Queer Achievement: Shamrocks Among the Daffodils

[Achievement – the name given in heraldry to the full pictorial representation of a coat of arms.]

I’m combining two themes today – heraldry and family history. I’m celebrating St. Patrick’s Day by looking at an Irish couple who have been given a Welsh name.

The Ladies of Llangollen is the name given to Lady Eleanor Butler (1739-1829) and Sarah Ponsonby (1755-1831), two Irish aristocrats who spent over 50 years living together near the Welsh village of that name.

Among the stories of same-sex relationships between women in pre-20th century times the lives of the Ladies of Llangollen have gone down as one of the most famous, genuine lesbian love affairs. But before we look at it in more detail here’s my representation of their coats of arms. Lady Eleanor’s is on the left and Sarah’s is on the right. They are placed this way round because 1) the left hand side is the most senior heraldic position and Lady Eleanor was the elder of the two, and 2) the Butler coat of arms is older than the Ponsonby’s and is also the most heraldically senior.

Rather than use lozenge shapes on which to place their coat of arms, as would have been customary in their lifetimes, I have chosen a modern presentation and placed them on shields. Once convention I have kept is the placing of a bow and garland around the arms. Women did not display the family crest on helmets so I have left those out.

So, what’s their family story? The Butler and Ponsonby families lived several miles from each other in County Kilkenny, Ireland. The Butlers held the title Earl of Ormonde and Eleanor’s father is regarded today as the 16th Earl. He didn’t use the title himself because a previous holder of the title was found guilty of high treason and had all his titles, Irish and English, taken from him (he was attainted, to use the proper word). It was Lady Eleanor’s brother who regained the title after parliament decided the attainder should only have applied to the family’s English titles, not the Irish ones.

Sarah Ponsonby’s great-grandfather William was the 1st Viscount Duncannon. Through another great-grandfather Sarah was 5th cousin to Lady Eleanor. Here’s the family relationship.

Lady Eleanor and Sarah met in 1768. There was an instant connection of spirits between the two and they began to make plans to avoid the customary fate of aristocratic young ladies of being married off to a man they hardly knew and may never even love. Their families tried to keep them apart after an aborted attempt to “elope” together.

During a trip to Wales Eleanor and Sarah put their foot down and began to live in a cottage they christened Plas Newydd just outside Llangollen. There they could no longer rely on allowances from their wealthy families and lived in reduced circumstances.

It wasn’t long before Eleanor and Sarah earned the local name of “the Ladies” and the cottage became a place where many famous and influential people visited – Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Wellington, Wedgwood – all eager to meet the couple who were rapidly becoming society celebrities because of their lifestyle. Even Queen Charlotte wanted to visit them because they were so famous and she persuaded her husband George III to give them a pension.

The Ladies of Llangollen both lived into old age. Eleanor was almost 90 years old. They are buried together in St. Collen’s Church, Llangollen. Their cottage, Plas Newydd, is now a museum.

Let’s look briefly at the Butler and Ponsonby coats of arms. They both have a connection in that they represent the occupations of their ancestors.

The Butler arms are quartered. The yellow quarters with the blue zigzag top are those of the male-line ancestors of the Butlers. They lived in the Middle Ages before surnames became consistently hereditary. This quarter shows the arms of the Walter, or FitzWalter, family. Hervey Walter was appointed Chief Butler of Ireland in 1177 by King Henry II of England. Hervey’s son Theobald was the first in the family to adopt the surname le Botiler, which has come down to us as Butler. A butler wasn’t like those we see in stately homes and whodunnits today. A royal butler was in charge of the food and drink of the court and given to someone highly trusted. Well, would you want to give the job to someone who is likely to poison you? The other quarters in the Butler arms are called an augmentation of honour because they indicate the family’s royal appointment of Chief Butler.

The Ponsonby arms show a less obvious way of commemorating a family’s royal appointment. A family legend recounts that one of the Ponsonbys was created royal hair-cutter by Henry II in the same year as Hervey Walter was created Chief Butler. Hence the family adopted three hair combs as their coat of arms. It’s an interesting legend but there’s no real evidence of it being fact.

To end with let’s have another look at that family tree above. You’ll see that Lady Eleanor Butler is descended from the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven. This is the same sexually perverted Earl of Castlehaven featured in my article “No Haven at the Castle”.

Mother Love

This is the 4th Sunday in Lent which in the Christian calendar is called Mothering Sunday. In some countries, as here in the UK, this is also when we celebrate Mother’s Day (an American invention which they celebrate in May).

Several years ago I mentioned how I was proud that my mother and father accepted my sexuality without judgement (a legacy of our liberal Methodist upbringing). My main sadness is that neither parent were able to join me at a Pride event like so many parents of other Pride attendees (illness prevented both parents from doing so).

