Homohoax: Pranking Penguins

There can be no better day than today – April Fools day – to present another Homohoax, one of the many hoaxes, pranks, fakes, imposters, conspiracy theories and confidence tricks perpetrated by or upon the lgbt community.

One of my favourite all-time April Fool jokes was the one the BBC pulled off in 2008. They made a short film promoting a non-existent documentary about flying penguins migrating from Antarctica to Australia. With this in mind I thought I’d write about a hoax involving both penguins and Australia.

The homohoax is known as the Ern Malley Hoax, and was carried out in Australia in 1944 by James McAuley (1917-1976) and Harold Stewart (1916-1995), the latter being regarded today, on the internet at least, as Australia’s first gay poet, although he was not out publicly in his lifetime

Let’s begin with the penguins.

There was an art movement in Australia in the 1940s called Angry Penguins, which took its name from the title a journal edited by a modernist surrealist poet called Max Harris (1921-1995). The name “Angry Penguins” came from a line in one of his poems, "as drunks, the angry penguins of the night". Other modernist poets and artists allied themselves to the movement and they became known collectively as the Angry Penguins.

The Angry Penguins were anything but conservative and traditional. Harold Stewart and James McAuley, however, were definitely conservative, and they hated modernism.

Harold Stewart was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. His father was a health inspector with a keen interest in Asia, an interest that he would pass on to his son. Harold showed early promise as a poet when he was a teenager at school. James McAuley was at the same school, and both received the school’s poetry prize, McAuley in1933 and Stewart in 1935

In school Stewart also became aware of his homosexuality, though the prevailing social conventions at the time were very homophobic and he remained in the closet for the rest of his life. It was only revealed in public in 1996, the year after he died. Stewart's school poetry had homoerotic subject matters, which subsequently helped to earn his the title of Australis’ first gay poet. Most of his friends were probably unaware of his sexuality.

After leaving school Stewart studied teaching at Sydney University but found it quite dull, and he abandoned his studies to become a poet. He spent hours in the public library, reading and copying poems, searching for his own poetic identity. He also met with friends around Sydney to recite and discuss their poems with each other.

During World War II, Stewart and McAuley worked in Army Intelligence (in the Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs) in Melbourne. In 1943, while in the army barracks, in just one day, they created the Ern Malley Hoax, a fictitious poet and entire body of work. The poems were deliberately written to be bad, exaggerating the modernist symbolism to the point of ridicule. They actually just wrote down the first thing that came into their heads, whether it made sense or not. They also had a pile of reference books, dictionaries and phrase books from which they lifted words and phrases at random. At the end of the day Stewart and McAulay had written 17 poems and a complete fake biography of Ern Malley.

So, what did Stewart and McAuley come up with for their biography of Ern Malley?

Ernest “Ern” Lalor Malley was born in England on 14th March 1918. His father died when Ern was 2, and his mother migrated to Sydney, Australia, with her two children Ern and Ethel. At the age of 17 Ern moved to Melbourne and had several jobs. In the early 1940s he was diagnosed with Graves' disease. Although not necessarily fatal, this is a serious autoimmune disease that particularly affects the thyroid gland which enlarges and produces hormones causing skin, heart, and muscle problems and, in the most well-known effect, the bulging of eyes. Malley refused treatment and he returned to Sydney to live with his sister in March 1943. He died a few months later on 23 July.

After Ern’s death, Ethel found some poems he had written. She wrote to Max Harris and asked for his opinion of them. Ethel was, of course, actually Stewart and McAuley. Harris was excited. He showed them to his Angry Penguin friends, and they fell for the hoax hook, line and sinker, just as Stewart and McAulay had hoped. They all agreed that Malley was a genius. Harris decided to rush out a special edition of the “Angry Penguins” journal and commissioned noted Australian artist Sidney Nolan to paint the cover illustration based on one of Malley's poems.

While the modernist poets praised Malley and his poems, the University of Adelaide’s student newspaper ridiculed the poems, suggesting that Harris had written them as a hoax. Then the Adelaide Daily Mail expressed the same opinion. The next week the “Sunday Sun” ran a front page story correctly alleging that the Malley poems had been written by McAuley and Stewart.

