 78

21^st      Emmanuel Cooper, potter, aged 73

23^rd      Harry Loen, journalist, aged 67

FEBRUARY

10^th      Steve Walker, artist, aged 51

20^th      Robert K. Martin, gay studies academic, aged 57

MARCH

7^th        Cris Alexander, photographer and actor, aged 92

25^th      Bettie Naylor, activist, aged 84

25^th      Dan Luckenbill, archivist and researcher, aged 67

27^th      Adrienne Rich, poet and essayist, aged 82

APRIL

9^th        John Golding, art historian, aged 82

12^th      Mark Frankland, MI6 spy and journalist, aged 77

21^st      Charles Higham, biographer, aged 81

MAY

8^th        Maurice Sendak,  children’s author, aged 84

25^th      Rosemary Curb Keefe, author and editor, aged 62

30^th      Dudley Clendenin, journalist, aged 67

JUNE

19^th      Victor Spinetti, actor, aged 82

24^th      Gerhard “Gad” Beck, Holocaust survivor, aged 88

28^th      Dr. Richard Isay, psychiatrist and gay rights activist, aged 77

JULY

23^rd      Sally Ride, first female American astronaut, aged 61

31^st      Gore Vidal, writer and political commentator, aged 86

AUGUST

4^th        Michael Neale OBE, engineer, aged 85

5^th        Chavela Vargas, Mexican singer, aged 93

5^th        Jack Fertig, astrologer, Sister Boom Boom, aged 57

6^th        Richard Cragun, ballet dancer, aged 64

9^th        David Rakoff, humorist, aged 47

12^th      Dominic Hibbard, academic and biographer, aged 70

14^th      Ron Palillo, actor, aged 63

20^th      Daryl Hine, poet, aged 76

31^st      Allan Horsfall, gay rights pioneer, aged 84

SEPTEMBER

18^th      PC Fiona Bone, officer shot on duty, aged 32

OCTOBER

1^st        Sgt. Donna Johnson, killed by an Afghan suicide bomber, aged 23

21^st      Steve Paul, New York club owner, aged 71

26^th      Mark Richards, Broadway producer, aged 80

27^th      Hans Werner Henze, composer, aged 86

NOVEMBER

4^th        Robert Marlowe, producer of traditional British seaside shows, aged 83

7^th        Richard Robbins, film composer for Merchant-Ivory, aged 71

9^th        William Brandon Lacy Campus, activist and writer, aged 35

14^th      Howard Wallace, AIDS activist, aged 76

24^th      Gray Foy, artist, aged 90

DECEMBER

14^th      Kenneth Kendall, first on-screen BBC newsreader, aged 88

17^th      Laurier LaPierre, Canadian senator, aged 83

18^th      Spencer Cox, AIDS activist, aged 44

There won’t be another post for several days. I’m having a little break and will be back on Christmas Day with the first of my 12 Gay Days of Christmas bonanza. So, until then, have a Merry Christmas.

Flower Power - For the Love of a Lad

This month’s flower is not exclusively connected with gay men but to all men generally. However, given the special properties the flower is said to bestow, and the apocryphal reputation for gay men being obsessed with sex, it only seems natural to mention it.

The flower’s name says it all – lad’s love.

All through history this plant (botanical name Artemisia abrotanum) has been recognised as a great help to men in demonstrating their masculinity. And by that I don’t just mean in the bedroom. Young men in ancient Roman times thought that rubbing fresh leaves of this plant on their faces would help them grow a beard faster, thereby reaching full manhood quicker.

Lad’s love is one of the common English medieval names for this plant, as is another name use since those times – Maid’s ruin! From this its no surprise to learn that it was used by men to help improve their sexual prowess, and what women thought about it! Both the ancient Greeks and Romans put sprigs of it under their beds to help their love-making, though whether it was just the men who placed it there without the women’s knowledge isn’t recorded.

It wasn’t long before medieval men were making or buying love potions made from it, and sprigs of lad’s love were often included in bouquets given by men to the girl of their desire in the hope it would encourage romance. This is rather strange, because according to medieval lore women also used to carry posies of lad’s love with them into church to stop them falling asleep! So perhaps the young men used lad’s love to stop their girlfriends from falling asleep in bed as well! It seems that the plant has always had a more beneficial effect on a man than a woman.