However, I still feel very fortunate as I am. Not everyone is so fortunate. So today, Mothering Sunday, I want to look at two mothers who were pioneers in the formation of organisations for the families and friends of the lgbt community. And this very Mothering Sunday has added significance in the history of those organisations because it is also on the same date on which the US Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) held its first meeting in 1973.

But let’s start in wartime France and a British secret agent billeted with members of the French Resistance.

Rose Laimbeer, an agent with the Special Operations Executive (SOE) was parachuted into Nazi-occupied France after her training. During her liaison work between British Intelligence and the French Resistance she stayed with some Resistance fighters. One night, as activist Peter Tatchell revealed in Rose’s obituary, “she entered their room and found them in an embrace. There was mutual embarrassment all round. Not a word was said for three days. Rose knew nothing about homosexuality and was curious. She eventually plucked up the courage to ask them. Both men told stories of family prejudice and rejection. Their story affected her deeply … But it wasn’t until 1965 that she decided to do something about it.”

Britain in the 1960s was going through a change in attitudes to sex and sexuality. It was in 1957 that the Wolfenden Committee recommended that some aspects of homosexual activity should be decriminalised. It was still a period where many gay men were being arrested and prosecuted.

In 1965 Rose Laimbeer, by now Mrs. Rose Robertson and the mother of two boys, opened her home to two young lodgers and she realised fairly soon that they were a couple and not afraid to describe their experiences to her when she enquired. They told her of the homophobic attitudes of their parents. Once again Rose was deeply effected by stories or rejection.

Rose then set up the UK’s first telephone helpline for parents and families of lgbt people to give advice on what to do if a family member comes out as homosexual. This helpline was called Parents Enquiry and was run from Rose Robertson’s own home for several decades.

As word of Parents Enquiry spread Rose Robertson received other calls for advice from people who had been referred to her by local social services and the police. As the reputation of the helpline grew so did Roses’ public profile. She was invited to give talks, lectures and interviews and gradually it became clear that a larger national organisation was needed to handle the volume of callers.

In 1993 Parents Enquiry became a founding member of Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (FFLAG). Today FFLAG members take active parts in Pride events. Rose continued to work for, and support, FFLAG up her death at the age of 94 in 2011.

Mrs. Rose Robertson (left) and Mrs. Jeanne Manford (right)

The American PFLAG, whose anniversary we are commemorating today along with Mothering Sunday, originated through a different route.

Mrs. Jeanne Manford’s gay son Monty was present at the Stonewall Inn in New York during the landmark riot in 1969. He took no active part in the violence but he was prompted to join the Gay Activist’s Alliance as a result.

In 1972 the New York Daily News ran an editorial which made derogatory remarks on gays and lesbians and the recently defeated Gay Civil Rights Bill. Monty Manford protested by handing out leaflets criticising the editorial at a prestigious dinner at the Hilton Hotel in New York.

A frequent form of active protest among thee early gay protest groups was the “zap”, a physical interruption to any event or meeting. Monty added a zap to his leaflet distribution and stormed the speech platform. A tussle broke out and Monty was pushed to the floor and stamped upon (by a former heavyweight boxer) and he and several other activists were hospitalised.

At the home of Monty’s parents, Jeanne and Jules Manford, a phone call alerted them to their son’s plight. They were horrified at the way Monty had been attacked and Jean sat down and wrote a letter to the Daily News that same day. In it she came out as the proud mother of a gay son, and complained at the inaction of the police to change the assaulters.

A couple of months later Jeanne Manford accompanied her son on the New York City Gay Pride march proudly holding a placard which read “Parents of Gays: UNITE in support of our children”. She may not have been the first parent to march with an lgbt child in a Pride march but she was probably the first to make visible her desire to protest with her son. The response was phenomenal, Hundreds of gay men yelled with pleasure. Many ran over to kiss and hug her and express their hurt at not having a parent who would not march with them.

Jeanne Manford’s phone never stopped ringing after that. And so the idea of a special organisation and support helpline for parents of lgbt children was formed. Initially called “Parents of Gays”, the first official meeting was held on this very day in 1973 in the Duane United Methodist Church. Even though only 20 people attended the meeting paved the way for the formation of the organisation now known as PFLAG.

In 2012 Jeanne Manford was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for her contribution to the community.

On this Mothering Sunday we remember Rose Robertson and Jeanne Manford and celebrate their influence in the lives of so many families and friends in the lgbt community.

Chain (Fe)Males

In this, the first of several related articles, we’re going to look at a group of female politicians from the lgbt community who have held the office of mayor. The title of this article refers to the chain of office that many of the office holders wear, and a play on the term chain-mail. The chain of office usually bears a badge of the coat of arms or seal of the town, city or municipality concerned.

There was a time in England when certain mayors had an automatic seat in parliament. My own direct ancestor John Tansley, twice Mayor of Nottingham (1399 and 1410), was one of them. Today the opposite is the case. No mayor can sit in parliament during his term of office.