Then things turned serious. The police impounded the special “Angry Penguins” issue and prosecuted Harris for publishing obscene material. Several distinguished expert witnesses were called to defend Harris, but he was found guilty. His fine by today’s standard was pretty light - £5.

Understandably, the whole Malley hoax effected the course of the modernist and surrealist movement in Australia. Support of the Australian modernist and surrealist movement took a blow, and the “Angry Penguins” journal lost readership and soon went out of business. However, Max Harris later took advantage of the affair, and in the mid-1950s he published another literary magazine called “Ern Malley's Journal”. He was always adamant that Malley’s poems, even though he knew they were fake, still had merit and he republished them in 1961. He wrote, "Sometimes the myth is greater than its creators." His opinion was influential. Even today, over 70 years later, the Malley poems are regarded as legitimate surrealist poems. They have inspired many other poems and artists. In fact, the artist Sidney Nolan said the Malley poems inspired him to create his “Ned Kelly” series of paintings.

In 1974 there was an exhibition of Sidney Nolan’s art called "Ern Malley and Paradise Garden" at the Art Gallery of South Australia's Adelaide Festival Exhibitions. More recently an exhibition called "Ern Malley: The Hoax and Beyond" was mounted at the Heide Museum of Modern Art in 2009. The “Washington Post” has gone so far as to call the Ern Malley Hoax as the greatest literary hoax in the 20th century (I would challenge this – the Hitler Diaries had a more global effect).

After the hoax, Stewart worked in a Melbourne bookshop and collected many Eastern books, as his late father’s interest in Asia began to become a bigger part his own life. He began to study and pursue Japanese Buddhism and haiku poetry.

He first visited Japan in 1961. He was almost ordained as a Jōdo Shinshū priest in 1963 but changed his mind at the last minute. From 1966 Stewart became a permanent resident in Japan, becoming an expert on the history, culture and art of Kyoto. He wrote a series of poems with prose commentaries on Kyoto’s history in 1981. Earlier, in the 1960s, he published two translations of haiku poetry which proved popular.

Harold Stewart died in Kyoto on 7th August 1995 after a short illness. His body was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Higashiyama mountains.

One of the ironic twists is that the Ern Malley poems have become the most well-known poems by Harold Stewart, more so than the poems he wrote under his own name. I wonder if that qualifies as a hoax that backfired.

City Pride - Sydney

Following on from the Venice carnival we arrive at the actual day of Mardi Gras. For those who are unfamiliar with the origin of Mardi Gras, perhaps a little information may help. In medieval times Christians put aside several weeks of fasting and abstinence before important Christian festivals like Easter and Christmas. The most common terms for these periods are Lent and Advent respectively. Lent begins tomorrow, the day after Mardi Gras. In preparation, Christians would eat up all the food that they were going to deprive themselves of all the way up to Easter, especially meat. They would also celebrate with carnivals. Actually, “carnival” comes from a 15th century Italian term meaning “remove meat”, which implies the word was created specifically for Christian Mardi Gras celebrations. Today people have generally dropped the fasting element.

Perhaps the most famous Mardi Gras carnivals take place in Brazil and New Orleans, but undoubtedly the most famous lgbt+ Mardi Gras is that held in Sydney, Australia. This year’s Sydney Mardi Gras finished this past weekend. So, as a belated celebration, here is the latest entry in my “City Pride” series about Sydney.

The area I’ve concentrated on is just south of Sydney Harbour Bridge. Because Sydney has so much lgbt+ history it has been difficult to narrow it down to just 12 locations. Most of them may be known to a lot of Sydney citizens, but I have, as always, tried to find some lesser known locations, people or events that show the diversity of the lgbt+ culture in Sydney.

First of all, the area covered is in the Sydney Electoral District (except for a tiny bit of the bottom left hand corner of the map). The current MP for the Sydney electoral district in the New South Wales parliament is Alex Greenwich (b. 1980, into a princely dynasty from Georgia – the country, not the US state), who has been the representative since 2012. He was the first openly gay elected member.

The locations are listed from north to south.

1) Speaker’s Corner, The Domain

John Webster (1913-2008) was a regular speaker at Speaker’s Corner for over 30 years. His distinctive voice is remembered by many older Sydney citizens of all political ideologies, genders and faiths. His opinion on all these issues evolved over the years. Briefly married twice, he is also known to have had gay relationships. His ashes were scattered around the Speaker’s podium.

