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.

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.

Sailing Towards an Olympic Centenary

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 select “Olympics” in the search box or the tag list.

Ella Maillart

The Olympic flame is being lit today for its relay to Paris. So, why don’t we celebrate with a bit of lgbt history from the last time the Olympics were held in Paris a hundred years ago.

At the 1924 Paris games there was the first currently-known female lgbt Olympian, the Swiss sailor Ella Maillart (1903-1997). She was also the first female sailor in the Olympics, and the youngest sailor and only woman to compete in her event. She was the youngest of the 5 women in the 141-strong Swiss Olympic team, and at the time was also the captain of the Swiss national women’s hockey team (which was not an Olympic event in 1924). So, Ella Maillart was not just another competitor, she has several records to her name.

If these achievements weren’t enough, Ella was also an international skier, a journalist, a photographer, an adventurer, and an anthropologist who travelled extensively in Asia and Russia, writing several books. In the future I’ll write a proper “Extraordinary Lives” article about her adventures, but for today I want to concentrate on her Olympic career, and a connection to another sportswoman.

Despite her active adult life, Ella was a sickly child. She was born in Switzerland into a wealthy family. She was an avid reader and soaked up information from geography books and maps and became fascinated by adventure and travel writing.

Like most people brought up in a country with a lot of snow, Ella learnt to ski as a child. At the age of 10 the family moved to a village on the shores of Lake Geneva. It was the yachts and boats on the lake that attracted her the most, and she soon had the sailors and boatmen teaching her and a friend, Miette de Saussure, how to sail a small boat. In fact, in less than three years Ella and Miette had won their first sailing race.

The open sea then beckoned. In 1923 Ella and Miette sailed from Cannes to Greece. They had then planned a voyage to the South Pacific but Miette fell ill soon after they set sail and the whole voyage was abandoned. That was lucky for us, because Ella would have been too far away and in the wrong part of the world to take part in the 1924 Paris Olympics.

The 1924 Olympic regatta was smaller than the previous one. In 1920 in Antwerp there were races for 12 classes of boat. In Paris there was just 3 classes, and they would be the first to feature single-handed boats. Ella entered this single-handed class, which was for the Olympic Monotype dinghy (also called the French National Monotype or the Meulan class dinghy). The dinghies were supplied by the French sailing association. However, only 10 of these monotypes were available, and there were 17 registered entries from 17 nations in the competition.

A set of elimination races had to be held. These took place on the Seine near Paris, the course going from Meulan to Le Mureaux and back again. There were 2 rounds of 2 heats each, with the first 2 finishers in round 1 going straight to the final. The others went into round 2 and the first 2 finishers of those heats also went in to the final. In heat 2 of round 1 Ella finished 5th out of 8 sailors in a time that placed her in 7th place over both heats. But she needed to finish in the top 2 in the round 2 heats to qualify for the final.

In heat 2 of round 2 she finished in 3rd place, just 5 seconds behind the 2 qualifiers for the final. The official Olympic results don’t include any of the heat times or places of the non-finalists in the final results table. They are all listed as “also competed”.

Today, all the finishing times would be taken into account and there would be a full placing list for all 17 entries. So, where would Ella Maillart have been placed if the best time of the non-finalists was taken into account? Of the 3 sailors in all the heats who did not qualify for the final, only 3 finished in under 2 minutes. The 3rd of these was Ella in round 1 in a time that was just half a second short of those 2 minutes. This would have placed her in 11th position overall. As I mentioned earlier, Ella was the first woman to skipper a boat at the Olympics, and was the youngest in the competition, so any result is history-making.

The 1924 regatta is being recreated to celebrate its centenary in June at the original location. There is also a new biography of Ella that has just been published (in French), and there are 2 exhibitions specifically dedicated to her. One is in Geneva, which end this week, and the other is opening in June in Morges, just 10 kilometres from the “Olympic capital” Lausanne.

Before I leave, I must mention Ella’s connection to an alleged lgbt+ Olympian. During her many travels around the world Ella was accompanied by Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942), a Swiss journalist and photographer like Ella herself. Annemarie was openly lesbian and had many affairs. When it comes to her relationship with Ella Maillart biographers differ. The consensus is that their relationship was deeply emotional, but not all biographers go so far as to define it as lesbian. After mulling over the different opinions I consider a lesbian relationship to have been very likely, even if it was not physical.

Annemarie’s mother was a famous equestrian rider, Renée Schwarzenbach-Wille (1883-1959). She was married with four children in addition to Annemarie. She was openly bisexual and had a long affair with an opera singer.

Many online references, including Wikipedia (no surprise), claim that Renée competed at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. She was certainly a champion horse rider, as her many recorded results testify. But as far as the Olympics is concerned there is no record of her. Her name does not appear in any of the official published Olympic reports or results books. She does not appear on any official Olympic website. There isn’t even any mention of her attending any Olympics in the biography of her written by her own great-grandson in 2004. In fact, everything suggests that she had stopped competing before 1936. So, no, she doesn’t go on my lgbt+ Olympian list.

That wraps it up for today. As I said, next year I’ll try to write a full account of Ella Maillart’s “Extraordinary Life”. Until then we have the 2024 Paris Olympics to look forward to, and new batch of lgbt+ athletes ready to enter the record books alongside Ella Maillart.

Two Olympic Transitions

NOTE: The information in this article is accurate on the date of publication. New information discovered after this date may alter or replace some of the details.

Today we learn about the third “Olympic first” associated with the lgbt community. The previous were Prince George of Greece and Denmark and George Poage. Today I feature two Olympians who possess other “firsts”, each of those firsts differing in their specific details but significant in their own way. Both can be regarded as the first transgender Olympian. They are Leonard Chalmers (1911-1990) and Léon Caurla (1926-2002). Both competed an identified as females before undergoing transgender surgery.