The LGBTQ Representation and Rights Research Initiative, which I referred to in an article last moth, lists a small number of mayors. I’ve been looking around for more and even though I don’t admit to having an authoritative list I have found over 150 lgbt mayors from around the world, past and present. Not all of them were openly lgbt when in office. Not all mayors are publicly elected to office but are elected by their fellow council members. For inclusion on the list the office holder must be referred to officially as mayor, deputy mayor, vice-mayor or interim mayor. Some municipal officers are the effective equivalent of mayor but I have not listed these for the time being.

Below is an infographic showing the locations of the 29 female lgbt mayors. Names are listed underneath.

Several statistics stand out immediately. Firstly, there have no female mayor, as far as I have found, in Africa, not even in South Africa. Secondly, all the female mayors in Asia have been members of the hijra community, the Third Gender community. I may return to hijra mayors and elected representatives in the future. Thirdly, the municipality of Chapinero in Bogota, Colombia, has had two consecutive lesbian mayors. There have been 8 female transgender mayors in addition to the 3 hijra. There is one openly intersex mayor, Tony Briffa, who identifies as female.

The earliest known female lgbt mayor was Charlotte Whitton (1896-1975), Mayor of Ottawa, Canada, from 1951-1954. She did not disclose her sexuality in her lifetime but was surmised from letters she wrote to the woman she lived with for many years, Margaret Grier.

The first openly lesbian women elected as mayor was Valerie Terringo. She became the first ever Mayor of West Hollywood following the creation of that municipality in 1984. She was selected by the fellow first West Hollywood councillors and held office for one year.

One woman, Jenny Rowan has been elected mayor in two councils - Inglewood and Kapiti Coast.

CANADA
Janet Mabley (b.1955), Deputy Mayor of Richmond Hill, Ontario, 1997-2000.
Charlotte Whitton (1896-1975), Mayor of Ottawa, 1951-1956.

UNITED KINGDOM

Jaci Taylor (b.1945), Mayor of Aberystwyth, Wales, 2000-2001.
Jenny Bailey (b.1962), Mayor of Cambridge, 2007-2008.
Christine Root, Mayor of Horwich 2013-4.

SWITZERLAND

Corine Mauch (b.1960), Mayor of Zurich since 2009.

THE NETHERLANDS

Kajsa Ollongren (b.1967), Deputy Mayor of Amsterdam since 2015.
Elizabeth Schmitz (b.1938), Mayor of Haarlem 1985-1994.
Ien Dales (1931-1994), Mayor of Nijmegen 1987-1989.

INDIA

Kamla Jaan (b.1954), Mayor of Katni 2000-2003.
Madhu Kinnar (b.1979), Mayor of Raigarh since 2015.
Kamla Kinnar (b.1954), Mayor of Sagar 2009-2011.

NEW ZEALAND

Georgina Beyer (b.1957), Mayor of Carterton District 1995-1997.
Jenny Rowan (b.1954), Mayor of Inglewood 1986-9, Mayor of Kapiti Coast 2008-12.

AUSTRALIA

Helen Westwood, Mayor of Bankstown 2002-2006.
Tony Briffa (b.1971), Mayor of Hodson’s Bay 2011-2011.
Janet Rice (b.1960), Mayor of Maribyrnong since 2008.

BRAZIL

Kátia Tapety (b.1949), Vice Mayor of Colonía do Piaul 2004-2012.

COLOMBIA

Angélica Lozano Correa (b.1975), Mayor of Chapinero 2005-2008.
Bianca Durán Hernández (b.1971), Mayor of Chapinero 2008-2012.
 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

E. Denise Simmons, Mayor of Cambridge, Massachusetts 2008-2009 & since 2016.
Annise Parker (b.1956), Mayor of Houston, Texas, 2010-2016.
Gina Genovese (b.1959), Mayor of Long Hill Township, New Jersey 2006-2007.
Jess Herbst, Mayor of New Hope, Collin County, Texas since 2016.
Karen Geraghty, Mayor of Portland, Maine 2001-2002.
Jackie Biskupski (b.1966), Mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah since 2016.
Toni Atkins (b.1962), Interim Mayor of San Diego, California 2005.
Stu Rasmussen (b.1948), Mayor of Silverton, Oregon 2009-2015.
Valerie Terringo (b.1954), Mayor of West Hollywood, California 1984-1985.

In future companion articles I will write about male mayors and Lord Mayors.

UPDATED 29 April 2017

Star Gayzing : Rings Around Uranus

When I was young the only new discoveries in space came from human space missions. The Apollo missions dominated my childhood and it wasn’t until my teens that deep space probes were bringing us new wonders in our solar system.

Today massive advances in technology has meant that there are new discoveries made very day. In the 1970s the Pioneer, Voyager and Viking probes gave astronomy headline news. Very soon it felt as if new discoveries were coming so quickly that they weren’t newsworthy anymore (just like the later space shuttle missions that came and went without much public notice compared with the first).