2) St. James’s Church

In the summer of 1836 Rev. William Yate (1802-1877), a British missionary fresh from New Zealand, was appointed chaplain to this church. It was while he was here that reports were made to the authorities of his homosexual activity with sailors and Maori youths. Yate protested his innocence, and no evidence of actual sodomy was proven. Nevertheless, he was dismissed and was sent back to the UK by December. He took with him Edwin Denison, the Third Mate he “befriended” on the ship that brought him to Sydney. He died as chaplain of the Mariners Church in Dover.

3) Sydney Town Hall

One of the locations that were part of the demonstrations that took place in Gay Pride Week 1973. On 15 September activists marched to the hall. Among the banners they carried was what I consider to be the world’s first lgbt+ community flag – a black flag with a pink triangle in the centre. Previous flags had belonged to specific organisations, but in Sydney this flag was adopted by all sections of the community. I write in more detail about the use of this flag here.

Currently, there are a record four lgbt+ elected members on the city council, Zann Maxwell, Matthew Thompson, Mitch Wilson and Adam Worling, all elected last October. Zann Maxwell was appointed the city’s Deputy Mayor.

This year is the 25th anniversary of the Sydney Olympics. At the end of each day of the torch relay there was a ceremony involving the lighting of a “community cauldron”. On the night before the opening ceremony the final leg of the relay went from Sydney Harbour Bridge and down George Street to the Town Hall. The last torch bearer was the world’s top female golfer at the time, Australia’s Karrie Webb, who lit the community cauldron.

4) St. Andrew’s Cathedral

One of the few non-political Australian state funerals took place here in 1986. It was to honour the Australian ballet dancer and choreographer Sir Robert Helpmann (1909-1986). He is most famous for his role as the Child Catcher in the film “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (a character invented for the film). Helpmann was the first in a long line of openly lgbt+ performers to play this character in its many theatre productions. These include Stephen Gately, Wayne Sleep, Paul O’Grady, Richard O’Brien, and The Vivienne.

5) Junction of William Street and College Street, Australia Museum

During WorldPride 2023, hosted by Sydney, many artistic expressions of lgbt+ culture were on display. One of the most unusual, located outside the museum entrance, was the Progress Shark, a huge life-size model of a great white shark dressed in a Progress Flag-inspired lycra swimsuit. Created by Sydney-based artist George Buchanan, the shark quickly became a tourist attraction and icon of WorldPride. Like many artworks created for the occasion it was taken down afterwards.

6) 110 Bathurst Street

This is currently a modern multi-storey building home to various businesses, but back in the 1920s it was a residential area. This address was, for a couple of years, the art studio and salon of Australian sculptor and artist Dora Ohlfsen-Bagge (1869-1948) and her partner Baroness Helene von Kügelgen (d.1948). Although they lived in Rome most of the time, Dora revisited Sydney and produced many works for Australian clients. These included designing the ANZAC medal, and many sculptures that are now lost or destroyed.

7) 29 Pelican Street

In 1948 this address became the home of Iris Webber (1906-1953), described by local newspapers as “the most violent woman in Sydney”. She is a perfect subject for one of my “Extraordinary Lives” series. Condensing her life down to a few sentences has been difficult, but here goes. Iris was married twice and had at least two female partners. She shot three men (including her first husband, and killing another) but was acquitted each time. She was either arrested or convicted of assault at least 4 times (twice with a tomahawk). She was arrested many times for busking and begging, illegally selling alcohol, and robbery (with her then partner Vera). Iris’s last court appearance was for contempt of court in 1952.

8) National Art School, formerly Darlinghurst Gaol.

This old jail once housed several notable lgbt+ prisoners, the most well-known being the bushranger known as Captain Moonlite (Andrew Scott, 1842-1880). Born in Ireland, Scott can be said to have been a bit of an adventurer, travelling the world fighting as something of a mercenary before arriving in Australia in 1867. While living as a lay reader in a church in the gold fields, he was masquerading as Captain Moonlite, robbing a local bank agent. Caught and convicted, Scott met James Nesbit in jail and the two formed a relationship. After release he struggled to find work, and attacked a cattle station with his gang. Nesbit was killed, but Scott was captured and later hanged in the jail.