First of all, let’s differentiate their respective “firsts”. Leonard Chalmers is the first Olympian to compete (Berlin 1936) who became transgender (c.1961), while Léon Caurla is the first Olympian (London 1948) to have surgery (1950). I hope that makes sense.

Another thing they have in common is that they did not actually compete in the games they attended. Both were listed as members of their respective National Olympic Committees, and both were listed as entrants in their events, but are recorded as non-starters. This may be for several reasons. Those early Olympics may not have been so formal with regards to entries and starters. There are many athletes listed who also did not start their listed event, though their names appear in official Olympic records (Léon was one of 6 non-starters recorded in his event). Another reason is that they were what we now refer to as “alternates”, athletes who are designated to fill in for another in cases of illness. Until 1992 all alternates were listed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and were regarded as full Olympians. Since 1992, however, the IOC have not regarded alternates as Olympians. This is where I and many Olympic historians chose to differ. In my lists of lgbt+ Olympians I include all lgbt+ alternate athletes.

Let’s look more closely first at Leonard Chalmers. He was born biological female and baptised Lilian Florence Elizabeth Chalmers. Confusion about his actual date of birth is resolved on his birth certificate and the 1939 Register of England and Wales (a national census taken to assist in the distribution of ID cards during the war) which give his birthdate as 5th December 1911. Wikipedia (as of today) gives the wrong date. I will use the female pronoun as used by both Lilian and Léon during their athletic careers.

Lilian Chalmers’ prowess on the track seems to have begun in 1932. The first real record of Lilian as a member of an international English team is at the 2nd British Empire Games (retrospectively referred to as the 2nd Commonwealth Games) in London in 1934. Lilian won the bronze medal in the women’s 100 metres sprint.

Lilian’s next major event was the 1936 Berlin Olympics, being listed as an entrant in the women’s 4x100 metres relay. As mentioned above she was a non-starter in this event. The team won the silver medal. The claim that I have seen online that Lilian’s non-start was due to criticism from other female athletes about her gender is not substantiated.

In 1937 Lilian became the British women’s 200 metres champion. This was repeated in the 1939 championship, to which she added the 400 metres title. Also in 1939 she competed at the Internationale Stadionfest (ISTAF Berlin) in the stadium that had hosted the 1936 Olympics. A few weeks later war was declared in Germany.

During Lilian’s athletic career she worked as a machinist in Coomer’s Cardboard Box factory in Portsmouth. Her last known race was in 1951. Sometime after that she moved to London, and in 1961 Lilian underwent gender surgery and adopted the name Leonard on 21st December of that year. Leonard Chalmers died from a stroke in 1990.

Although Leonard was the first transgender athlete known to attend the Olympics he was not the first to undergo reassignment surgery. As mentioned, that distinction currently belongs to Léon Caurla. It should be pointed out that, in all probability, Léon Caurla was intersex.

Léon was born in the French town of Etain and was assigned female at birth. He was baptised Léa. Her first major competition was the 1946 European Athletics Championships in Oslo. She won a bronze medal in the 200 metres. In the first heat she was racing against the Polish sprinter Stanisława Walasiewicz (later known as Stella Walsh), a fellow intersex athlete.

On the same day as winning her bonze medal Léa won a silver medal as part of the 4x100 metres relay team. Stanisława Walasiewicz also competed in this event (her team came last). On Léa’s team was Claire Brésolles. Shortly after the Oslo championships Claire transitioned and adopted the name Pierre. He does not appear in any Olympic records. It is claimed on Wikipedia that Léa and Claire were lovers. This is not true.

In 1948 Lea was listed as an entrant in the women’s 200 metres at the London Olympics. As with Lilian Chalmers in 1936, Lea may have been an alternate athlete. But there could be another reason.

Gender verification in sport has a long and complicated evolution and history. In 1946 the International Amateur Athletics Federation (now known as World Athletics) introduced regulations requiring all athletes competing in female categories to provide a medical certificate before each competition verifying their female gender before being allowed to compete. Léa must have provided one in 1946 in order to compete at the European Championships. However, moving two years on to the Olympics and a physical examination had become mandatory. It is recorded that Léa refused to take this physical examination. The outcome was certain. Léa was barred from the French athletics federation and from the Olympics. I’m still trying to ascertain the date this happened. This must have been after the Olympics or Léa would have been disqualified from entering, and her name would never have appeared in official records.

It was at this time that Lea decided to live as a man and undergo surgery. In late 1950 the surgery took place, and Léa emerged as Léon, revealing his transition to the press in March 1952.

Details of Léon Caurla’s life after this are scarce. We know that he joined the French Air Force at some stage, and that he married and had children. By the 1980s he had returned to his hometown of Etain, where he had several jobs – a travelling salesman, owner of a florist shop, and he also rented out property.

While we cannot say with certainty that Léon Caurla was the first transgender Olympian, bearing in mind he was probably intersex, we can say that Leonard Chalmers was the first Olympian who definitely was, even though he wasn’t the first to have surgery.

With transgender issues being even more of an issue in sport than ever before we wait to see if and when transgender athletes will ever compete at the Olympics in the future.

My opinion doesn’t count for anything, but I think it is time for sport to drop its current method of scoring results. Athletic results already take into account wind speed and altitude, so, if transgender athletes have an alleged unfair advantage, why can’t someone come up with a formula that takes this into account. Let transgender athletes compete in whatever gender category they wish. Applying the formula would ensure a fairer result, even if it means finishing first and being declared third, or whatever. In the future, if it is decided that transgender athletes should never have been subjected to the formula, that formula can be removed retrospectively. The athletes not subject to the application of the formula retain their positions and medals, but if that then means there are two gold medallists, fine. Its an idea that needs a lot more work put into it.

