The year 2022 has seen great summer of sport of lgbt athletes. Sadly, it has also been not so great for others who were not allowed to compete. However, the EuroGames in the Netherlands just before the Commonwealth Games began provided a multi-sport festival that excluded no-one. This year would have been ever better if the Gay Games in Hong Kong has not been postponed until next year.
Sporting anniversaries abound. The Gay Games celebrates 40 years this year. The EuroGames, the mini version of the Gay Games, celebrated its 30th anniversary, and another sporting festival which I mentioned in passing last month was founded 100 years ago. That festival was the Women’s World Games.
Rather than give a history of the Women’s World Games I’d like to write about the few competitors who were lesbian, bisexual or transgender in its twelve year run. There’s an excellent history of the game here on the Inside the Games website, the perfect sport website because it includes all sports except football, thank God.
Briefly, here are the official editions of the Women’s World Games
Not all names of participating athletes are readily available, so there may be others. Here is the list of known athletes at the games. They are list in order of participation.
Mark Weston (1905-1978)
Mark Weston was the British women’s shot put champion for several years. He was born in 1905 with a genital abnormality, probably some form of intersex condition, and was assigned and raised as a girl. In 1936 he underwent surgery to realign as male and took the name Mark Weston.
In our own time, when Caitlyn Jenner transitioned in 2015, there were calls for her to return her Olympic decathlon gold medal. Mark Weston actually offered to return all of his medals that had won during his female career because he considered he had not won them fairly, but the sporting authorities refused to accept them.
Weston married in 1936 and had three children. He died in 1978. Interestingly, his sibling Harry Weston (a non-athlete) also transitioned in the 1930s. Even when competing in 1928 Mark felt he was different and, in his own words, “had no right to compete as a woman”.
Stanislawa Walasiewicz (1911-1980)
Stella was one of the more famous female Olympic athletes in the early 20th century. I’ll direct you to this part of my 2018 “Around the World in Another 80 Gays” series in which I wrote about Stella Walsh’s career and controversy surrounding her gender. At the Women’s World Games Stella won 2 golds medals in 1930 in the 100m and 200m. In 1934 she won silver in both of these distances, but she won the gold medal in the 60m.
Zdeněk Koubek (1913-1986)
Koubek was one of Czechoslovakia’s most successful female athletes. Before his appearance at the Women’s World Games he held the Czech national titles in the 100 metres, 200 metres, 800 metres, high jump and long jump. It wasn’t unusual for female athletes of that time to compete in multiple disciplines, more so than male athletes. Koubek also held several world records before the 1934 games. He broke another while winning the 800 metres gold medal. He also won a bronze medal in the javelin throw.
Those 1934 games seem to have been Koubek’s last competitive appearance. He retired from athletics in 1935 and shortly afterwards began the process of transitioning. After its completion he courted publicity and interviews during 1936 before retiring to family life in Czechoslovakia with his new wife.
The last Women’s World Games in London were held from 9th to 11th August 1934 at the White City Stadium in London. Just six miles away on exactly the same dates the 2nd Commonwealth Games (then called the British Empire Games) were being held in Wembley Park.
Another athlete was almost certain to have competed at the 1934 Women’s World Games had the Commonwealth Games not taken place at the same time. I mentioned this athlete briefly in my piece about the Birmingham 2022 games last month. His name was Edwin Halstead (1907-1962). He was the UK’s top female javelin thrower, competing under the name of Edith Halstead, and at the 1934 games he won the silver medal.
As I said in that earlier article, very little is known about Edwin, so I used my genealogical skills to find out more. First, I needed to establish that Edwin and Edith Halstead were the same person. This is confirmed on the 1939 Register of England and Wales. As the war progressed the information was amended. Amendments were still being made in the 1980s when it was consigned to the National Archives. Below is the entry which proves Edith and Edwin Halstead are the same person. Edwin is living in Radcliffe, Lancashire, with his half-sister Eva Dawson.
The amendment code means – IC (identity card – a new one being issued in this case) /NWT (the enumeration district of Radcliffe). I haven’t deciphered CS36337 yet. The handwritten date, 22nd August 1944, is when the amendment was made, not when Edwin transitioned. So, we can be sure that Edwin transitioned during the war. He probably chose the name Edwin after his mother’s first husband, Edwin Dawson (an unfortunate man who died at the age of 38 after being run over by a train).
Other records tell us that Edwin married Ellen Rothwell in 1946. In 1948 he was working as a telephonist at the Post Office phone exchange in Blackpool (just like you see in old movies). He died in Blackpool on 5th May 1962. He and Ellen had no children.
There’s yet another possible addition to this list. At the 1934 Women’s World Games was the German sprinter and discus thrower Käthe Krauss (1906-1970). At the games she won 3 gold sprint medals and 1 bronze discus medal. Her gender was questioned during her career, though mostly through hearsay and rumour rather than definitive evidence. Athletes competing against her often expressed the opinion that Kathe was not completely female. I can only be surmised that they thought she was intersex. Perhaps we’ll never know for sure.
I’ve managed to find a short vide of the 1934 Women’s World Games. It shows Stella Walsh winning the 60m, and possibly Zdeněk Koubek competing in the long jump. Käthe Krauss is in the athlete's parade.
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