80 More Gays Around the World: Part 28) Gold All The Way

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 76) Chelsea Blackmore is a pioneer in queer archaeology, first championed by 77) Thomas Dowson after doing research into San cave art in Namibia, which became part of a National Geographical archaeological tour for students led by 78) Thomas Egli, who was a volunteer at the ice hockey stadium at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in which the 79) Canadian women’s ice hockey team won gold.

The full 79) Canadian women’s ice hockey team consisted of 21 members, 19 of them being experienced Olympians. Five of them are currently known to have been lesbian or bisexual, and I’ll briefly look at them individually later. But first, how did they get to the final.

The team were the reigning Olympic champions having won the 2006 Turin competition, beating Sweden 4-1. Since Turin Canada had lost to the USA in the 2008 and 2009 World Championships. They faced each other in the final in Vancouver and the anticipation and expectations of the Canadian home crowd was very high.

The defence of their Olympic title began well for the Canadian women. In their first match they thrashed Slovakia 18-0, the biggest score difference in Olympic ice hockey history, actually beating their own record from Turin 2006 when they beat the home team 16-0.

It came as no surprise to anyone that Canada faced the USA in the final. Again, the Canadians got off to a good start scoring 2 goals in 3 minutes, the only goals of the match. The final score Canada 2 – USA 0.

Let’s move on to the lgbt players. There isn’t really enough space to go to any real biographical detail so I’ll restrict myself to their Olympic experiences. The player with the most Olympic experience was 79a) Jayna Hefford (b.1977). She made her debut at the 1998 Nagano games in the inaugural women’s Olympic ice hockey tournament. Jayna scored one goal in the final match but it was the goal that won the team the silver medal (final score: USA 2 – Canada 1). She was chosen for team for the next four Olympics, making her only one of 6 lgbt athletes to compete in 5 Olympics (only Robert Dover, US equestrian, has been in 6). Because she was on the winning team for those next four Olympics, which included the Sochi 2014 games, she shares joint 4th place with US swimmer Greg Louganis on the all-time lgbt Olympic medal list (both have 4 gold, 1 silver).

Jayna Hefford is one of only 5 Olympians, lgbt or straight, to win a gold medal at four consecutive games. One of the others is the next most experienced member of the 2010 Canadian women’s ice hockey team, 79b) Caroline Ouellette (b.1979). Her first Olympics was the 2002 Salt Lake City games. With her four gold medals Caroline is joint 6th on the all-time lgbt medal list.

Then next most experienced player on the Canadian women’s team was 79c) Gillian Apps (b.1983) who not only has Olympic experience but Olympic blood. Her grandfather Syl Apps, was a pole vaulter at the 1936 Berlin summer games, and her first cousin is Darren Barber, who won a gold medal in rowing at the 1992 Barcelona games. Gillian herself competed in three Olympics – Turin, Vancouver and Sochi.

Like quite a few others she is married to a fellow Olympian, a player on the US team she beat in Vancouver, Meghan Duggan. Caroline Ouellette also married one of the losing team, Julie Chu. Jayna Hefford is also married to a US ice hockey Olympian, Kathleen Kauth, against whom she played in the 2006 Turin final.

79d) Charline Labonté (b.1982), like Gillian, competed in the Turin, Vancouver and Sochi Olympics. They also both came out as lesbian a couple of months after the Sochi games of 2014 in which the Canadians successfully defended their title.

The least experienced member of the 2010 Vancouver team was the only one who was openly lesbian at the time, 79e) Sarah Vaillancourt (b.1985). It was while she was a freshman at Harvard University that she came out to her Harvard Crimson ice hockey team-mates in 2004. Sarah first played in the Turin games of 2006 but due to injury did not return to the Olympic arena.

We stay with the 2010 Vancouver Olympics to reach the last person in our “80 More Gays Around the World”, and there’s several to choose from. It could be Ted Nebbeling, the Minister of State for the 2010 Olympics. It could be Ignatius Jones, the artistic director of the opening and closing ceremonies. It could be DQuared2, the gay twins Dean and Dan Calen, who designed the costumes for the closing ceremony. But instead I’m going for the one person who had the most direct involvement on every day and in every medal ceremony, giving a continuous link from the opening ceremony where 1) k d lang performed to the closing ceremony where the last medals were awards. That person is the designer of the Vancouver Olympic medals, 80) Corrine Hunt (b.1959).