But there were some significant discoveries of the 1970s that made headlines which have almost been forgotten. They received wide attention at the time but seem to have been left behind in the memory. One of these discoveries celebrated its 40th anniversary two days ago and its one I actually remember well from that time (I think I may have some original newspaper clippings somewhere). One of the scientists responsible for making the discovery is a member of the lgbt community.

On 10th March 1977 the 25-year-old Jessica Mink (at that time known as Douglas) was sitting in a plane flying over the Indian Ocean. The plane was fitted out with astronomically(!) expensive equipment that was serving as the Kuiper Airborne Observatory. The object of the flying observatory’s mission that day was to take readings of the atmosphere of Uranus as its orbit took it in front of a distant star. By analysing the results in the miniscule changes in the star’s known spectrograph at the moments before it was obscured by Uranus and re-emerged on the other side scientists could work out what gases were in the planet’s atmosphere. It seemed to be a fairly straight-forward mission.

What Jessica Mink and her fellow astrophysicists saw on their instruments on board that plane were not expected. Rather than dip in brightness and colour just before the star was obscured by Uranus the instrument showed that it appeared to make several dips before it vanished behind the planet. The dips were mirrored when the star came back into view on the other side. Jessica’s apocryphal reaction was that “Uranus has its own asteroid belt”. Of course, all of this was by observing the readings on the equipment and not by human eye. Having obtained all of the information the flying observatory returned to frim ground and the scientists took the data back with them to Cornell University.

Once the data was analysed the realisation that the asteroid belt was in fact a series of rings around Uranus took the astronomical world by surprise. Last year Jessica admitted that the discovery was her most favourite moment in her 41-year career.

Since that discovery was made a lot more research has been carried out into the rings and they were “photographed” by the Voyager 2 probe in 1986. More rings have been found, and new satellites which act as shepherd moons keeping the rings on position.

The discovery of the rings, made with James Elliot and Edward Dunham, established Jessica’s reputation in astronomy. Her main emphasis has been on developing software to analyse astronomical data, most significantly on what is called high speed photometry, the equipment that led to Jessica being on that flying observatory 40 years ago.

More recently Jessica Mink has become one of the leading advocates for female and transgender astronomers. Jessica joined the AAS, the American Astronomical Society, in 1972 and in 2012 she was appointed by Wladimir Lyra and Stefan Meschiar of the AAS Working Group on LGBT Equality. Jessica was invited to help the profile of transgender astronomers and be a speaker for them. She continues to speak on their behalf and currently works at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

The following YouTube video gives Jessica a name-check half way through.

Women of Fame

A month ago the US National Women’s Hall of Fame announced its latest group of inductees. Among those listed was Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), dramatist and playwright. She was a member of the Daughters of Bilitis, an early lgbt rights group, and a campaigner for gay rights. She had already been inducted posthumously into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1999.

To celebrate International Women’s Day we’ll look at those lesbian, bisexual and transgender (lbt) women who have been inducted into the US national Women’s Hall of Fame.

The National Women’s Hall of Fame was founded in 1969 in the location of the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York State. The Hall of Fame honours women in American history and culture, living or dead, whose lives have had a significant effect on society. The first women inducted into the Hall were in 1973.

The Hall of Fame has recognised a number of lbt women since that first list was made and today they make up almost 10 percent of the whole group. I’ve listed them below in the chronological order in which they were inducted. The first living lbt inductee was Margaret Mead in 1976.

1973
Jane Addams (1860-1935), philanthropist and social reformer.
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), social reformer.
Rachel Carson (1907-1964), journalist and writer.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), poet.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), First Lady of America.

1976

Margaret Mead (1901-1978), anthropologist.
Mildred Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956), Olympic athlete.

1982

Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947), suffragette.

1984

Bessie Smith (1894-1937), blues singer.

1988

Willa Cather (1873-1947), writer and novelist.
Sally Ride (1951-2012), first female American astronaut.

1990

Barbara Jordan (1936-1996), civil rights leader.
Billie Jean King (b.1943), tennis champion and activist.

1993

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), artist.
Helen Stephens (1918-1994), Olympic athlete.

1995

Ann Bancroft (b.1955), explorer and adventurer.
Margaret Fuller (1820-1850), writer and journalist.

1996

Charlotte Anne Bunch (b.1944), writer and activist.

2005

Ruth Fulton Benedict (1887-1948), anthropologist.

2013

Kate Millett (b.1934), author.

2017

Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965), dramatist and playwright.

Out of Her Tree : Margaret Damer Dawson

On 29th September 2015 I wrote about the pioneers of the women’s police force. One of them was Margaret Damer Dawson (1873-1920). Today I’m going to look at her family tree to find ancestors who represent each of the 5 categories in my Law and Citizenship series.