But, then again, the celebrated 17^th century herbalist Nicholas Culpeper wrote that lad’s love would help women at a certain time of the month as well.

Bearing this in mind it would have been a natural plant to use by gay men – a plant that increases your virility and appeal. It would have the same effect on the man’s partner – and stop him from falling asleep as well perhaps!

Scientifically speaking, lad’s love isn’t known to have any proven effect on the hormonal activity of either men or women, but it is said that if included in salads and pastries it can help digestion.

If it can be proved that lad’s love can improve a man’s virility we may have found a cheaper alternative to viagra!

Olympic Epilogue

As a farewell to London 2012 I’d like to round up new research and information I didn’t have space for in my Olympic Countdown series.

First, the list of lgbt athletes has increased. For some reason I left out Graeme Obree. This British cyclist was at Atlanta in 1996 and came out last year. Perhaps he’ll always be remembered for the controversies surrounding the design of his cycles rather than anything else. And an omission from the torch relay list is Mark Tewksbury, who carried the torch in Canada for the Athens 2004 relay.

Back with Atlanta I mentioned the bombing but not a dispute between the organisers and the lgbt community over the venue for the volleyball competition. The local council passed a resolution in 1993 denouncing homosexuality as “incompatible with the standards” of their community. Groups within and outside the lgbt community objected to having the volleyball staged there. The Olympic committees hoped that doing nothing would make it go away. Diving champion Greg Louganis, who had just come out, decided to use his acceptance speech at the US Olympic Festival’s Robert J Kane Award ceremony in 1994 to raise the issue in front of a public microphone, which slapped the Atlanta committee into action. Three weeks later the volleyball competition was moved to another venue.

American figure skater from Turin 2006, Matt Savioe, ended years of rumour by announcing his marriage to partner Brian Boyle in October. Orlando Cruz becomes the 2^nd Olympic boxer after Mark Leduc to come out. He competed for Puerto Rico in Sydney 2000 and turned professional afterwards. He is currently ranked 4^th in the featherweight division in the WBO and is the only out professional competing boxer.

Another Olympic boxer was outed last month when the Independent on Sunday newspaper published its annual Pink List of the most influential lgbt people in the UK. This year’s list included all of Team GB’s out athletes and placed Nicola Adams in the No. 1 spot. Nicola was the first female British boxer to win a gold medal. Also in the Pink List was the captain of Team GB’s female football team, Casey Stoney. She joined coach Hope Powell on the list. However, Casey’s sexuality has been doubted on several blogs and social media networks.

One winter Olympian to add to the list is Barbara Jezeršek, the Croatian cross-country skier. She competed at Vancouver 2010 and has been out since 2008.

Last month I gave a brief life story of Kathleen Rose Winter, the first identified lgbt Paralympian. I received a wonderful email from Kathleen’s partner Elandria thanking me, and passing on more information. Kathleen was also a keen campaigner for children’s education, a reason why she enjoyed being a supply teacher. Kathleen’s Paralympic career also took her to Athens in 2004, and dreamt of one day seeing Paralympians and Olympians competing together.

Among the volunteers at this year’s Paralympic opening ceremony, floating around the stadium at the beginning, was Miro Civin (he’s in green with a yellow umbrella if you want to spot him on the dvd!). Miro is a Gay Games and Eurogames athlete, was Mr Leather Holland 2001 and Mr EuroDeaf Phwoar 2007.

London 2012’s overall Creative Producer, Stephen Daldry, personally directed the sequence of David Beckham transporting the flame along the Thames. In my opinion the ceremonies were poorer without the input from carnival designer Peter Minshall and choreographer Doug Jack, perhaps the two gay men who have shaped the look of western Olympic ceremonies more than any others. Both won Emmys for the Salt Lake City 2002 winter games, and Doug’s giant “skier” segment in Turin 2006 will always be one of my favourite moments.

One element introduced by Doug and his team was to lift the ceremony off the stadium floor. Attempts were made to fill the air before – doves, balloons and jet packs – but Doug introduced performers on wires. This was used briefly this year with the entrance of 30 Mary Poppins’, and reached its pinnacle with the arrival of the Paralympic flame. Doug Jack has actually worked on 12 Olympic ceremonies, more than anyone else in a creative role. He also took part in the Salt Lake City torch relay.