We can only hope that sports organising bodies, transgender athletes, and transgender critics can work together for once and come up with a solution that pleases everyone.

William and John: Part 2) John in France

Last month I began to tell the story of Sir William Neville and his partner Sir John Clanvowe. I looked at their family background and childhood, and how they were connected through the manorial network of medieval England. Today I want to concentrate on the military career of Sir John Clanvowe. The campaigns in which he served are among the most important of the wars against France in the Hundred Years War.

The Hundred Years War can be said to have been caused n part by the marriage of the gay King Edward II of England to Princess Isabella of France in 1308. Isabella was a daughter of the French king who, although he had sons, had no grandsons to succeed him. This is important because France, unlike England, didn’t allow succession to the throne through the female line. Edward and Isabella’s son, King Edward III, decided that English law made him heir to the French throne though his mother and declared himself King of France. The French chose someone else. Another factor in the war was that the English crown possessed a lot of land in France as part of their feudal inheritance (see the map below). All feudal lords in France had to swear allegiance to the French king as their supreme lord. Edward III wasn’t going to swear to be subservient to any other king, and the French threatened to seize his possessions if he didn’t. That was another reason for the Hundred Years War.

The first of the campaigns in which Sir John Clanvowe served was in 1364 during the Breton War of Succession. When the old Duke of Brittany died there were two rival claimants to succeed him, John de Montfort and Charles de Blois. Both had legitimate claims under medieval law. The kings of England and France gave their support to opposing claimants. King Edward III supported de Montfort (who also happened to be his son-in-law) and the King of France supported de Blois.

The rivalry came to a head in September 1364 at Auray, a town on the Breton coast. John de Montfort was supported by battalions led by Sir John Chandos and Sir Robert Knolles. Both sides had been instructed to take no prisoners. Sir John Clanvowe was fighting in the thick of battle as the English forced the French into an indefensible position. Charles de Blois was killed and the French surrendered. John de Montfort was proclaimed the new Duke of Brittany, but instead of recognising King Edward as his feudal overlord as promised he switched his allegiance to the King of France. It was a surprising and humiliating blow to the English. Sir John Clanvowe then joined the retinue of Sir John Chandos and was present at the latter's unfortunate death.

By 1369 the French were taking over more English territory and Chandos attempted to defend the town of Poitiers. A week after Christmas Chandos and a group of about forty men including, Sir John Clanvowe, caught up with them at Lussac. Dressed in armour with his helmet visor up Chandos led the attack, but he slipped on the icy ground and stumbled head first onto the point of a lance held by a French soldier. The weapon struck him below one eye and entered his skull. Alive, conscious and writhing in agony on the icy ground his compatriots tried to protect him.

A 14th century French chronicler, Jean Froissart, described how the English knights flew into a defensive rage, specifically naming Sir John Chambo. The identity of this knight has puzzled historians, as there is no John Chambo mentioned elsewhere. However, the Chambo coat of arms is recorded in several medieval rolls and is identical to that of the Clanvowe family, which suggests that to me that Sir John Chambo was actually Sir John Clanvowe.

English then decided to launch a major expeditionary force into France. Sir John Clanvowe and his future partner Sir William Neville were to serve alongside each other for the first time in this expedition. They were part of a force that pillaged its way through northern France in August 1370 in what is called a chevauchée. This was a rampage through the countryside in an attempt to terrify the local population. Villages were attacked, fields of crops were burnt, and animals were slaughtered. Soldiers took what they wanted. Terrified villagers fled to the nearest castle or fortification.

The French then made clear their intention to invade English-owned Aquitaine. Edward III decided to launch a massive chevauchée in August 1373 with his son Prince John of Gaunt in command of about 8,000 soldiers. Sir John Clanvowe joined this "Grand Chevauchée", as it is named, which pillaged its way from Calais in a route of over 900 miles to Bordeaux in Aquitaine. A French army shadowed the English and there were a few small skirmishes in the early stages but the French army generally kept its distance.

The English forces trudged on until Christmas. Long before then most of the horses had died, as had many soldiers from disease. Provisions dwindled and the weather worsened. Replacement horses were seized from the terrified French peasants as the English army rampaged through the countryside.

It must have been the most welcome Christmas for both the exhausted army and the people of Aquitaine as the English soldiers arrived in Bordeaux to give them the support they had longed for. The Grand Chevauchée had succeeded in dissuading the French from invading Aquitaine. It also enhanced the reputation of those who took part, giving them hero status amongst the English.

During the following years Sir John Clanvowe joined the retinue of Humphrey de Bohun, 7th Earl of Hereford. John may have known de Bohun since childhood through the manorial network. De Bohun was the hereditary Lord High Constable of England, a military position similar in nature to Chief of Defence Staff. This brought de Bohun into the inner circles of the English court, and John Clanvowe may have accompanied him during his official court duties. When de Bohun King Edward III took John on as a King's Knight.

We’ll have a closer look at Sir John’s court career in a few weeks. Next time we’ll have a look at Sir William Neville. After he and Sir John Clanvowe served in the 1370 chevauchée William went on to serve as an admiral. We’ve have a look at his career, and his marriage, at the beginning of July.

Designers of an Empire

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte died 200 years ago last week. He is one of few military leaders who left an artistic legacy that is recognisable and influential, the Empire Style. But he didn’t create it himself. It was crested for him by a couple of French architects and designers who are regarded by many as the original gay designer couple. I mentioned them only briefly in my recent Flower Power article “A Divine Headdress”. They are Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre Fontaine (1762-1853).