The current art school opened in 1921 has had many lgbt+ alumni and has hosted many exhibition by lgbt+ artists.

9) Green Park – LGBT Holocaust Memorial

This monument, designed by Jennifer Gamble and Russell Rodrigo, commemorates the many lgbt+ victims of the Nazis during the Holocaust. The pink triangle that gay prisoners were forced to wear has become an iconic symbol of gay rights in the 1970s. The Jewish Museum is located across the road to the north on Burton Street. In this year when we remember the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II it is essential we recognise diversity of opinion by people on all sides, without anger, hatred, or violence.

10) 301 Forbes Street – Qtopia

Sydney’s first permanent lgbt+ museum, said to be the world’s biggest, opened here in February 2024 in buildings that were originally Darlinghurst’s police station. As the police station it was where people arrested on homosexual charges were held in custody. This included a large number of participants in Sydney’s first Mardi Gras in 1978, people who proudly sport the name of The 78ers. Sadly, a sign of the times included police brutality against those in custody. The museum also has sections on AIDS, and a reconstructed AIDS ward from the neighbouring St. Vincent’s Hospital where many AIDS patients were treated.

11) Junction of Campbell Street and Little Bourke Street

On the night of 31 March 1962, the body of Frank McLean was discovered several metres south of this junction. He was one of several gay victims of William MacDonald, whom the media labelled as “The Mutilator”. MacDonald picked his victims up in gay venues, took them to a private location and murdered them, slashing their bodies and severing their genitals. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and died in 2015.

12) Taylor Square – The Rainbow Crossing

Sydney’s famous crossing was first established in 2013 for that year’s Mardi Gras. However, due to concerns that people standing on it to take selfies put them in danger of being run over, the city removed it. This sparked as spate of graffiti chalk rainbow crossing popping up across the city in protest. Thankfully, the city council realised the importance of such a statement of identity and repainted crossing in 2019.

Game of Gay Thrones 9: Micro-monarchs

About three years ago I mentioned that I’d come across a few micronations that have lgbt+ monarchs. I suppose they are just as valid for inclusion in my Game of Gay Thrones series, as none are officially recognised by any member state of the United Nations.

Some micronations are established as part of political activism, as is the case with the Coral Sea Islands. Others are created by young people who are still attending school. With many other reasons, micronations are taken seriously by their creators and supporters.

Just to be clear, a micronation is no the same as a micro-state. Monaco and Palau are examples of micro-states. Their independence is recognised internationally at the United Nations. Micronations are not. You can find a lot of more detailed information on micronations online.

Today I have selected an lgbt+ monarch from one micronation on each of the generally accepted 7 continents, listed in no particular order.

Australasia/Oceania

Dale I, Emperor of the Coral Sea Islands

Perhaps the most well-known lgbt+ micronation, the Coral Sea Islands are situated off the coast of Australia. For more information see here.

North/Central America

Marie-Adélina I, Queen of the United Kingdom of Le Navasse

Navasse consists of several small uninhabited islands in the Caribbean, officially belonging to Haiti.

The micronation was founded in 2017 by a group of friends which included the black transgender activist Marie-Adélina de la Ferrierè, herself of Haitian descent. She was declared the sovereign of the new kingdom. Actually, Queen Marie-Adélina has a personal connection to the defunct crown of Haiti, as she claims descent from Henri I Christophe (1767-1820), the first King of Haiti. I haven’t been able to verify her descent, but succession to the Haitian throne was specifically restricted to male heirs only.

Antarctica

Travis I, Grand Duke of Westarctica (b.1980)

By international treaty, no nation can claim any territory on Antarctica, though scientific and research bases are permitted, and definitely no military bases. No new claims could be made after the treaty, and nations already established there were allowed to remain. Even so, there are still disputes over who has a claim over which part (see here).

In 2001 Travis McHenry, a US Navy Intelligence specialist at the time, founded the Achaean Territory of Antarctica on Marie Byrd Land, an unclaimed area due south of the Pacific Ocean. Three years later he declared it a monarchy and adopted the title of Grand Duke. However, because he was serving in the US Navy he was forced to “abdicate” after they threatened to remove his security clearance due to his activity in promoting his micronation.