Margaret could represent 3 of the 5 categories herself. As a pioneer of the women’s police force she instantly represents the “Police and Law Enforcement” category. She can also be included in the “Campaigns and Activism” category not only for her work to create the police force but also because she was an active anti-vivisection campaigner. In 1914 Margaret was a member of the Criminal Law Amendment Committee, giving her a place in the “Parliament and Legislation” category. Margaret’s nearest police connection before she began to fight for the creation of the women’s police force came with her step-uncle who was a Metropolitan Police magistrate from 1905 to 1919. Perhaps that was the biggest influence on Margaret’s own interest in the police force.

If we have Margaret representing the “Police and Law Enforcement” category let’s have a look at her ancestry to see who can represent the other four and see how much influence they had on her family.

The nearest connection to a significant court case in Margaret’s ancestry comes with her maternal grandfather, Frederick Shand Hemming (1825-1872). In 1865 at the Divorce Court Frederick was cited as committing adultery with Rebecca, the wife of Col. Gustavus Pollard. Polland was granted a divorce and Rebecca went on to become Frederick’s second wife after the death of his first, Margaret Damer Dawson’s grandmother.

There are several lawyers and judges in Margaret’s ancestry. The nearest senior judge in the direct line is Sir Roger Cholmeley (c.1485-1656). He rose from being called to the bench in Lincoln’s Inn in 1520 to Lord Chief Justice in 1552. Roger’s career is remarkable in that he was knighted and appointed a Chief Baron of the Exchequer before being appointed a judge, a very rare distinction.

Sir Roger Cholmeley sat in the House of Commons as Recorder of London. A good number of Margaret’s ancestors were elected to parliament rather by virtue of their appointment. The most recent of them is her stepfather, Thomas de Grey (1843-1919), who married her widowed mother and sat as an MP before succeeding to the tittle of Baron Walsingham and moving to the House of Lords (it was his brother who was Metropolitan Police magistrate).

The nearest bloodline ancestor to be elected as an MP was Sir John Hotham (1632-1689). He sat in 6 parliaments from 1660 to his death. His career is dominated by campaigns to ban Catholics from standing for parliament and for the disbandment of the standing army. Sir John was a very active parliamentarian and was appointed to many committees. His political career appeared to end when he was defeated in the 1685 general election after being implicated in a Jacobite plot, but he joined Prince William of Orange in his “invasion” in 1688 in the so-called Glorious Revolution. He was re-elected to parliament in 1689 and died two months later after catching a chill that winter.

When it comes to “Campaigns and Activism” in Margaret’s ancestry there are several related campaigns which are the most significant. These are the anti-Protestant campaigns of the Tudor period known as the Northern (or Earl’s) Rebellion and the Pilgrimage of Grace. This is where Margaret’s ancestry bumps into my own.

My direct ancestor Richard Norton was the 71-year-old High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1569 when a group of Catholic aristocrats and opponents of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I gathered to rebel against her in the Northern Rebellion. Norton led an attack on Durham Cathedral before joining his nephew Thomas Markenfield to attack Ripon Cathedral. Markenfield was Margaret Dames Dawson’s ancestral cousin. The rebellion was defeated and both Norton and Markenfield fled to Flanders where they died.

Markenfield’s aunt married Robert Aske, the nephew and namesake of the leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, another attempt to depose Queen Elizabeth in favour of the Catholic Duke of Norfolk.

Having taken arms against the monarch both Robert Aske (Margaret’s ancestral uncle) and Thomas Markenfield (her ancestral cousin) were found guilty of the ultimate crime of treason. Even though Markenfield managed to escape Robert Aske was hanged. Several members of both families were imprisoned for their parts in both rebellions. Even Lord Chief Justice Sir Roger Cholmeley I mentioned earlier didn’t escape the prison cell for opposing a Tudor monarch. In 1553 he added his signature to the proclamation of Lady Jane Grey’s succession to the throne, leading the Catholic Queen Mary I to imprison him and not reappoint him.

All these examples of law, crime and campaigning in Margaret Damer Dawson’s ancestry may not have had much of an effect on her decision to become a pioneering female police officer. Whoever may have influenced her the most it is certain that Margaret herself was an inspiration to many hundreds of women in the first half of the 20th century who fought for their place in the modern police force.

Transgender Day of Visibility

Among the many tales from myth and legend concerning transgender issues one of the most well-known is the story from Greek mythology about Tiresias.

Although Tiresias’s transgender life is the most significant to us today, the International Transgender Day of Visibility, the ancient Greeks and Romans saw his whole life before, during and after transgender as one of opposites. In various parts of his very long life Tiresias was blind, a priestess of the gods, a soothsayer, and an adviser from beyond the grave. As such he could claim to be male and female, mother and father, blind and seeing, having knowledge of both past and future, speak to humanity and the gods, and communicate during life and death. In fact, virtually all of human existence and beyond was seen in the life of Tiresias.

I’ll concentrate on Tiresias’s life as a blind prophet in November (UK Disability Awareness Month). Today let’s look at his transgender life.