I was reminded of Salt Lake City during the catwalk sequence in London’s closing ceremony. With Barcelona 1992 and Turin 2006, Salt Lake also had a sequence featuring special designs from famous fashion houses, including Versace and Dolce and Gabbana.

The success of the Pride Houses in Vancouver and London has led to others being planned for Rio and other international sporting events. The judicial ban on a Pride House at Sochi 2014 has been countered by calls for individual competing countries to set up their own lgbt space in the Olympic village.

There’s still so much more to tell you, but I’ll leave it there – but except a final golden flourish later this month in my 12 Gay Days of Christmas.

Since this article first appeared a lot of new information has been revealed and new research has been carried out. This article should be seen as a mere snapshot of the information known at the date of its publication. Several facts may now be outdated or inaccurate.

Queer Achievement - Michelangelo

[Achievement – the name given in heraldry to the full pictorial representation of a coat of arms.]

This month’s Queer Achievement is different in that it is the first one in this series that was inherited. The previous two (Elton John and John Bercow) were granted to each man personally because they had no known entitlement to inherited arms from a family of their name.

The first of the queer inherited arms belongs to the great artist Michelangelo. He claimed descent from an old noble family from Florence, the counts of Canossa, but there is no documentary evidence to prove it, only family tradition.

The coat of arms which Michelangelo is known to have used himself is the main one I’ve produced above. I have been unable to verify a crest or motto used by the family so is only half of a heraldic achievement so I haven't been able to incorporate the rainbow and pink triangles as before.

The original coat of arms of the Buonarroti Simoni (Michelangelo’s family) was blue with 2 diagonal yellow stripes near the bottom of the shield. The symbolism of this design is unknown, but it was often the case that families adopted the same colours of their local lord or ruler. In this case it may be possible that the Buonarroti Simoni adopted the colours of their traditional ancestors the counts of Canossa (who had a yellow dog on a blue shield as their coat of arms). There were additions made to the design which point to the family’s rise in importance in Florence.

At some time during the 14^th century the family received what is called an augmentation of honour. This means that some ruler gave them a special new addition to their coat of arms in commemoration of some important event. For the Buonarroti Simoni this event was their support for Charles d’Anjou, King of Naples. Sometimes the augmentation is based on the coat of arms of the ruler giving it. You can see from the picture of King Charles of Naples’s coat of arms (right) which part of Michelangelo’s arms came from his family’s support for Charles. A lot of other Italian families adopted this part of King Charles’s coat of arms (at the top of the shield, called the chief) and it even has its own name in heraldry – the “capo d’Anjou” or “chief of Anjou”.

Even during Michelangelo’s lifetime another augmentation of honour was granted to the family, this time by Pope Leo X. In 1515 Leo created Michelangelo’s brother a count. As a special mark of honour the pope granted a new augmentation to be placed at the top of the existing arms rather than over it (below left). The new augmentation was influenced by the family arms of Pope Leo, the Medici (below right). L and X stand for Leo X.

Pope Leo himself has been the subject of speculation into his sexuality. Though this is perhaps better dealt with individually in a later post.

Christmas Preview

Those of you who read my blog last Christmas may remember my series called “The 12 Gays of Christmas”. This year I’m going to go one better and follow the lyrics of the famous Christmas song more closely and bring you “The 12 Gay Days of Christmas”.

For each of the gifts mentioned in the song I’ll give a queer interpretation by linking it to people in the lgbt community. As the song says, on “the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me …” a total of 78 gifts. By the end of the series I’ll have listed 78 people to go with them (actually I’ll list more, but you’ll have to wait and see exactly how many!).

You’ll see what I mean when we get started, which will be on Christmas Day itself and will continue every day until 5^th January 2013, when the twelfth and final gifts are given. I won’t give an introduction to the whole series every day, just an introduction for the gifts given on that day.

To whet your appetite here’s just a hint of what to expect. Among the Christmas people will be :

viral investigators,

an Esperanto blackbird,

a cavalry officer who preferred giraffes,

and my great-grand-Mother Goose.