After several years of involvement with other micronations Travis was persuaded to re-assume control of the territory, now renamed Westarctica, and he re-assumed the title of Grand Duke in 2012.

In 2014 Travis founded Westarctica Inc., a charity devoted to protecting the territory’s ecosystem against climate change.

Asia

Mona I, Empress of Schalamzaar (b.1996)

The Schalamzaar Empire existed between 2004 and 2023 in Iran.

The empire was founded by Mona Ghazvini, a Tehran native, who established herself as the monarch of the empire in 2004. As happens in all UN-recognised nations, Empress Mona found religious bigotry and persecution from several other micronations because she was Shia Muslim. An online conflict starting in 2014 which lasted several years resulted in Empress Mona withdrawing from micronationalism due to online bullying.

Mona returned in 2018 when she announced that she now identified as a transgender woman, and her former regal name had been dropped in favour of Mona. The Schalamzaar Empire was re-established as a constitutional monarchy. This lasted until the end of 2022 when Mona declared that the empire had been abandoned and renounced her royal status due to her busy personal life, but she did not rule out the possibility of a return some time in the future.

Europe

Amelia I, Queen of Lytera (b.2002)

The Kingdom of Lytera covers several residential addresses across southern England with its nominal capital in Ruislip, Greater London.

Lytera was created in 2010 by Amelia Banks, who identifies as bisexual and transgender, as a client state of Clubhausia, a micronation she founded with friends in 2008 at the age of 6. Amelia declared the independence of Lytera in 2017.

In 2021 Queen Amelia was made Princess of Essexia, another micronation. However, she was removed from power later that year. Undeterred, Amelia has claimed the throne of Essexia as its empress.

South America, Europe and Africa

Emperor Felipe I of Epasiera (b.2008)

The Empire of Epasiera is one of the few cross-continental micronations. It was founded in 2022 by Felipe de Oliveira Felmer who was then the King of Silbervia. Silbervia was founded only a day beforehand when Felipe declared his garden in São Paulo, Brazil, as a republic. King Felipe dissolved Slibervia to make way for the new Empire of Epasiera in October 2022.

The empire is divided into several duchies – 3 in Brazil, 2 in Europe, and 1 in Morocco called the Duchy of Cossobia. As far as I’m aware this is the only micronational territory in Africa ruled by an lgbt+ monarch (though information on South African micronations is sparce).

Transgender Dragons

Now and again there’s a report in the media which raises questions about gender determination – not in humans but in animals. In December there were reports that a lizard in an Australian aquarium had changed from female to male at the beginning of last year and scientists don’t know how or why.

Gender switching is not uncommon outside our hominid family. In fact it is well documented among reptiles and fish, including lizards and even crocodiles. Several years ago I wrote about gender-switching in chickens which may have led to the origin of stories about the legendary creature the basilisk or cockatrice. The gender determination process in lizards is similar, especially in several species that are named after another legendary creature, the dragon.

Like chickens and birds lizards’ chromosomes are given the names ZZ, which normally indicates a male lizard, and ZW, which normally indicates a female lizard. High environmental temperatures seem to trigger a sex change in embryos in pre-hatched eggs. It is the temperature of the eggs that determines whether the ZZ embryo of a male lizard develops into a female before it hatches. These female lizards with ZZ male chromosomes are even capable of producing normal offspring, all of them normal ZZ males.

In 2015 this type of gender determination was studied in a species of lizard called the central bearded dragon. This dragon lives in the tropical regions of Australia and despite their monstrous name they are no bigger than a domestic cat. Researchers found that around 10% of the dragons they examined were females with ZZ male chromosomes and no ZW female chromosomes. It was the first time that genetic gender differences of these lizards had been found in the wild.

But what is puzzling biologists is that one species of lizard closely related to the central bearded dragon called the Boyd’s forest dragon has unexpectedly changed sex from female to male in adulthood. The dragon in question lives in the Sea Life aquarium in Melbourne, where she had been given the name Doris.