Although he was mortal Tiresias was half-divine, his mother being a nymph called Chariclo. Tales of his childhood and upbringing are rare, so we have to assume that he was raised as a humble shepherd just as his mortal father was. It is during his young adult years that the transgender episode occurs.

As with most myths and legends there are several variations of the story of how Tiresias became a woman. Here’s one of them.

While he was walking along a woodland path on the slopes of Mount Cyllene Tiresias’s way was blocked by a couple of large snakes mating. Rather than find a different path or edge around them Tiresias began hitting them with his walking staff. One of the weirdest ideas the ancient Greeks had was that if a man approached mating snakes he’d turn effeminate. Maybe that’s why Tiresias wanted to separate them. He didn’t want to become effeminate.

Well, what would you do if you were in the middle of an intimate moment with your partner and were attacked by a stranger? Even if you’re into sado-masochism being attacked by someone who just happened to walk up and start hitting you was a stick isn’t very pleasant. The snakes defended themselves by attacking Tiresias. This just made Tiresias fight back and he beat the snakes even harder, killing the female. This was witnessed by the goddess Hera and she was very angry at Tiresias’s attack and turned him into a woman in an instant.

Tiresias then became one of Hera’s priestesses. Her mother Chariclo may have had some influence in this. Chariclo is regarded as being one of Hera’s favourite nymphs, suggesting that she was herself one of Hera’s priestesses. More significant is the fact that in becoming a priestess Tiresias acquired a greater social status than she would have had otherwise.

A priestess of Ancient Greece

Ancient Greeks didn’t rank women very highly. The reason for their existence was to produce babies and look after the home. If a woman wanted to make any noticeable contribution to society, and hardly any of them ever did because they accepted their status without question, then it was as a priestess in one of the many temples of the gods.

In some parts of Ancient Greece the name Tiresias became a slang term for a prostitute. How this fits in with our Tiresias isn’t clear. Unlike the Vestal Virgins of Rome, or Catholic priests of today, the Greek priestesses were not required to be celibate. A lot of them were married and had children, as Tiresias herself did. The name of her husband isn’t known but two of her daughters and a grandson would “inherit” her gift of prophecy which was apparently bestowed on them at the same time it was bestowed on Tiresias later in her life.

Tiresias retained her honoured status as a priestess for seven years, a mystical number in many cultures, during which time she would have become a familiar local figure at the many festivals held throughout the year. Then, one day, as she was walking along the same path she walked seven years previously, she again encountered two snaked mating. Again she attacked them with her staff. This time she killed the male snake and in another instant she was transformed back into a man.

From then on Tiresias gained an extra quality to his character. He was regarded as being special because he had lived as a woman and a man. Even the gods sought his advice on matters of gender.

Zeus and Hera argued for ages, literally, on who provided the most pleasure during sex – a man or a woman. Needless to say each thought their own gender produced the most pleasure to their partner. Asking the other gods provided no solution so they turned to Tiresias and asked him the same question, after all he’d experienced sex as both a man and a woman, so he’d know for sure which was most pleasurable. No matter what he was going to say Tiresias would be bound to offend one of the gods. What he said in effect was “Out of ten, a woman experiences 9 points of pleasure from a man, but a man only experiences one out of ten from a woman”.

For a second time Hera was angered by Tiresias. This time she removed his sight and made him totally blind. Zeus, even as the king of the gods, can’t undo the work of another god, so he showed his gratitude for Tiresias taking his side by bestowing upon him the gift of prophecy and the life-span of seven men.

Here we come to another interesting point about Tiresias. In most ancient religions, and a handful today, the role of a prophet or soothsayer – often called a shaman – was occupied by a cross-gendered individual. Men who displayed feminine characteristics were often regarded as having some special connection to the world of the supernatural. So Tiresias’s life as a soothsayer may have been destined by the gods from the moment he became a woman.

One other quality often seen in soothsayers, prophets and shamans is some form of physical disability, usually blindness. Someone who cannot see the physical world was thought to have a privileged view of other worlds, just like the other worlds we see when we dream. It is the aspect of Tiresias’s life as a visually-impaired prophet to which I’ll return in November.

Queer Lutheran Achievement

[Achievement – the name given in heraldry to the full pictorial representation of a coat of arms.]

Being Easter Day, the most important day in the Christian calendar, I thought the following coat of arms would be highly appropriate, and because it’s Women’s History Month it is the arms of the first lesbian diocesan bishop in the world.

Below is the heraldic achievement of Rt. Rev. Eva Brunne, Lutheran Bishop of Stockholm since 2009. Those of you familiar with other coats of arms that I’ve done will notice straight away that the shield is oval. In traditional European heraldry women were not allowed to use a shield. Instead they placed them on a diamond-shaped lozenge. An oval shape has become more frequent in recent decades, and helps to display quartered arms more clearly without them being distorted into four triangle shapes. A lot of heraldic authorities now use a shield to display women’s coats of arms.

