Out in Africa

Historians usually mention Edward Gibbon writing in “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” in 1781 that Africa has no indigenous homosexual culture. This was generally accepted by later writers. So much so that it spread across the emerging colonial Africa and into the minds of modern westernised African politics. Some African leaders claim that homosexuality is a “white man’s disease”. This is bigotry borne out of ignorance. Anthropologists have yet to find a culture that doesn’t have some form of lgbt sub-culture.

Because most of African heritage was not written down as much as in, say Europe, much of what is known comes from tradition and current practice.

As the continent varies in ethnic make-up from north to south so does its lgbt heritage. The northern part of Africa has been heavily influenced by Islam and much of its lgbt heritage has become merged with native practices.

In many ways the attitudes to homosexuality in central and southern Africa echo that of the Ancient Greeks. Same-sex activity was acceptable in society as a means of initiation into adulthood. Some tribes went further than the Greeks in having “boy-brides”. They believe that sex with women sapped their virility, even their masculinity, and it is recorded that men I some Sudanese tribes spent more nights with young men than with their wives.

In South Africa, a modern country noted for its pioneering legislation on lgbt rights in Africa, some boy-brides  performed a ritual transvestic dance at the wedding feast in which they wore false wooden breasts which they  only removed when their “husbands” paid them to do so.

What we also see in Africa is something not seen in Ancient Greece – a major role in society for cross-dressing men who live as women, something akin to Indian culture. In the Congo the cross-dressing “bitesha” were considered a third gender.

African women also have a wide variety of same-sex activity spanning the continent. A lot of these are reminiscent of the western “Boston marriage”, where women pair up for companionship rather than for sexual activity. In Lesotho the women go a little further in a relationship they call “mummy-baby”. Again there is an echo of Ancient Greece in that the relationship, like the Greek athletes I mentioned a few weeks ago, was conducted by a same-sex couple of different generations, as the name “mummy-baby” suggests. Unlike the Greeks, however, the sexual nature of the mummy-baby relationship often ended on the marriage of the “baby” but the close friendship continued.

There seems to be very little evidence of female cross-dressing in traditional African cultures. Generally women remained within their gender stereotypes and their tribes and communities didn’t allow women to express masculinity.

Africa is a large continent. In the ever-developing world of gender studies all we can say is that we don’t know enough. But what research has always shown us is that the spectrum of sexuality in Africa is perhaps more complex than it is in western culture.

Spirit Day

One year ago today the first SPIRIT DAY was held. Although primarily a day originating in America, through Facebook it became a global commemoration.

Spirit Day is held to raise awareness of the homophobic, biphobic, transphobic and related bullying that is experienced by students at schools, colleges and online. It was given the name Spirit Day from the purple stripe on the original Rainbow Pride flag created in 1978. The flag’s creator, Gilbert Baker, defined the purple stripe as representing “spirit”. From this the suggestion made by Canadian student Brittany McMillan that people wear purple on Spirit Day spread via Facebook.

A spate of homophobic-bullying-related suicides among students across America was the catalyst for Brittany to begin her Facebook campaign. By 20^th October 2010, the day Brittany designated for Spirit Day, over 1½ million Facebook users had joined specially formed support groups.

The problem of bullying has got “nastier” since the creation of social networking sites, and some schools have been known to refuse to help victims of online bullying from classmates because it didn’t occur on school premises. Even worse, a school vice-president even put on his Facebook page that he wants all “fags” to commit suicide. He later apologised and resigned. But is that enough?

Only a few weeks ago another young teenage student, Jamey Rodemeyer, committed suicide because of bullying. The death is even more tragic considering Jamey had joined the “It Gets Better” project which aims to convince young victims that life “gets better” after bullying.

Tragedy often brings positive responses. It was Jamey’s death that prompted American actor Zachary Quinto (of “Heroes”, and the young Spock in “Star Trek”) to come out last week.

I don’t support the “It Gets Better” project because I’ve not experienced that it does, and Jamey’s death proves that the message is pointless. Campaigners should not be saying that things will GET better, but that they should BE better. Bullying continues after school. I experienced it myself when I left school and went to college in Worksop, and it also occurred in my 40s. And the tragic loss of a friend last month because of conflicts in his own family prove to me that we shouldn’t lull youngsters into believing “it gets better” as you get older. We should be more realistic.

I hope more people will observe Spirit Day. More importantly, I hope more school and colleges observe it.

Black in the UK

LGBT black history in the UK is elusive. True, there are quite a few black lgbt people who have made their mark – Justin Fashanu, Stephen K. Amos and Joan Armatrading to name a few. But as far as “ordinary people” like myself there is even less than with white lgbt history.

The wider lgbt community quite often ostracised and refused to accept black lgbt people, much as it did with bisexuals and transsexuals. With the visible differences arising out of race the black community tended, from the 1950s to 80s, to group together for support. This is how some of the most popular clubs in London were founded, and the few white people who attended them spread the word that racism is no reason to exclude someone from their community.

Some Afro-Caribbean immigrants in the 1950s, whether they were gay or not, had already been playing their part in the white lgbt community in the UK. A number of these immigrants set up illicit “clubs” in their homes to provide secret meeting places for gay men. Most of these were in the cities, but one or two are recorded in smaller towns. One was here in Nottinghamshire in Mansfield Woodhouse.

A house on

Old Mill Lane

was owned by an Afro-Caribbean man who opened it up to gay men from a wide area. Many men were local and some came from neighbouring cities like Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield. Some even came from as far afield and Pontefract in Yorkshire and Twickenham in Surrey. It came to an end in 1961 in one of the last and largest prosecutions for acts of homosexuality in the UK.