Doris had lived as the aquarium for the past 6 years and has laid many eggs and produced many young. She lived in a tropical forest exhibit with two other Boyd’s forest dragons, a male and a female. Sadly the male dragon, called Old Mate, died in 2019 and the two female dragons were transferred to a new tropical exhibit in early 2020. Shortly afterwards Doris began exhibiting behaviour that was not typical for her gender. She began to eat regularly. Female Boyd’s forest dragon’s usually only binge eat in one short period prior to laying eggs, but Doris was eating like a male dragon. Then Doris started to change skin colour and develop a more prominent crest and she began to grow larger, just like a male dragon.

Doris the Boyd’s forest dragon.
Photo from the Sea Life Aquarium’s Facebook page.

These changes were noticeable to the aquarium staff particularly the reptile keeper Tom Fair (who is openly gay, by the way, but that’s not relevant to this story). The animals at the aquarium are given a medical check regularly and during one of them Tom took Doris to the aquarium vet. An ultrasound confirmed that Doris was a female dragon. Ovaries and underdeveloped eggs were detected. Then, a month later at the next check Doris was given another ultrasound. This time there were no ovaries and no eggs, and instead Doris had developed testicles. Doris was now a male dragon.

Scientists are both mystified and sceptical. Adult reptiles had not been known to change gender before. As explained above sex changed has only been found in embryos in unhatched eggs. The only other species known to change sex in adulthood is the clownfish (yes, the same fish as Marlin in “Finding Nemo” – I wonder if Disney will ever make a sequel about Marlin as an adult suddenly changes sex. I doubt it – you know how prudish the American are on these subjects).

There are several tentative theories about how Doris (I suppose we should start calling him Boris now) changed gender. A lot of research and observation will have to be done before any proper theory can be formulated. Over a year later scientists are no nearer to providing an answer. Until we know for sure that Doris won’t or can’t change back he goes down in history as the world’s first transgender dragon.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 6) Under Southern Rainbow Skies

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 12) Charles Robert Ashbee (1863-1942) built a villa on the site of an ancient temple, as did 13) Robert Kitson (1873-1947) on the site of a temple to 14) Zeus-Serapis, both in Taormina, a Sicilian town with mythological connections to the constellation Taurus, the location of a star cluster which gives its name to an initiative chaired by 15) Lisa Harvey-Smith (b.1979).

15) Dr. Lisa Harvey-Smith was Chair of the Women in Astronomy chapter of the Astronomical Society of Australia. In 2014 they launched the Pleiades Awards which aims to promote and encourage female inclusion, involvement and recognition in astronomical sciences. The awards are named after the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus.

Lisa Harvey-Smith is at the forefront of popular science education and is well-known in Australia, appearing in many programmes, documentaries and news reports. Among her many public appearances was a question-and-answer session at Sydney Observatory during Sydney Mardi Gras 2015. This led to Lisa developing a touring lecture show called “Star-gayzing”.

Lisa’s main work in the field was in a major role in the development of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). As its name suggests, this is an array of linked antennae that covers an area of a square kilometre. It is located near the Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory in the homeland of the Yamatji people of Western Australia.

From the start the Murchison scientists included the indigenous community when planning the SKA, showing local elders where the antennae might be placed and learning about the significance of the locations in Yamatji heritage. This produced an increased awareness of the rich heritage of the traditional indigenous view of the night sky and inspired an exhibition by Yamatji artists on the subject which toured several countries. Lisa Harvey-Smith co-authored a paper called “Engaging Indigenous Students in the Australian SKA Project” which detailed other ways in which scientists and the Yamatji had worked together.

There are a variety of different stories of the night sky among the indigenous nations in Australia. One of these is that the Milky Way represents the creator god common to the indigenous nations, the Rainbow Serpent, which has many local names but all of them refer essentially to the same deity. The most significant stories of the Rainbow Serpent occur in the Dreaming, the time when the universe was formed and the land created.

To the Yamatji the Rainbow Serpent is called 16) Bimarri. Bimarri is believed to live below a cliff at Ellendale, some 364 kilometres from the Murchison Observatory. One story about Bimarri recounts its battle with a sea snake after which it moved inland, creating the rivers, streams and landscape as it went. The Rainbow Serpent has no set gender or sexuality. Most stories seem to prefer to identify the Bimarri as male. Stories of other representations of the Rainbow Serpent prefer a female or androgynous identification.