Bishop Brunne could have had chosen from three different methods of showing her coat of arms. First, she could have just used the arms of her diocese on a shield. Second, she could have placed the diocesan arms on one half of the shield and her personal arms on the other half. Thirdly, she could have quartered the shield, and this is the way she has chosen, and the way I’ve depicted it below.

A lot of the design shows obvious Christian symbolism. In fact, there’s only one part of the whole achievement that does not have any specific religious meaning.

Let’s start with the quarterings on the oval. Those in the first and last quarter, the yellow cross, are the arms of the Lutheran diocese of Stockholm. In the second and third quarters, with the rose and heart, are the personal arms of Eva Brunne. The design of her personal arms is very simple and distinctive. The part which I mentioned as having no specific religious meaning is the background of blue and white waves. These may have been inspired by one of the quarterings of the Swedish royal coat of arms, where one of the quarters also has a background of blue and white waves, albeit diagonal not horizontal as here. The rose and heart design, however, has a very clear meaning.

The rose and heart is a variation of one of the most common emblems used by the worldwide Lutheran Church. This particular rose is called the Luther Rose and it was an emblem used by Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant church. It is a simple device designed for him in 1530. The original version is shown left. In a letter to a friend in 1530 Luther explained the symbolism of his rose. The black cross is, of course, a very old Christian emblem and Luther chose a black cross to remind him of the pain of suffering. The heart reminded him that it keeps things alive, like his faith. The white rose symbolises peace and joy. Surrounding the rose is a gold ring symbolising that “blessedness in Heaven lasts forever”. The rose is on a sky blue background symbolising heavenly joy.

Eva Brunne had adapted the Luther Rose. Rather than use the whole design she chose just the rose itself. The cross has been changed from black to white which is a better heraldic method to show a colour against the red heart. The rose is changed to gold.

For her personal motto Eva has chosen a line from the New Testament, “Gör inte skillnad på människor”, which in English is “Don’t show favouritism”. I decided to show the motto in both languages in my picture.

The arms of the Lutheran diocese of Stockholm also has Christian symbolism. The first impression given is of the Swedish national flag on which it is based. Again, the cross is a common symbol of Christianity in heraldry, as is seen in the crosses of St George and St Andrew, for instance. And like those crosses the origin of the Swedish cross is surrounded in legend. According to tradition a medieval king of Sweden called Erik IX was going into battle against the pagan Finns. He saw a vision in the blue sky of a shining, golden cross and he took this as a good omen from God. He had the cross painted on the shields of his army and went into battle and they were victorious. From then on the gold cross on blue became a national emblem. King Erik is a great national hero and was canonised as St Erik of Sweden. His head is placed in the arms of the diocese of Stockholm.

As for the rest of Eva Brunne’s achievement little needs to be explained. It has the bishop’s mitre and crozier, though unlike English heraldry where the mire is gold the Swedish Lutheran church prefers a simpler white mitre with gold trim.

All that remains for me to say is Happy Easter, and don’t eat too much chocolate at once.

Olympic Alphabet : K is for ...

Kłobukowska and Krieger.

These names may not be familiar to most people but each is significant in the world of Olympic sport in their own way, and they are both key figures in two of the biggest issues affecting sport today – gender verification and drugs.

The issue of gender verification at the Olympics was covered briefly in my “Olympic Countdown”article in 2012. An update of the situation will be given in a few months under the letter “X” of my “Olympic Alphabet”.

The two athletes are Ewa Kłobukowska and Andreas Krieger. They never competed in the same years, in fact twenty years separate their careers, but both are inextricably linked.

Ewa Klobukowska may be a name familiar to some people of a certain age. She was a sprint world record holder, European women’s 100m champion and Olympic gold medallist in the women’s 4x100m relay. When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) introduced a new gender test for athletes Ewa was the first to be forced to return all her Olympics medals.

Gender testing by scientific and medical means was in its infancy in the 1960s and many of the tests were unreliable as accurate indicators of gender. Ewa Kłobukowska’s case is an example of this. The first tests undertaken were at the 1966 European Athletics Championships in Budapest. These were the games in which Ewa became European 100m champion and 200, silver medallist. She also won the 4x100m relay gold medal with the same team who won the Tokyo 1964 Olympic title.

In one of those quirks of history those European Championships in 1966 were held one month after the birth of a future athlete who was an unwitting victim of the very reason why athletes like Ewa were subjected to gender testing in the first place.

[NOTE: I will refer to Andreas Krieger as “Heidi” and refer to him as female in relation to events prior to 1997 because that was the name by which he was known when a competitive athlete. I do not intend to cause any offense and apologise to anyone who might object to this.]