Back in 2014 I wrote about Corinne’s medal design, so go and have a look at that. Since then she has designed the jackets worn by the Canadian snowboarding team at the 2018 PyeongChang games.

And that brings me to the end of “80 More Gays Around the World”. As before it has been a pleasure to research. It has led me on to people and subjects I would not normally have looked into (e.g South African wines and leper hospitals, or the psychological effects of the Polykrates complex).

I hope you enjoyed this series and learnt something new, I know I have, which has been the main inspiration that helped me to carry on even when I hit a brick wall and couldn’t find any direction to take to get me back to the beginning.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 27) Guiding the Way

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 74) Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) lived in the same house (though not at the same time) as 75) Margaret Mead (1901-1978), a leading influence on queer anthropology and its related subject of queer archaeology, continued by 76) Chelsea Blackmore).

76) Chelsea Blackmore was appointed Senior Archaeologist at Albion Environmental Inc. in July last year. Albion is a California company that advises and participates in construction and environmental projects, anything from highways, hydroelectric plants and nature reserves, to ensure that the local ecological and cultural properties of each site are handled appropriately. Prior to joining Albion Environmental Chelsea was Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Santa Cruz.

Chelsea’s doctoral thesis was “Challenging ‘Commoner’: An Examination of the Status and Identity at the Ancient Maya Village of Chan, Belize”, which was one of the first studies into social identity in the Mayan civilisation. She has specialised in Mesoamerican culture and aspects of identity relating to gender, social status and sexuality.

Chelsea Blackmore has been open about her sexuality all her professional career. The lack of visible lgbt archaeologists in her undergraduate years and lack of a queer network inspired her to use gender and sexuality as possible factors in her choice of studies. Shortly afterwards she founded “Queer Archaeology”, a blog aimed at lgbt archaeologists and the study of queer archaeology. Chelsea went on to co-found the Queer Archaeology Interest Group of the Society of American Archaeologists in 2014, though attempts to create such a group had been tried before.

Two publications can be said to have pioneered queer archaeology. The first is “Out in the Field: Reflections of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists” by Ellen Lewin and William Heap (1996), and the queer-themed issue of “World Archaeology” (2000) edited by 77) Thomas Dowson.

In February 2017 I wrote this article about Thomas Dowson and his contribution to the growth of queer archaeology. Not only is he a pioneer in the subject but he is also a leading authority in rock art.

Another aspect of Thomas’s work harks back to the “old days” of the Grand Tour of Europe undertaken by the wealthy in the 17th to 19th centuries. Among these “archaeological tourists” were Amelia Edwards (more of her on Sunday) and Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the gay librarian who made Pompeii a popular place to visit. Both of these people saw the importance of careful scientific study of archaeological sites and their preservation.

For many years archaeologists discouraged tourism of digs and sites. Then the heritage industry took off and governments saw a need to protect many ancient sites. In my childhood archaeology was seen as a very dull subject and you rarely saw the subject covered on television. Only the Egyptian pyramids seem to be of interest. Then came the Viking excavations in Yorvik (York) and the raising of King Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose and the public began to show more interest. Next came unexpectedly popular programmes like “Time Team”, a surprise hit archaeology series that ran for twenty years. The public were now aware of how an archaeological site should be treated and what facts about our past can be uncovered. Today, archaeological programmes are everywhere on almost every channel.

The public’s interest in archaeology has led to tourist companies offering tours of monument and ancient sites like never before. The public are more aware of their responsibilities of visiting these sites. Thomas Dowson was one of the early leaders in modern archaeological tourism. When he moved to France he was naturally interested in the archaeology of the area. There was very little information which was reliable or up-to-date. He thought other people might be interested in the local archaeology so he set up the website “Archaeology Travel” in 2010.

Archaeological tourism among tour companies and institutions has blossomed, and with the help of guidelines produced by the Archaeological Institute of America ancient sites will be better protected and understood. National Geographic organised tours and expeditions for students, including tours took of the San cave paintings which Thomas Dowson studied. One of the tour leaders was 78) Thomas Egli.

Thomas is an experienced tour guide having worked for a variety of companies, including Bali Hai Diving Adventures in Indonesia and Discover Tours Canada. Thomas has Swiss and Canadian citizenship and is currently working in Zurich as a marine ecologist (yes, a marine ecologist in land-locked Switzerland). His claim to fame, though, is that he was voted Mr. Gay Canada in 2012. However, that’s not the connection I’m going to take towards our final steps on this chain of “80 More Gays”.