Sculpture depicting Bimarri, the Rainbow Serpent of the Yamatji, at Ellendale. Photo by Richard McLellan.

Australia produced many exhibitions and performances which showcased their cultures. The first was the “Festival of the Dreaming” in 1997, an arts festivals held to celebrate the forthcoming 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Many of the productions featured all-Aboriginal casts, including a production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Nights Dream” directed by 17) Noel Tovey (b.1934), an indigenous actor and choreographer, and was a landmark in Shakespearean theatre as the first all-indigenous cast. Noel took the idea of dreaming and wove the Rainbow Serpent into the design of set and costumes. The Rainbow Serpent is very much a living part of indigenous culture and is a frequent inspiration for art. Noel was later called upon to be artistic director of the indigenous welcoming ceremony for members of the International Olympic Committee to the Sydney 2000 games.

The Sydney Olympics have, retrospectively, become the most diverse in Olympic history. To date, 66 lgbt Olympians have been identified, of which 12 were openly gay, lesbian or bisexual. In addition there were 2 Olympians who would today be identified as intersex. There were also 3 athletes who have since become transgender. The most recent of these is 18) Sandra Forgues (b.1969).

Sandra Forgues competed for France in the men’s doubles slalom canoe at three Olympics. She won a bronze medal in Barcelona 1992 and a gold in Atlanta 1996. Sydney was her final Olympic appearance. She was also three times world champion, and won two gold medals at World Cup events in 1992 and 1994 held here in Nottingham.

Sandra was able to train full-time while she was employed by France Telecom. On leaving France Telecom she set up her own company in 2004 called Media Broadcast Technology (MBT). The company provides digital and software provision to broadcasters in Europe and Morocco. The biggest project so far was for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) in 2015. BMT provided time logging and results used by the world’s media at the inaugural European Games.

A link between the EBU and Morocco comes in the form of the Eurovision Song Contest. Despite its aim to unite member broadcasters in music the Eurovision Song Contest has often been dogged by racist, political and homophobic conflict. In 2019 France attracted opposition to its choice of performer, a  French-born Moroccan inger called 19) Bilal Hassani (b.1999).

Next time on “80 More Gays”: We enter a fictional world of racist and ethnic conflict when life begins to imitate art, and we see how easily mistakes are made.

Pride Cities

As the USA celebrates the start of Pride Month and the northern hemisphere begins enters its main Pride season we look at some of the locations around the world that were the first in their region to celebrate Pride.

There is no authoritative definition of a Pride march or festival. Each Pride event is tailor-made to suit its location, but there are elements which I consider are common to most of them. These are:

1) The inclusion of the word Pride in the event’s name (a notable exception being Sydney Mardi Gras).
2) An organising committee.
3) A march or parade through public streets, consisting of more than one lgbt group, and a general community contingent, even if it’s banned or cancelled (small Prides may only manage a public gathering).
4) A celebration of diversity, inclusion and acceptance.
5) A Pride event is not held in response to a particular event or piece of legislation (e.g. the Pulse club shooting, or a protest against a specific anti-gay law) but has been planned beforehand and includes other issues. Acknowledgment of the event and legislation can take place (e.g. as the central theme). However, the earliest Prides were often organised in response to one event.

Here is a list of the first officially recognised lgbt Pride events in various global regions.

1) NORTH AMERICA
27th June 1970 - Gay Pride Week, Chicago, Illinois, USA, organised by the Chicago Gay Liberation Movement. Despite common belief the first lgbt Pride was not the Christopher Street Freedom Day Parade in New York, but in Chicago the day before. Both were held to mark the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. A report in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday 28th June (left) also gives us the first printed use of the word Pride in relation to an lgbt event. It also suggests that the common belief that Brenda Howard first suggested a Pride Week in New York in 1973 may not be accurate.

2) EUROPE
1st July 1972 – Gay Pride Rally and March, London, UK, organised by the Gay Liberation Front.

3) CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN ASIA
June 1977 – Love Parade, Tel Aviv, Israel. It is uncertain whether this was an lgbt event or one organised by the city’s nightclubs in which the lgbt community was just a part. In 1978 the Love Parade was, apparently, solely lgbt in make-up. The 1977 Love Parade is recognised retrospectively as the first Tel Aviv Pride by the current organising committee.

4) THE PACIFIC ISLANDS
June 1990 – Honolulu Pride, Hawaii, USA. The notoriously inaccurate Gay Star News reported last month that Fiji held the first Pride event in the Pacific Ocean on 17th May 2018. It is known that Vanuatu has held Pride-like events since July 2013.

5) CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA
30th June 1979 – Mexico City, Mexico, organised by the Frente Homosexual de Acción Revolucionaria (Homosexual Front of Revolutionary Action). Mexico holds the most annual Pride events outside the USA.

6) AFRICA
13th October 1990 – Joburg Pride, Johannesburg, South Africa.

7) SOUTHEAST ASIA
26th June 1994 – Queer Pride, Quezon City, Philippines, organised by ProGay Philippines and the Metropolitan Community Church.

8) AUSTRALASIA
7th – 14th September 1973 – Gay Pride Week, held simultaneously in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, organised by individual committees in each city though co-ordinated nationally.

9) ANTARCTICA
June 2018 – McMurdo Station, Ross Dependency, Antarctica. The last continent to hold an official Pride event. Contrary to what you read in the media published before the event we know from this blog alone that the Rainbow Pride flag and lgbt presence has been on Antarctica since at least 1992. See here and here.

 

Now, here are some other Pride events of interest.

Most Northern Pride (above the Arctic Circle)
69.9 degrees north – Alta, Norway, 2010. This seems to have been the only year Alta held a Pride though it has held lgbt events since then. The most northern annual Pride, held since 2014, is Tromso Pride, also in Norway. Tromso is at 69.6 degrees north.

Most Southern Pride
51 degrees south – Falklands Pride, Falkland Islands, first held in 2013. Until the above-mentioned Pride event in Antarctica takes place the Falkland Islands holds the record as holding the most southerly Pride.

World’s Biggest Pride by Attendance
São Paulo, Brazil, has consistently topped the table for the biggest Pride. In 2006 the Guinness Book of World Records named 2006 São Paulo Pride as the world’s biggest with an estimated 2.5 million people attending. Official estimates of succeeding São Paulo Prides have risen to at least 3 million and some put the figure at around 5 million for São Paulo Pride 2017.

World’s Smallest Pride by Attendance
All Prides begin small. There can be no definitive answer. However, the Pennsylvanian city of Erie has held a Pride event almost every year since October 1998. Erie has a population of 101,000 people today, yet its Pride has never exceeded 1,000 attendees. This, over its 20 years, may make it the most consistently small Pride in the world. 

AMENDMENT : Continuing research has brought to light other Prides which may be considered the smallest on a consistent basis. In Africa where many countries still kill people for being gay there have been several brave attempts to hold Pride marches. These have rarely exceeded a few hundred in attendance for fear of arrest. The first Pride Uganda events (2012-17) all had attendances in the low hundreds, and the first eSwatini (Swaziland) Pride in July 2018 attracted around 500 people. The refugee camp at Kakuma in Kenya held a Pride in Jun 2018 and could not have attracted very high numbers.

 

Despite the few that attended the Ugandan Prides there is one official annual Pride which is recorded as having only 3 attendees on its first Pride march. Because the location had continued to hold annual Pride marches and was not a one-off event it can be regarded as being the smallest Pride in the world. The Aomori Rainbow Parade in Japan began in 2014 with only 3 marchers. This grew to 101 marchers in 2017.

 

Of course, further research may uncover others.

World’s Shortest Pride March
(Excluding marches that were cancelled or banned) 21st October 2017 – Paekākāriki Pride, Paekākāriki, New Zealand. Being a small town the chances of having a large parade for the first ever Paekākāriki Pride were unlikely. Organisers decided to set the first ever record for the shortest official Pride march. The total route was 35 feet long and consisted solely of a pedestrian crossing in the town centre. Needless to say, the actual length of 200 marchers and pre-route assembly was much longer. The record has yet to be verified by Guinness.


Wherever you are, and wherever you attend a Pride march, I hope you have a Happy Pride.