Pierre Fontaine was the elder and longest lived of the two. He was born in Pontoise, to the north-west of Paris, into a middle-class family of architects and designers. His father, also called Pierre, was the engineer of the fountains and hydraulic system at the Château de L’Isle-Adam, home of the Prince of Conti (grandson of the Prince of Conti who was elected King of Poland-Lithuania).

Young Pierre was 16 years old when he went with his father to work at the chateau, which was just 10 kilometres from Pontoise. Pierre’s keen interest and natural ability at architecture was noticed by the chief architect of the fountain project and he helped to expand Pierre’s experience by allowing him to copy some of the designs and to join the workmen in the construction work.

In 1779 Pierre went to Paris to study at the Académie Royale d’Architecture. Pierre came second in the Prix de Rome in 1785. This was a competition for the Académie students which offered a five-year scholarship in Rome to the winner. Although he didn’t win in 1785 Pierre was awarded the scholarship in 1787 when the awarding of that year’s prize was delayed. Interestingly, his design that can second was for a sepulchral monument for the kings of France (below). It was influenced by the design for Isaac Newton’s cenotaph, about which I wrote in March.

It was while Pierre was at the Académie that he met Charles Percier who went on to win the Prix de Rome in 1786, the year between Pierre coming second and him being awarded the Rome scholarship.

Charles Percier had a very different upbringing to that of Pierre Fontaine. His mother Marie-Jeanne was a seamstress and laundrywoman and his father Denis was a gate-keeper, but Charles’ childhood was anything but typically working-class. Both of his parents worked for the French royal family. His mother worked for Queen Marie Antoinette and his father worked at the moat bridge near the Tuileries, the palace in Paris.

Charles, like Pierre, showed artistic talents as a child. He could draw the uniforms of the palace guards and soldiers in perfect detail, and he was soon put into the classes of the palace art tutor. This led to him being enrolled into the Ecole Royales Gratuite de Desins at the age of just 7. This was a free school for children from modest or poor backgrounds who had a shown clear aptitude for art and design. Charles soon gained a reputation as a skilled draftsman, even before he entered the Académie Royale d’Architecture at the age of 15.

Even though Percier and Fontaine, as the duo later became known, as if a single entity, met at the Académie it was only when they both began studying in Rome that they started working together. They shared a studio and travelled around the region concentrating on the classical architecture. The neo-classical style was all the rage in Europe and Percier and Fontaine would go on to develop it further. They were so inseparable that fellow students called them “the Two Etruscans”, the Etruscans being the civilisation that evolved into ancient Roman.

Percier and Fontaine made a pact in Rome based on mutual respect and confidence. They pledged to stay single and never marry. It is this pact that forms the basis of the idea that they were, or became, a “gay” couple as we would recognise today.

All was going well in Rome. Then in 1789 the French Revolution threw Fontaine’s life into turmoil. His parents, both reliant on royal employment, were out of work and penniless. Fontaine returned to Paris to try to support them. Percier remained in Rome, but soon hostility towards the French forced him to return to Paris also and he moved in with Fontaine.

Their architectural designs kept them employed until 1792 when Percier was offered the job of scenery designer and supervisor at the Paris Opera. Fontaine, who had recently moved to England to get away from the Revolution, was brought back to France by Percier who insisted that if he was to take the post at the Paris Opera then Fontaine must be appointed with him.

During their four years at the opera Percier and Fontaine continued to work of other projects. This brought them to the attention of one of their neighbours, none other than Josephine Bonaparte, the wife of Napoleon (who had yet to be declared emperor). Together, Percier and Fontaine were engaged to work on Josephine’s residence, the Château de Malmaison outside Paris.

At the start of the project they met Napoleon himself. Napoleon soon became a huge fan of their work and employed them to redecorate the Hôtel des Invalides, a veteran’s home that had been damaged during the Revolution. The success of both projects led Napoleon to appoint Fontaine as official government architect. In a reciprocal manner to the opera position Fontaine said he wouldn’t do it unless Percier was appointed with him.

Between 1801 and 1814, when the post of government architect was abolished and the post of Paris city architect was created, Percier and Fontaine worked on most of the famous buildings that are still familiar to us today – the Louvre, Fontainbleau, Versailles, the Élysée Palace and the Tuileries.

Napoleon dismissed Percier in 1804, which upset and offended Fontaine, but the two continued to work together and Percier was also able to pursue other projects.

Although Fontaine kept to the pact he and Percier made in Rome to remain unmarried he fathered an illegitimate daughter by Sophie Depuis, an artist he and Percier employed to colour the illustrated plates of one of the books they wrote on architecture.

Charles Percier died in 1838 and left Fontaine grief-stricken. Fontaine continued to work as Paris city architect and interior designer at the Louvre and Tuileries until he resigned at the age of 86. He was buried with Percier and another close associate, Clarles-Louis Bernier (1755-1830), who worked with them at the Paris Opera and the Louvre. Their joint grave monument was designed by Fontaine.

Percier and Fontaine perfected the artistic style that became known to us as Empire Style. Evolving from the previously popular Directoire and Ne-Classical styles it became very distinctive. Even when Egyptian elements crept in, Empire Style remained the style that defined the Napoleonic era.

Flower Power: A Divine Headdress

There are many flowers and plants that have influenced art and decoration. A lot of them appear because they are sacred or symbolic. Two that are both are the lotus and the papyrus.

There are several species of lotus, often confusingly referred to by the name of a different plant, the water-lily, and they feature significantly with the papyrus in the art of Egypt and Asia. The white and blue lotus have particular significance in ancient Egypt.

It is believed that the Egyptians were the first to turn floristry into a profession. They made garlands and arrangements for banquets and rituals, processions and burials. The lotus and papyrus figured prominently, thought the lotus was the most sacred flower in their religion.