In 2010 Thomas was a volunteer with VANOC, the Vancouver Organising Committee of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. He was a supervisor at the Rogers Arena where the ice hockey tournament was held. Ice hockey is the most hotly contested sport at the Winter Olympics with Canada and the USA always vying for the gold medal. The men’s ice hockey final between them was the last medal event of the games. The women’s ice hockey final, also between Canada and the USA, was held three days earlier. Canada won both finals.

The women’s ice hockey team final at Rogers Arena contained the team with the most lgbt players at the Vancouver Olympics, and I want to group them all together for the penultimate “80 Gay”. That team was the winning 79) Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey team.

Next time in our last “80 More Gays Around the World”: We discover how we link back to 1) k d lang.

80 More Gays Around the World: 1) A Battle in Calgary

We’ll get straight into 2020 with the latest series of “80 Gays”. As before, each of the people in the sequence of connections are numbered sequentially so that you can see how far we are through the 80 names. One change is that I’ve slightly altered the series title.

Because this is an Olympic year I’ve chosen to start and finish with a well-known lgbt entertainer who has performed at two Olympic Games closing ceremonies, 1) k. d. lang (b.1961).

1) k. d. lang has performed at both of the closing ceremonies of the two Olympics that have taken place in her native Canada. The first was the Winter Games in Calgary in 1988.

The 1988 closing ceremony is one of my favourites. It can be regarded as the first of the modern-style Winter closing ceremonies in that it was more than just the Olympic champions giving a gala performance of their best routines, as was traditional. The gala is now a separate event. The Calgary closing ceremony was a spectacular theatrical production. It had several set pieces, as well as the customary speeches, and had non-skating entertainers for the first time at a Winter closing ceremony.

Fortunately, the whole ceremony is on the Olympic Channel and you can see it here.

For me, one of the highlights of the ceremony is the sequence on the ice that represents a Victorian skating party. Throughout this sequence many former Olympic champions take part, either separately or with other champions. These include lgbt skaters Toller Cranston, Brian Pockar (who was the artistic director of the ceremony) and Robin Cousins.

Brian Pockar wasn’t the only gay skating Brian to make his mark at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Two other Brians provided one of the more anticipated battles over an Olympic title just a week earlier. Naturally, the media called it the Battle of the Brians.

2) Brian Orser (b.1961) and 3) Brian Boitano (b.1963) were the top two male figure skaters of the inter-Olympic period since the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics. They had both been in the top three skaters in the world at the World Championships in 1985, 1986 and 1987. By the time the 1988 Calgary Olympics arrived Brian Orser was the world champion. Brian Boitano, the previous champion, came second. Orser was also the first person to land five triple axels in a World Championship (1987) and had become Canada’s first male figure skating singles world champion. Canada had hopes of him winning the Olympic title as well. To show their respect Orser was chosen to carry the Canadian national flag and lead the team into the opening ceremony.

I’ve never made any secret on this blog or on social media that I’m a big fan of Brian Orser, mainly because I like figure skating and also because of my Canadian connections. My grandfather lived in Toronto (in 2017 the city actually named a little community alleyway after my grandfather’s younger brother), and the place where Orser is based, the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club, is only two miles from where my grandfather’s farm was in Willowdale.

Some of the big names in international skating were, or still are, trained by Orser. I have a little game at the Olympics. Every time figure skating is broadcast I count how many times in one competition Orser has to change his jacket when he’s sitting next to skater’s he has trained as the points are being announced, a different team jacket for each skater – Canada, Japan, South Korea and Spain at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics (he’ not the only  one who does this, other trainers and choreographers also dash around swapping jackets).

Back in 1988 Orser and Boitano were poised to provide an epic showdown, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. I wrote very briefly about the Battle of the Brians in my 2012 Olympic series. Below is a YouTube video of the whole battle. There were three elements to the singles figure skating contest in those days. First there were the compulsory figures which gives the sport its name. Skaters have to skate in perfect geometric circles repeatedly. The second element is the short programme. In Calgary 1988 Orser was leading the contest by the end of this. The final element, the long programme, was perhaps the most eagerly anticipated.

Boitano skated first, followed by Orser. In what became the last time a contest was decided on the technical scores Boitano just pipped Orser to take the title.

