A Queer Bogeyman

Hallowe’en is with us again, with its US-inspired misappropriation and distortion of traditional European customs and neo-pagan fakery.

The world is full of monsters and evil spirits who “live” all year round in every culture. There are no supernatural spirits that are specifically associated with Hallowe’en (unlike Christmas). Some of these spirits lurk in the shadows, ready to pounce on the unsuspecting. They are a wide range of bogeymen, a general name given to the many different types of spirits and monsters in all sizes and physical forms often used by parents to keep their children in order.

In South Africa there’s a bogeyman that has some gender-bending characteristics called Antjie Somers.

While most bogeymen originate in centuries-old folk belief, Antjie Somers can be traced back to more recent times. The first printed reference appears in a South African magazine called “The Friend of the Free State”, published in Bloemfontein on 10th August 1866. I haven’t been able to track down a copy of this edition but I have found snippets and references to it from other sources. From these it seems that Antjie Somers was a devilish character who stalked the streets at night, preying on lone travellers or looking for naughty children to carry away in his sack.

Several different urban legends and folk motifs merge in this Afrikaan bogeyman. First there is the Sackman, common throughout the world in many forms, including the original 19th century American Santa Claus who has a sack from which he distributes presents to good children and kidnaps naughty children (later downgraded to a “naughty list”).

Another common folk motif in Antjie Somers is the urban myth of a highwayman or robber disguising himself as a vulnerable character in need of protection or rescue. The urban myth of a hitch-hiker who appears innocent and turns into a bogeyman is still quite common. Although hitch-hiking bogeymen are scary they are also not very intelligent. Victims who see through the disguise can easily make an excuse to stop the car or horse and carriage by saying they accidentally dropped something onto the road, or there’s an obstruction ahead and ask the hitch-hiker to get out and pick up or remove the object. The potential victim can then just to drive off at speed, leaving the bogeyman behind.

A third common folk motif is one which concerns us today, that Antjie Somers is a male bogeyman disguised as a woman. This is a variation on the preceding hitch-hiker motif (commonly referred to as “the hairy-armed hitch-hiker”). There’s several indexes of world folk motifs. In the Thompson Folk Motif Index, for example, tales of a man disguising himself as a woman is category K.1836.

The 1866 “The Field” article states that there were two bogeymen called Antjie Somers and Antjie Winter, one operating in summer and the other in winter, hence their names. The article indicates that the characters were known from the time of Lord Charles Somerset who was the Governor of Cape Colony 1815-26.

Over the decades, these urban myths merged to produce the Antjie Somers known today. Such additional myths include his ability to become invisible and to fly around in the sky, other common motifs applied to evil spirits in European folk tales. The Dutch, the ancestors of the Afrikaans, certainly had legends about female-disguised robbers, as did other European colonists.

By the mid-20th century the stories of Antjie Somers had been reduced to those told to scare children. This was part of a general global turn from traditional folk stories and customs as humanity began to turn away from old days of superstition and into the modern scientific and technological world.

When Pieter W. Grobbelaar, a South African author and folk tale collector, published his 1968 book “The Most Beautiful Afrikaans Fairy Tales”, he wrote the “full story” of Antjie Somers. Briefly, it went like this: Andries Somers was a brave and strong Afrikaans fishermen. No-one could haul in the full nets as fast as he could. One day, the other fishermen became jealous and attacked him. Andries knocked them all to the ground, but one fisherman didn’t get up. He was dead. Andries, hoping to avoid being accused on murder, stole some women’s clothes to disguise himself and ran away. He managed to find work in another part of South Africa. His new work colleagues found the stolen clothes in his hut and began taunting him, calling him by the female name Antjie Somers. Andries could bear it no longer and fled once more and was never seen again. However, children began talking about an old woman in the mountains who was always angry and kept threatening them. People believed this was Antjie Somers and that children should keep away or he would carry them away in a sack. From this Antjie developed into a bogeyman. This was Grobbelaar’s version.

By the end of the century the origin myths of Antjie Somers had been further elaborated. Rather fancifully, modern social rights were applied to the bogeyman’s origin, including sexism and racism.

The first modern interpretation came from feminist activists who claimed Antjie Somers is proof of the patriarchal misogyny of the 19th century. As mentioned above, Antjie Somers is just one of many variations of combined folk motifs. The Thompson Folk Motif Index lists other disguises used my male bogeymen in folk tales, including animals, old men, and other people. There are also folk motifs of female bogeymen disguising themselves as men, even among the Afrikaans. Even today, most female fiction writers feature men as the main villain. Very few write about evil women.

Next we come to the most obvious fake addition to Antjie Somers, the idea that he was a slave and his myths are racist. I haven’t found any reference to Antjie Somers being either a slave or black before 2000. The version by given by Grobbelaar in 1968 clearly identifies him as Afrikaans, i.e. white, and every other reference I’ve found from that period implies the same.

The black slave link seems to originate in a musical called “Antjie Somers” which premiered in South Africa in 2000. The musical sets the origin of the Antjie Somers legend in 1834 which contradicts the 1866 “The Friend” article which dates if before 1826.

The character of Antjie Somers is portrayed as a black ex-slave. The musical’s creators haven’t said why they changed his race, or why the musical is set in the wrong period. The disturbing aspect, however, is that people who saw it probably went away thinking it was historical fact, like people have who have seen the musical “Hamilton” or the film “Braveheart”.