Heidi Krieger was born in July 1966 in East Berlin. East German athletics at that time was heavily based on a programme called State Plan 14.25. During the Cold War era of the 1960s East and West were constantly trying to out-do each other on the international stage, the Space Race being a prime example. In sport this rivalry was also strongly felt. East Germany had no significantly successful athletes compared to West Germany. That’s when State Plan 14.25 came into action in the mid-1960s.

With the use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs the state-run sports organisation Deutscher Sportausschuss sanctioned the deliberate administration of these drugs to athletes, many of whom were unaware of what they were actually being given.

The use of steroids in sport was widely used in the Communist states and the USSR in particular, and Eastern European states followed suit. The result of the steroids being pumped into athletes led to some commentators to wonder about the gender of many successful female athletes. Many were beginning to look like men and international sporting bodies began to develop the first scientific gender tests. The object of those tests was to determine the chromosomes in an athlete’s cell. An XX result meant two X chromosomes were present and the athlete was female, while and XY result meant the athlete was male.

Ewa Kłobukowska was one of the first victims of those early tests. She had passed all previous gender verification requirements, which was to stand naked in front of a group of women physicians who then decided whether an athlete was female or not. The new test looked at the athlete’s chromosomes and the presence of male hormones (which includes steroids). Two of the most famous and successful female athletes, however, refused to take part in the new scientific tests and never competed again. These were the Soviet sisters Irina and Tamara Press. Rumours had gone around for years that they were actually men, but the true story may never be learnt. Were they intersexed? Had they been pumped full of steroids so that they developed male physical characteristics?

The new test showed that Ewa had “one chromosome too many”, as it has been described. Her chromosomes were XXY. All human cells contain X chromosomes. Women have two, but one folds in on itself and becomes inactive. This chromosome is called a Barr Body. In these early tests the presence of a Y chromosome was enough to have the athlete declared male. However, in Ewa’s situation the Y chromosome was also inactive. In scientific terms Ewa had Klinefelter Syndrome. Even though in normal circumstances that would indicate she was male, in biological fact she was female because she has two X chromosomes, one of which was a Barr Body. Ewa Kłobukowska was the first Olympic champion to be banned and stripped of her medals. Ironically, had she taken the test a year later she would have taken the new Barr Body test which would have declared her female.

It was in the run-up to the Grenoble 1968 Winter Olympics that the IOC introduced the Barr Body test. The first athlete to fail this new test was a skiing champion Erika Schinegger who was training for her first Olympic appearance. She too was banned from competition.

Meanwhile, back in East Germany athletes were still being pumped with drugs, either by injection or pill, and the debate over the gender of very masculine-looking female athletes continued. East Germany’s improved Olympic success was very noticeable and after 1968 they rarely appeared below third in the gold medal table.

East German officials scouted the nation’s schools for potential champions, and one of these was Heidi Krieger. In 1982 she was selected to attend a youth sports academy and the regime of drug administration began. This was the norm for East German athletes.

By 1984 Heidi was developing male characteristics due to the male hormones and steroids. She was scheduled to be part of the East German team for the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics but in the end she became victim to more political machinations by being forced to join the East German boycott of those games. Even though she never became a true Olympian her place on the selected team for 1984 still qualifies her for inclusion in Olympic history.

Heidi was not selected for the following Seoul 1988 Olympics, though she had become European women’s shot put champion in 1986. A hip injury forced her retirement in 1990. The previous year the Berlin Wall came down and the Communist states of eastern Europe collapsed. The administration of drugs and steroids stopped, but it was another three years before records of the doping programme became known.

The resulting scandal revealed the full extent of the corruption in East German sport. Heidi Krieger was just one of an estimated 10,000 athletes who received performance-enhancing drugs, some of them as young as 10. Nearly 300 former athletes, coaches and doctors gave evidence at the subsequent investigation and trials, including Heidi.

Apart from the many medical and psychological effects of the drugs Heidi was also effected by her own questions concerning her gender. It would be appropriate now to use Krieger’s present name, Andreas. Even today, 37 years after transitioning, Andreas is bitter about not being allowed to discover his gender naturally and believes that the steroids and male hormones that were pumped into him had a negative effect on him psychologically.

But some good has come from the experience. At the investigations and trials he met his present wife Uwe, also a victim of state doping. Today Andreas Krieger is a leading advocate in Germany against drugs in sports.

The stories of both Ewa Kłobukowska and Andreas Krieger have been the subject of many documentaries over the years. And for Andreas at least the legacy remains an important part of the fight against doping. In 2000 the Heidi Krieger Prize was instituted by Berlin’s Doping-Opfer-Hilfe en Verein which was set up in 1999 to support the victims of State Plan 14.25. The prize is awarded almost annually to a person who has championed anti-doping in sport. The award is pictured below. At its centre is the very gold medal Andreas Krieger won in 1986 at the European Championships.

And here we are in 2016, in the 50^th and 30^th anniversary years respectively of Ewa Kłobukowska and Andreas Krieger becoming European champions and world athletics is still facing challenges that changed the lives of them both.