Boitano’s performance in the short programme was to music from a ballet called “Les Patineurs”. This ballet is reminiscent of the skating sequence at the Calgary closing ceremony mentioned earlier. It is set in the Victorian period and takes place on a frozen pond. It was premiered in 1937 and was an instant success, playing in London every year until 1968 (except 1960). The ballet was choreographed by 4) Sir Frederick Ashton (1904-1988).

In the next “80 More Gays”: A dancing legacy leads us to ancient Greece and two gender-swapping characters.

Flag Poles and Tuning Forks

During US Pride Month one visible change you’re likely to notice in major US cities is more Rainbow Pride flags on display. Most of the flags I’ve featured over the years have been adopted, created and used in the lgbt community. Collectively they have created a whole new area of research to vexillology, the study of flags, which could not have been possible until the 1980s. There are many different specialist areas already established in vexillology – religious flags, military flags, political flags, yacht club flags, flags on stamps and even flags on tattoos, to name a few. Sexuality and gender is the newest area of research, still in its early days, thanks to the many Pride flags that have been created since the Rainbow Pride flag in 1978.

More often than not the reason why a flag was adopted in the past, and the name of the designer, wasn’t considered important enough to be put on record, not unless it was something as important as a national flag. That’s where vexillologists do their work and carry out research.

Several lgbt vexillologists have contributed to flag research outside the lgbt world of Pride. Today I want to concentrate on a man who was the first to research five specific flags which were included in the ground-breaking book “Canadian City Flags”, revealing the cultural and socio-political stories behind each of them.

Mark Ritzenhein was born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1958. In the 1980s he studied for a degree in music from Michigan State University in East Lansing. From there Mark went on to become a professional piano technician (he tuned and repaired pianos). Mark was in the right place at the right time to be an openly gay man. Just a decade earlier East Lansing became the first place in the USA to include homosexuality in legislation that was protected from discrimination. Just a few miles away in Ann Arbor its citizens elected the first four openly gay politicians in the US.

Despite being a pioneering city there was still homophobia among East Lansing’s elected representatives. In an interview Mark recalled that one councillor said that every “queer” belonged in San Francisco. “You go to San Francisco”, was Mark’s thought, “This is my home and my community, and I have every right to be part of it and to stay here”.

Mark moved just a mile away to Okemos in the 1980s. It was at a gay bar there in 1982 that he met his life partner and future husband Stephen Wilensky. They moved in together shortly afterwards and they lived there until Mark’s early death.

In late 2011 Mark was diagnosed with a brain tumour. With great dignity and peace of spirit Mark prepared for the inevitable. He said his official goodbyes to family and friends while he was still able to. He contacted a local sculptor, Jim Cunningham, and together they created a sculpture of a huge tuning fork entitled “Clang Tone”. Following Mark’s death his partner Stephen donated the sculpture to Michigan State University, and it can be seen there today.

Mark and Stephen were both avid collectors. Steve had collected lgbt literature since the 1970s. Mark collected anything from cook books to t-shirts and, of course, flags. Over 2,000 items from their collections were selected by the couple which they donated with a cash endowment to Michigan State University. The collection of literature alone provides an unbroken chronicle of gay literature from its rise in the 1970s in small independent bookstores located in “gay villages” to mainstream publishers and multi-national bookstores of today.

It was during his illness that Mark left his mark in vexillological history. As a proud out gay man he had paraded in Pride marches with a flag held high. Like the majority of we vexillologists Mark was a knowledgeable enthusiastic amateur. That is not to say that we have no academic discipline. There are very few full-time paid vexillologists.

Mark was a member of the North American Vexillilogical Association (NAVA) from 1986. NAVA published a book of US city flags in 2005. When they began compiling a follow-up book of Canadian city flags Mark Ritzenhein jumped at the chance to, as he put it himself, make “…his first – and likely last – scholarly contribution to vexillology”. He knew he was dying and threw his enthusiasm for flags into researching some of the most obscure municipal flags from some of Canada’s remotest communities. While not all have any official status as cities these communities are the largest in the terrority.

The editor of “Canadian City Flags”, Edward Kaye, remarked that the flags from the five largest communities in the territory of Nunavut were perhaps the most difficult to research. Kaye also remarked that of the nine contributors to the book Mark delivered his before the others.