Star Gayzing - One Man and his Snake

Almost exactly 17 years ago there was quite a bit of fuss in the British newspapers about the “discovery” of a 13^th sign of the zodiac. In a BBC television series called “Heavenly Bodies” a member of the Royal Astronomical Society revealed that between the constellations of Scorpio and Sagittarius was another that crossed the ecliptic (what I like to call the zodiac line), the line that marks the sun’s progression through one constellation to the next. That extra zodiac constellation is Ophiucus.

It wasn’t a new suggestion, but it upset a lot of the tabloid newspapers because they relied on daily horoscopes to help keep regular readers and an extra star sign mucked things up! Ever since 1933 when the present constellations were made “official” anyone with a star map could see that Ophiucus crosses the zodiac line for themselves quite clearly (as can be seen in the accompanying map).

I won’t go into the slagging match that went on between astronomer and astrologers over the matter, so we’ll turn to the constellation itself.

Generally speaking, Ophiucus is represented on old star maps as a Greek man holding a snake in his hands – the constellation Serpens, divided into 2 (Serpens Caput, the serpent’s head, and Serpens Cauda, the serpent’s tail). Quite often this man is identified as Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, son of last month’s star subject Apollo. The snake entwined around Asclepius’s walking staff is still used as a symbol of healing (the 2 snakes entwined around a winged staff that you often see is a symbol of Hermes and has nothing to do with healing).

But if we go back to the origin of the name Ophiucus and its earliest depictions we’ll discover why I believe that identifying the constellation with Asclepius is wrong, and that it actually represents one of Apollo’s many male lovers.

The word Ophiucus means “snake bearer”. It seems that this area of the sky has had snake connections since the ancient Babylonians. In the 4^th century BC the constellation is described as a man wrestling with a giant snake around his waist, grasping it’s head and tail in his hands. Pictorial versions also show him like this. This means that the constellation representing the snake – Serpens – is divided into 2 with Ophiucus in the middle (see the map again – Ophiucus is in pink, Serpens in light green). So we must consider both constellations together.

In the legends of Asclepius there is no story of him wrestling or battling snakes, only observing them.

The most likely origin of Ophiucus and the snake comes from the Mediterranean island we now know as Rhodes. Legend says that the island was overrun with giant snakes or dragons. The people of Rhodes called their island Ophiussa, the Lands of the Snakes (“ophi” means “snake”). The dragon-snakes killed many people and soon the island was virtually uninhabited by humans. In their desperation the remaining islanders called upon Apollo to send them a hero who could kill the monsters.

Apollo sent young Phorbas of Thessalia. The legends say he was one of Apollo’s young lovers but they don’t go into any other detail. On his arrival on Rhodes Phorbas set to and killed all the giant dragon-snakes. In gratitude Apollo asked Zeus to put Phorbas in the night sky as the snake-battling Ophiucus.

To me this seems the most likely origin of Ophiucus and Serpens than the Roman-based Asclepius version. And as far as the 13^th sign of the zodiac is concerned – according to modern astrology we’re right in the middle of it now.

World AIDS Day

Photo by Neil Page. Courtesy of Neil Page Creative.

Perhaps no other disease has been misunderstood, researched or argued over in the past 30 years as much as AIDS. Thankfully, a lot more is known about it than even 10 years ago and the chances of living with AIDS in less pain is greater than ever before.

The Health Protection Agency released figures this week which reveals that rates of HIV patients in the UK has risen to about 96,000, with new diagnoses among gay men reaching an all-time high in 2011 at 3,010. This figure means that 5% of gay men in the UK are HIV+. The figure for London is higher, at 1 in 12 men.

These figures show that we must not get complacent about HIV and AIDS.

At first I though of compiling a brief timeline of the main events in HIV and AIDS research for today’s World AIDS Day, of how doctors and scientists discovered what it was, what it did, how it spread, and how to treat it. But the more I did my research the more confusing the task became. Not least of all were the medical terms that were difficult to understand without being in the medical profession, which I’m not.

Instead, I’m directing you to the Avert website. Over the past year I haven’t come across another history of HIV and AIDS research that treats the subject chronologically rather than retrospectively – only on rare occasions does it mention something happening in, say 1985, if it wasn’t discovered until 2005. I find it easier to follow the development of AIDS research as it unfolds, with no “spoilers”, just as the scientists were detectives  discovering key evidence to help solve the puzzle.

The Avert history of AIDS is the most comprehensive and readable version I have found. I hope you find it informative and useful.