This is probably why a South African student wrote an MA thesis in 2011 about Antjie Somers which was solely based on the “fact” that the bogeyman was based on a real slave. The student even retold Grobbelaar’s 1968 version of the legend and wrote quite specifically that she changed Antjie’s race to a black purely to suit the purpose of her thesis, not because she had any new proof. Why her university didn’t throw out this student’s pathetic attempt at academic research is puzzling.

Be that as it may, the idea that Antjie was a black slave soon spread across the internet, and every time it appears it is usually repeated word-for-word as if it was fact, so that now it is virtually impossible to find any reference that restores the original version.

One earlier attempt to discover the origin of this bogeyman to find any basis in historical fact was made in the mid-20th century. One South African historian was told a story by a respected poet and folklorist C. Louis Liepoldt (1880-1947) who, in turn, heard the story from an elderly couple in around 1900. In their youth they were told of a real un-named robber who stalked Tuin Street, Cape Town, dressed as a woman. It was a rough area and most people avoided going there at night. When his activities became too well known he feared capture and ran away into the mountains.

This may just have been a story about a different robber, and there are other origins that have been suggested, including being the ghost of someone who committed suicide. Whatever Antjie Somers’ origin story actually is, he’ll be scaring children and travellers for generation to come.

I hope I haven’t put you off going out tonight, so why not stay indoors with a nice bottle of wine. A few years ago you could have enjoyed a nice sauvignon blanc from Folklore Wines in South Africa called Antjie Somers (pictured below). I don’t think it is available now, but you’re free to search around for a bottle.

For me, I’m celebrating Hallowe’en as it was intended, by remembering our ancestors, like the ancient Roman festival in late October which inspired the Roman Catholic Church to create Hallowe’en in the first place. The neo-pagan cultural appropriation of an alleged British Celtic festival unknown to the distant Italian Catholics, is not for me.

Buried Alive?

There has been a lot of speculation over the centuries concerning the death of Alexander the Great (d.323 BC), perhaps the world’s most successful lgbt emperor. In recent years the question has centred round the possibility that he may have been buried alive. The truth is much more horrific.

The manner and cause of Alexander’s death have been theorised for centuries based on the few records that have survived. One popularly believed cause of death can be dismissed immediately. Alexander did not died from intense grief after the death of his lover Hephaestion in 324BC. He showed no signs of grief in the days before his death. In fact he partied for days, as he often did before and after Hephaestion died.

The historical accounts don’t tell us very much, or at least not enough for us to name a definitive cause of death. The symptoms recorded in the decades and centuries after his death have been interpreted as being due to many different ailments. Here is a short list of those that have been suggested: liver disease caused by alcoholism, typhoid, malaria, pancreatitis, leukaemia, arsenic poisoning, and strychnine poisoning (these last two suggesting murder).

One particularly rare condition which was suggested is Guillain-Barré Syndrome, or GBS. This is a condition that affects the nervous system. It causes a gradual paralysis of muscles and very often reduces the heart rate and breathing.

I think the first suggestion that Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) may have played a part in Alexander’s death came in a paper called “A Mysterious Death” presented to the Historical Clinopathological Conference 1996 at the University of Maryland. Its authors, three doctors at the university and one from Pennsylvania State University, suggested that Alexander died of typhoid “complicated by bowel perforation and ascending paralysis”. They interpreted this paralysis as a symptom of GBS. They didn’t say explicitly that GBS was responsible for Alexander’s death, but it was enough for others to latch on to and develop the suggestion further.

What later commentators have theorised is that because GBS causes paralysis Alexander the Great was still alive when he was examined by his physicians and pronounced dead.

In ancient times physicians didn’t know about the circulation of blood and didn’t check anyone’s pulse to see if they were alive. They relied on a person’s breathing, and GBS slows down the breathing rate to a point where it is virtually undetectable. Naturally, this has led to sensationalised click-baiting headlines across the media (like those shown below, and, I suppose, the title I gave above!) saying that Alexander was buried alive. This is not the case, but one implication of the GBS diagnosis means that Alexander suffered from what I think is a worse fate.

There are no surviving documents form Alexander’s time that tell us exactly how he died or what he died from. But there are fragments of the Ephemerides of Alexander, which are royal journals written at the time. These formed the basis of later biographies of Alexander by writers such as the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, and the Greek philosopher Plutarch, both of the 1st century.

Quintus Curtius Rufus describes how Alexander’s body didn’t start to putrefy for six days despite the heat of the Mesopotamian summer (Alexander died in Babylon). Plutarch writes that embalmers were brought from Egypt to preserve Alexander’s body while preparations were made for his burial in Egypt. The embalmers, who arrived six days after the emperor’s death, remarked how lifelike his body still appeared. So, if Alexander did suffer from GBS brought on by something like typhoid he may have been conscious for most of those 6 days.

I hope for his sake that he wasn’t, because I’m sure you’re aware of the methods Egyptians used to embalm bodies. The body was drained of blood, the brain was pulled out of the skull through the nose, and the lungs, stomach, liver and intestines were cut out. Then the body was placed in a salt called nitron for 40 days to remove all moisture, and then wrapped in bandages. Imagine being fully conscious and unable to move or speak as you experienced your blood being drained from your body.

Another ancient story says that Alexander’s body was preserved in honey until it could be buried. This implies that Alexander, if he had GBS and was still alive, drowned in honey.

But this is all speculation. No-one has come up with proof of the exact cause of Alexander’s death, and without examination of his bodily remains (which haven’t been found) we probably never will. All we can say after thinking about what could have happened is Rest In Peace.

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.