The lotus features in the creation myths. A giant lotus was said to emerge from the muddy waters of the Nile before time began. From it rose the sun, Ra, creating the first day. The association with the Nile, where it grew in abundance, gave rise to the flower’s representation as a symbol of life, regeneration and fertility. If it wasn’t for the Nile ancient Egypt would not have existed. More specifically, it was the annual Nile floods that washed over the surrounding lands.

The ancient Egyptians created an annual festival to celebrate these floods. It is still a holiday today called Wafaa El-Nil. I wrote about this festival in August 2018 and explained how the floods were given their own god, Hapi.

Because ancient Egypt and the Nile were divided into Upper Egypt/Nile and Lower Egypt/Nile Hapi became a dual deity, both aspects represented as both male and female. His Upper Egypt/Nile name was Hapi-Meht and his Lower Egypt/Nile name was Hapi-Reset. In my 2018 article I also mentioned that each Hapi had a headdress made of his sacred plants. Hapi-Meht wore a headdress of lotus flowers and Hapi-Reset had a headdress of papyrus fronds. Sometimes both Hapis are depicted together, as in the picture below which I used in my article on the Nile floods. Hapi-Meht is on the right and Hapi-Reset is on the left. They are tying their symbolic plants to the Nile represented by the upright bar.

The lotus and papyrus both became major elements in Egyptian architecture. Most of the huge columns you can still see at sites like Luxor are stylised bundles of lotus and papyrus stalks. At the top of the columns are stylised lotus flowers and papyrus fronds. These types of column have their own architectural names – lotiform and papyriform. Hapi’s lotus was used more often than papyrus in wall decoration and furniture. They became the archetypal Egyptian design element.

In the late 18th century ancient Egypt became popular among the nations of Western Europe. The Napoleonic Wars had spread to Egypt and the famous Battle of the Nile in 1798 made people like Horatio Nelson national heroes. Napoleon in particular is responsible for the first Egyptian Revival in art by instructing a scientific expedition to draw and paint everything they saw, including wall painting and hieroglyphics. When the drawings arrived back in France and were published they cause a sensation. It was just the sort of decoration people were wanting to replace the tired old neo-classicism that had dominated the century.

This Egyptian Revival outlived the short Empire Style, the mixture of neo-classicism and Egyptian design created by (the probably gay couple) Charles Perrier and Pierre Fontaine. The lotus and papyrus were used in both styles. The Egyptian Revival spread across Europe and the Atlantic to America and for several decades Egyptian architecture was more popular than classical Greek and Roman.

Gradually tastes began to change again and Egpyt lost its appeal. But it re-emerged in spectacular style with the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 sparking off the Second Egyptian Revival, again in France. This time another art style was becoming popular and the revival merged seamlessly into it. That style was later called Art Deco.

The simple shapes and outlines of Art Deco seemed to be perfect for the stylised lotus and papyrus designs from ancient Egyptian. The result was some of the most iconic buildings, decorations, furniture and jewellery produced during the 1920 and 30s. It even influence film and theatre. Hapi’s sacred plants became a common source for Art Deco design. The whole Art Deco-Second Egyptian Revival can be represented perfectly in the image below of the papyrus-inspired elevator doors in the Chrysler Building in New York.

Hapi and the other Egyptian gods and deities have rarely been used as design elements but Hapi’s sacred plants, the lotus and papyrus, have become familiar to the modern world through Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and Tutankhamun’s tomb.

A Star-Gayzing Cenotaph

On this day in 1727 (in the Julian calendar that was in use in England at that time) Sir Isaac Newton died. Some of you, like myself, may have seen his tomb in Westminster Abbey, London, but if a French architect called Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799) had got his way Newton would also be commemorated in a colossal 150 meter (492 feet) diameter spherical cenotaph in Paris. I’m glad I haven’t decided to publish this article tomorrow, April Fool’s Day, because you’d probably think it was a hoax.

First of all, let’s get Newton’s sexuality out of the way. In 2013 I wrote about Newton’s probable place on the lgbt spectrum (very apt description bearing in mind his work on the spectrum and rainbows). Very little information is available to say for sure how Newton would have identified his sexuality, assuming he ever thought about it. Thinking about it and labelling it seems to be a very modern thing to do. In 2013 I was content, and still am, to place him in our modern “queer” category without putting any other modern gender or sexuality label upon him. No doubt historians and scientists will be debating the subject for centuries.

As far as Newton’s scientific reputation is concerned there is no doubt. He was hailed as a champion of reason over superstition, which is ironic because he believed in astrology and witchcraft (not the modern Wiccan faith which didn’t exist in his day). After his death many architects and artists began designing tombs and monuments for him. Only Westminster Abbey was deemed appropriate for his official state tomb.

The Westminster tomb and the other un-built monuments emphasised Newton’s contribution to science, which was invariably illustrated with images of ancient Greek gods and religious symbolism. The colossal design by Étienne-Louis Boullée in 1784 did away with most of this un-scientific and superstitious decoration (except for thousands of cypress trees, symbols of mourning in the ancient Greek religion). The design used simple shapes, primarily the sphere. Below is one of Boullée’s drawings.

In the words of Dr. Patricia Ricci, Associate Professor of the History of Art and Director of the Department of Fine Art at Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, “Its controversial theme, enormous size, and innovative design doomed the project from the start.” If it had been built it would have been the tallest building in the world at 150 meters (480 feet) tall, about 8 meters (26 feet) taller than the then record holder, Strasbourg cathedral.