On the accompanying map you can see the locations and flags of the five “cities” Mark researched. On a purely vexillological note you may notice that all five flags take the Canadian pale as their basis (pale is the heraldic term for a vertical stripe), made famous by the Canadian national flag. Canadian pale has become an official term in both vexillology and heraldry for a central stripe that is twice the width of one on either side.

Mark’s research gathered together information from many sources and uncovered details about the emblems, designers and histories. Together with historical flags used by the five cities Mark’s research provides the first major study of Inuit flags in the world. You can read his research for yourself, for “Canadian City Flags” is available from Amazon, etc.

Fortunately, Mark was able to see his research in print, and can be rightly proud to have called himself a “proper vexillologist” and flag expert.

Mark succumbed to his illness on 6th July 2013, content in the knowledge that he had been able to say his goodbyes and establish a legacy for future generations.

Pride in Canada

Today is Canada Day and this year the nation is celebrating its 150th anniversary.

I have a personal affection for Canada. My paternal grandfather lived in a village called Newton Brook near Toronto (now one of the suburbs) until 1911. Two of his brothers remained and I have relatives in Toronto to this very day. On my mother’s side of the family her great-uncle emigrated from England to Winnipeg and I have relatives who still live there as well.

To celebrate Canada Day and this season of Pride it is the right occasion to have a look at the origin of the Pride movement in Canada. Most of the cities in Canada have annual Pride events that originate in their current format from the 1980s. But there were nationwide Prides going back as far as 1972.

As with the Pride movement in the USA the Canadian movement began with a landmark event. In the US it was the Stonewall Riots of 1969 which led to the first Christopher Street Gay Freedom March of 1970, recognised as the first New York City Pride. Just six weeks before the Stonewall Riots Canada passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act which decriminalised homosexual activity. It received royal assent on 27th June, the day before Stonewall. However, this did not stop harassment and discrimination.

Groups of activists formed across the country. Now that they were decriminalised they could be more open in their demands for equality and protection from discrimination. One of the earliest groups was Toronto Gay Action. They planned marches on the provincial government building in Toronto and the national government building in Ottawa to call for their full rights. To promote these marches, and to gather the lgbt community together openly for perhaps the first time, they organised a “gay picnic” at Hanlan’s Point in Toronto on 1st August 1971.

The Gay Pride March took place on 20th August 1971 and the march in Ottawa took place on 28th August. They may not have much in common with modern Pride events but they can be regarded as the first in Canada, having both been promoted as “Pride” marches and laying the foundations of the more familiar ones that followed.

The next event was timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the Ottawa march. It was called Gay Pride Week and was held from 19th to 27th August 1972. It was much more recognisable as a Pride. It included another picnic, art exhibitions, film screenings, a dance, an interfaith service and a rally. Over 200 people took part in the march.

Other Canadian cities began to organise their own similar events. By the time the second anniversary of the Ottawa march came around in 1973 a nationwide celebration of Gay Pride Week took place in several cities – Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Montréal, Winnipeg and Saskatoon. Most followed a similar format with rallies, exhibitions, films and picnics. Not all of them had marches but all had the same goal of calling for action against discrimination and for equal rights.

For several more years Gay Pride Week was held. It wasn’t long before local concerns in the lgbt community dominated the protests and awareness of discrimination. In several cities police raids on gay venues sparked anger and demonstrations. Subsequent Gay Pride Week events were superseded by new Prides with new dates being chosen, often to coincide with the US Pride events commemorating the Stonewall Riots in June or the local police raids. These new Canadian Prides are the ones most often regarded as the first in their respective cities, overlooking the pioneering Gay Pride Weeks. They may have different organising committees but their aims were the same.

Today all Canadian provinces have Pride events, even Nunavut which surely hosts the coldest Prides in the world (though not necessarily the most northern, that honour goes to Scandinavia, though I am willing to be corrected).

With so many Prides taking place across Canada on different dates it feels that the national unity felt in those early Gay Pride Weeks has been lost. But don’t despair. A new Pride is rising.

Way back in 2004 Fierté Canada Pride (FCP) was formed bringing together volunteers from many cities across the country. In 2015 FCP felt confident enough to propose a new national Pride to be hosted in a different city once every four years. The proposal was accepted by its member and the first Canada Pride is set to be held in Montréal in a few day’s time on 11th-20th August.

I wish all my Canadian friends and family a happy 150th anniversary and hope that all your Prides are a success, especially the new Canada Pride. I hope that it will inspire other countries to adopt regular national Prides of their own.