The main feature of the cenotaph was the 150 meter sphere. Visitors would have entered the building at ground level and walk up a large staircase into a tunnel that led right into the centre of the structure. There visitors would be surrounded by the huge hollow interior. If visiting during the daytime people would see the whole surface of the sphere around them display an accurate portrayal of the stars and constellations. This was achieved by each star being a hole in the sphere where sunlight shone through. At night-time the interior was lit by a huge lantern inside an armillary sphere at the very centre.

You could say that this cenotaph was the largest planetarium ever designed, though no planets were represented within it and it was static. Speaking of planetaria, even though Boullée’s design never got off the page it inspired the design of a real modern-day planetarium, the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York, part of the American Museum of Natural History. The Hayden Planetarium was built in 2000 and is 27 meters (87 feet) high.

The Hayden Planetarium

Even it we cannot say exactly if Sir Isaac Newton would identify himself on the lgbt spectrum, his unbuilt cenotaph has indirect links to modern lgbt astronomers thought the Hayden Planetarium. The Associate Director is Brian Abbott who does talks and presentations there. The planetarium currently has a writer-in-residence, the gay British playwright Stephen Laughton. He is working with Dr. Rebecca Oppenheimer, Curator of the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, a planet-hunter and discoverer of the first brown dwarf star. They are researching and collaborating in the development of a new play.

Finally, if Boullée had been able to build Newton’s cenotaph it may have been located where the Eiffel Tower is today. Below is an artist’s impression of how it would look if you could visit it.

I’m going to have a few days break for the Easter holidays. I’ll be back on April 10th when we’ll be looking at how a floral headdress inspired Napoleon and the art deco movement.

Olympic 400+

Following on from my Mayflower 400 article two weeks ago I thought I’d bring you my Olympic 427. On 20th November I wrote that I had identified and listed my 400th lgbt Olympian (Anna Kjellbin, Swedish ice hockey player at the 2012 Olympic Youth Winter games in Innsbruck).

Shortly after I had added her to the list I came across a blog which gave many more names of lgbt Olympians, though there were no verifying sources. As with any other list that I find, whether it’s on social media or forum, I make sure I can find at least one online source that gives a definite indication of sexuality or gender identity. Quite often photos of an athlete’s wedding ceremony on social media is all I need. There are still about a hundred athletes I am still researching. There are also several Olympians who have been claimed as being lgbt but I have my doubts over the sources I have consulted.

There are two people I have not put on my list who are both worth mentioning. One is an Olympian who, I believe, has been misidentified. First, an Olympian I do not believe was lgbt, despite being identified as such in some places.

Robert Graves (1895-1985). This esteemed British poet entered the Mixed Literature category of the Art competition at the 1924 Paris Olympics. The Art competitions, which included music, sculpture and writing, were a part of the Olympics until 1948. Each entry had to have a sporting connection. Medals were awarded, as they were in the sports. They are still recognised by the IOC. Robert Graves’ entry into the 1924 games was a poem called “At the Games”. He didn’t win a medal.

Robert Graves is one of those individuals whose sexuality has been questioned and misinterpreted since his death. Let’s examine his attitude towards homosexuality as he expressed in his writings. Robert made a distinction between what he called “amourousness” and “eroticism”. Amourousness was the attraction and intimacy of youth and early puberty. Eroticism was the full sexual, physical and emotional love and attraction between adult couples.

The armouroursness as defined by Robert Graves was common in English public schools (confusingly, public schools were private and not state-run), of which the most famous are Eton, Harrow, and the school Robert Graves attended, Charterhouse. Hundreds of ex-public school pupils have written or spoken of sexual experiences between classmates. The majority of them became exclusively and genuinely heterosexual after leaving school, Robert Graves included. I do not consider the sexual experimentation of public schoolboys enough to justify labelling any of them as gay or bisexual.

Robert Graves admitted in his biographical writings to several intimate or platonic love relationships with several boys when he was at Charterhouse. He even noted paedophilic activities of several teachers. In his writings after leaving school Robert wrote that most boys, himself included, grew out of “this perversion”, as he described it and was the attitude he held towards homosexuality in general for the rest of his life. In effect, he was a blatant homophobe.

Last year the organisers of the LGBT History Month here in the UK included Robert Graves in their “Faces of 2019”. Half of the brief biography they gave was an attempt to manipulate his homophobic remarks into an indication that he was bisexual, and read more like political criticism of the public school system. I wrote to the organisers to point out their inaccurate assumption. I heard nothing from them, and Robert Graves remained on the website. Increasingly, I am convinced that the organisers of the UK LGBT History Month are more interested in party political activism than they are in revealing any factual history.

The second Olympian who isn’t on the list, but was very definitely openly gay, may be a victim of misidentification.

Count Robert de Montesquiou-Fézensac (1855-1921). Count Robert was a French poet, art collector, aesthete and dandy. Many websites and Olympic lists mention that he won a bronze medal in one of the equestrian events at the 1900 Paris Olympics. I believe they have named the wrong man.

Let’s go to the primary source of the 1900 Olympics, the official report. Below is a reproduction of page 291 which gives the results of the equestrian contests. Underlined in red is the only reference to the name Montesquiou in the whole report.

As you can see the report only gives an aristocratic title with no personal name. This indicates to me that it does not refer to Count Robert de Montesquiou-Fézensac.

Even though France was a republic and di not officially recognise aristocratic titles many aristocrats still used them unofficially and were often recognised outside France. Indeed, the title of the creator of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Tardy, Baron de Coubertin, was not officially recognised under French law.

Robert de Montesquiou-Fézensac was a Count by inheritance but he was not a Marquis, as the Olympic report mentions. The titles of Count and Marquis are not the same. Marquis is a higher rank. Robert’s title was one which belonged to all members of his family (he was A Count but not THE Count), while there could only be one Marquis de Montesquiou-Fézensac at any one time. To call Count Robert a Marquis is like calling Kamala Harris the next US President (at the moment!). Count Robert would never have insulted the real Marquis by assuming his title, because there was an actual Marquis de Montesquiou-Fézensac alive at the time, and I doubt the official report would have got it wrong.

The Marquis de Montesquiou-Fézensac was from a senior bloodline of the family. The family tree below shows you how Count Robert de Montesquiou-Fézensac was related to the Marquis, the man I am convinced is the person listed in the official Olympic report.

The person I believe to be the Marquis de Montesquiou-Fézensac recorded in the official report is Eugène Marie Gérard, 5th Marquis de Montesquiou-Fézensac, who usually went by the name of Joseph. He still has descendants living today, his grandchildren, and it is possible they have a family archive which proves my theory. Perhaps even the Marquis’s bronze medal is still in the family.

Another reason why I don’t think Count Robert competed in the Olympics is the fact that he is known to have had no interested in horses. He didn’t even take part in the regular family hunts. Why would a man who wasn’t interested in horses enter an Olympic equestrian event?

One final reason to support my theory is that the 1965 biography “Robert de Montesquiou-Fézensac: A Prince of the Nineties” by Phillippe Jullian there is no mention of any Olympics Games. Surely, winning an Olympic bronze medal is significant enough to include in a biography.

And so those are two people who are not on my lgbt Olympian list. Which brings me onto the lists of verified lgbt athletes at the Olympics Games. The lists are below, one list for the summer Olympians and another for the winter Olympians.

Summer Olympians

Winter Olympians

All that remains is for me to wish you a Happy New Year.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 23) From France to Fern-atics

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 61) Hélène van Zuylen (1863-1947) was a pioneering female motor racer in a male dominated sport, and 62) Roberta Cowell (1918-2011) was a pioneering transgender motor racer, and she was also an lgbt pilot, as was 63) David Charlebois (1962-2001), a victim of the 9/11 terror attacks, who was born in a city that was once named after 64) Hubert Lyautey (1854-1934).

64) Hubert Lyautey was appointed Resident General of Morocco in 1907. The French were already well-established in Morocco, though they switched from being a foreign trading nation with a number of bases in the country to a colonial power at the beginning of the 20th century.

Local rebels and declining economy led Lyautey, in command of French troops in North Africa at the time, to move into Morocco to “protect” French interests in 1904. Morocco came under direct French military control in 1907 after rebels killed a prominent French doctor in Marrakesh, which led to Lyautey being appointed Resident General. In 1911 a power struggle between the Sultan and his brother led to further rebellions. France then declared Morocco to be a French Protectorate.

Unlike other French colonies Morocco was allowed to keep its distinctive character and laws. The Sultan of Morocco was allowed to remain as Head of State instead of the French President and the country remained a sovereign state.

Lyautey strengthened the infrastructure of Morocco, building railways, roads, bridges and ports. Kenitra was one such port. It was a small settlement before Lyautey turned it into a French military base in 1912. In 1933, after Lyautey had returned to France after being replaced in 1925, Kenitra was renamed Port Lyautey. It returned to its former name when France abolished the protectorate in 1956.

Although married to Inés de Bourgoing, a remarkable person in her own right, Lyautey was widely regarded as being gay. Gay men being married was not unusual for that period. There’s no actual proof Lyautey was gay. He never admitted being so, through it seems it was not a secret, and even the French Prime Minister was aware of it.

Lyautey’s may have provided inspiration for a literary character who brings us back to someone I mentioned several “80 More Gays” ago. Today he joins the chain in his own right – 65) Marcel Proust (1871-1922).

Although we’ll never know for sure, Proust based the character of the Baron de Charlus in his 7-volume novel series “À la Recherche du temps perdu” (Remembrance of Things Past) on Lyautey. It’s also likely that the Baron was based on another gay Frenchman, Count Robert Montesquiou (1855-1921). Marcel Proust had met them both – Lyautey in 1887 and Montesquiou in 1893. Both could easily been the inspiration, Proust selecting specific characteristics from each.

Baron de Charlus makes his first appearance in Proust’s novel series in volume one, “Swann’s Way”, which was turned into the film “Swann in Love” by 60) Nicole Stéphane. The main character, Charles Swann, falls in love with Odette. The first physical realisation of their attraction occurs in a scene inside a carriage. After a sudden jolt a flower, a cattleya, a type of orchid, becomes loosened from Odette’s dress. Swann leans over and pins it back in place and as they lean towards each other they kiss. From then on they adopt a private saying, “Do a cattleya” to mean any sexual contact between them.

It’s very apt that the cattleya (pronounced cattley-a rather than cattle-ya) plays such a large part in their relationship. It was Odette’s favourite flower. It was also Marcel Proust’s favourite flower. Every day he would buy a fresh cattleya for his buttonhole.

Detail of “Portrait of Marcel Proust” by Jacques Emile Blanche, 1892,
showing Proust wearing a cattleya orchid.

Orchids were very fashionable during Proust’s lifetime, even a craze. It even had a name, orchidelerium. This was one of several floral manias. There was also a craze for ferns, which was also given a name, pteridophilia. Although the height of the orchid and fern manias was over a century ago there’s still an appeal for them, as can be seen in the success of a fern nurseries, including one in southern England called Fernatix (pronounced like “fanatics”) created by 66) Steven Fletcher (b.1959) and 67) Kerry Robinson (b.1965).

Steven Fletcher’s horticultural career began with growing orchids in the 1980s. For a while he was Chair of the Cambridge Orchid Society. At the regular orchid shows Steven would use ferns to place around the pots to disguise them. He noticed people began to take as much interest in the ferns as they did in the orchids. This got him thinking about growing ferns and led to his decision to open Fernatix with his partner Kerry.

Steven and Kerry met on a blind date arranged by a friend and they connected instantly. When they first began displaying their ferns they attracted attention – they looked like bikers in leathers and piercings, not like gardeners at all. Nonetheless, they were accepted into the horticultural world and Fernatix soon became a successful business.

The first Fernatix display at the premier flower show in the UK, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show, earned them a gold medal, and many more have followed over the years, right up to this year.

Ferns may seem underwhelming to most people but their popularity and the success of Fernatix and other fern nurseries prove they are still popular. The fern fever of the 19th century originally centred on their aesthetic value, but it led to them being studied to improve cultivation. Eventually, the study of ferns became a science in its own right called pteridology.

There may be many lgbt pteridophilists besides Steven Fletcher and Kerry Robinson, but there’s one who became a significant figure outside botany. His main area of study was in phytocytology - plant structure. If these scientific terms are a bit too technical we can be grateful to this particular pteridological phytocytologist for coming up with a short name for a new disease. This man’s name was 68) Bruce Voeller (1834-1994).

Next time on “80 More Gays”: A new disease acquires a new name, and names come together to raise awareness with a glass of wine.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 22) Action on Land, Terror in the Sky

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 58) Jacinto Benavente (1866-1954), Spanish dramatist, chose not to write during the first years of the Franco regime because of state censorship of the theatre overseen by 59) Luis Escobar (1908-1991), an aristocratic actor and theatre director, as was 60) Nicole Stéphane (1923-2007), a Rothschild baroness and cousin of 61) Hélène van Zuylen (1863-1947).

Before her marriage 61) Hélène van Zuylen was Baroness Héléne Betty Louise Caroline de Rothschild. She inherited the theatrical talent of her family by writing plays, as well as poetry, novels and short stories. Under the pen-name Paule Riversale Hélène probably collaborated with her partner Renée Vivien on several works.

Hélène was married to Baron Etienne van Zuylen van Nijevelt van de Haar. They had two sons. Whilst still married she began a relationship with Renée Vivien, and Renée is said to have considered herself to be married to Hélène as well. But Hélène’s claim to fame is far removed from her writing.

Before meeting Renée, Hélène gained celebrity status as a pioneering female motor racer in the era when racing was more Chitty Chitty Bang Bang than Formula 1. Helene’s husband founded the Automobile Club of France in 1895. Three years later he organised the Paris-Amsterdam motor race. It also included a tourist car section in which Hélène, the only female, participated. As such she would be better described as the first female participant of a motoring event rather than a race. Below is a remarkable photograph of Hélène in her car at the start of the section that began at Champigny.

Photo: Rijksmuseum

Several years later Hélène competed in an actual race, though her car developed mechanical problems and she pulled out. With her contemporaries Camille du Gast and Anne, Duchess d’Uzès, Baroness Hélène van Zuylen is regarded as a pioneer of female racing. Motor racing is still very much male dominated. There are very few openly lgbt racing drivers, but one pioneer of female and transgender racing made her name in the mid-20th century - 62) Roberta Cowell (1918-2011).

I have written about Roberta Cowell twice, so you could read them first for more detailed information. The articles are here and here.

At the end of the war in Europe, the 75th anniversary of which we commemorated in lockdown this year, Roberta was a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft I. After being liberated and later demobbed she returned to motor racing. This was also the beginning of the period in her life when she began to recognise her true gender and she became the first woman in the UK to undergo gender reassignment surgery.

Roberta also tried to continue flying. She bought an old de Havilland Mosquito plane in 1958 in which she hoped to set a transatlantic crossing record. However, the plane needed a new engine and none could be found. The flight was abandoned and the plane was scrapped.

Roberta Cowell was a Spitfire pilot during the war, one of few known lgbt pilots of the 20th century. Today there are many more, including my friend Rob, and many are members of the National Gay Pilots Association (NGPA). Although US-based the NGPA has chapters in Canada, Australia and the UK. One notable lgbt pilot and member of the NGPA was 63) David Charlebois (1962-2001).

In the lgbt community several names are remembered more than others in connection with the 9/11 terror attacks of 2001. Father Mychal Judge is remembered as a victim at the World Trade Centre as he administered to another victim, and Mark Bingham is the passenger of Flight 93 who took part in the heroic rebellion against the hijackers. These heroes often overshadow the other lgbt victims, such as David Charlebois.

David was the co-pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 which hit the Pentagon on that bright, sunny morning. His flying career began after he graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Datona Beach, Florida, and he joined American Airlines in 1991.

Although never fully closeted as a gay man David decided to be more open about his sexuality when he joined the NGPA. The final stage in this pubic coming out process was his participation in the NGPA contingent in the March on Washington in 2000. He helped to carry the association’s banner. When their section came to the end of the march he and several colleagues dashed further back to join the American Airlines own lgbt group, GLEAM, to finish the march twice.

One the morning of the 9/11 attacks David woke at 6 a.m. and made coffee and bagels for guests who had stayed overnight after a party he hosted the night before. We’ll never know his precise role in the aftermath of the hijacking of his plane three hours later. In his memory the NGPA set up a scholarship named after him.

David Charlebois had the air in his blood, so to speak. His father was US Air Force Reservist, later a CIA agent, and travelled the world. This explains why David was not born in the USA but in Morocco in the city of Kenitra where there was a US naval base. This had been established there in 1942 when the city had a different name.

Before being renamed Kenitra after Moroccan independence from France in 1956 it was called Port Lyautey, named after one of France’s most important colonial administrators, 64) Hubert Lyautey (1854-1934).

Next time on “80 More Gays”: Morocco helps us to remember things past as we return to Marcel Proust and a worldwide mania.