In a period where the police were deliberately pursuing what they called “chain prosecutions” every suspect’s friends became “people of interest”. One man who regularly visited the black man’s house in Mansfield was arrested in Derbyshire, and after an investigation some 22 other men were arrested for attending the same house.

During their trial in Nottingham 50 years ago next month the owner of the house was never mentioned by name, but all his “customers” were. The trial showed the range of backgrounds of the men who visited the house, revealing to the general public that even working-class men can be gay (even as late as the 1980s I experienced for myself the bigotry that still lingers in that coal-mining area). The jobs of these 23 men included several coal miners, machinists and lorry drivers. There were a few shop workers and clerks, an airman and a retired gentleman. Their ages ranged between 17 and 70. All pleaded guilty and received sentences ranging from 3 years in prison to 12 months probation (one received a conditional discharge). There were other chain prosecutions around the country.

What this case shows is that, even though the black gay community in the UK in the 1950s and 60s was very much subjected to racism in most cases, there were black men who recognised a need for gay men to socialise and gather in an era when such gatherings were illegal. The un-named owner of the house in Mansfield Woodhouse provided a much needed service, and the large number of men who were prosecuted (an goodness knows how many others slipped through the police net) proves that he, and others like him, was prepared to put himself at risk of prosecution.

Putting the Record Straight on ...

The Knights Templar

Today is the anniversary of the persecution of the Knights Templar in 1307. The Templars have entered folklore as an enigmatic group of knights in the supposed possession of many mystical secrets – and thanks to the books “Holy Blood, Holy Grail” and “The Da Vinci Code” that now includes being the guardians of an invented bloodline from Christ. This last theory contains so many holes that it doesn’t stand up as well as fishnet tights.

As Dan Brown (an author not known for the reliability of his research) has shown, anyone can claim there’s a conspiracy or cover-up – the only proof you need is NO proof. Even in their own time the Templars were accused of all sorts of things based on no evidence and only on gossip. King Philippe II of France was particularly jealous of the Templar’s wealth, so he used gossip to have the Templars declared heretics.

On Friday 13^th October 1307 (the original horrible Friday 13^th) King Philippe ordered the seizure of all Templar property and wealth, and the destruction of the organisation. Under torture the knights were forced to admit to many accusations, including idol worship and homosexuality. But there was no proof of either. There still isn’t.

King Philippe was to become father-in-law of King Edward II of England – that well-known Queen of England. Edward was at first reluctant to follow Philippe’s example and seems to have joined the persecution only after being ordered to by the Pope (who only got that job because of King Philippe).

As far being guardians of a supposed secret bloodline from Christ through the Merovingian kings, genealogists for hundreds of years have known that the Merovingians have millions of living descendants – including at least 18 million people in the UK who, like myself and other lgbt people like Ellen Degeneres, Lord Byron and Marlon Brando, inherit Merovingian blood through “Queen” Edward II.

If there is such a thing as a Holy Bloodline heir it isn’t the fictional Sophie Neveu from “The Da Vinci Code” or even any of the Sinclair family. Many descents have disappeared into the mists of time but as far as I have been able to determine, and I don’t mind being proved wrong, the most senior traceable legitimate Holy Bloodline heir is …

… 10-year-old Josh Hobday of London (11 years old on 7^th November), eldest grandson of Capt. Edward Pereira (b.1938), late of the Coldstream Guards.

National Coming Out Day

In the USA, today is National Coming Out Day (it’s tomorrow in the UK). Coming Out Day was founded in 1988 by Robert Eichberg and Jean O’Leary in California. Due to the homophobic influence of Section 28 it was not celebrated in the UK until 2008.

I’ve chosen to celebrate it today because of the potential “mass outing” possible in America now that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) rule was repealed on 20^th September. This was the rule that gave 14,000 US service personnel a forced discharge for no other reason than admitting to being gay or lesbian, and kept thousands of others in the closet. Perhaps the first significant name in the campaign to have the ban on gays and lesbian lifted is Sgt. Leonard Matlovich (1943-1988). The words on his headstone sums up the ridiculous ban in a nutshell: “They gave me a medal [the Purple Heart] for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”

The UK has not had the same “problem”. There has no recognised ban on gays or lesbians in Her/His Majesty’s forces. In fact, there have been a lot of lgbt service personnel who were open about their sexuality, even though it was illegal. One that springs to mind immediately is Capt. Myles Hildyard of the Sherwood Rangers who often took his partner to regimental dances, and no-one batted an eyelid. Even today there are openly lgbt service personnel. One of them, James Wharton, even made the front cover of “Soldier”, the army’s own magazine, in 2009.

A more recent incident in the DADT fiasco in the US is shown in the case of another decorated hero of Afghanistan Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach of the USAF. He was accused of raping a female colleague and faced discharge is found guilty. A third party outed Fehrenbach to the USAF and the rape charge was dropped after he admitted he was gay. Then the USAF began discharge proceedings because of it. Thankfully he negotiated the dropping of the discharge but was forced into a “desk job”.

Victor Fehrenbach and the US Navy’s Daniel Choi were at the forefront of the campaign to repeal DADT, with Choi even chaining himself to the railings of the White House to highlight the campaign. They are both pictured here in a photograph taken for “Instinct” magazine. But will the discharged lgbt personnel get their jobs back? I doubt it somehow.

So, perhaps now there’ll be hundreds of US personnel willing to come out. If not today, then another time when they feel more comfortable. Perhaps, also, the closeted US army sergeant who represented the USA at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics will reveal himself to the wider world. I’m sure the lgbt worldwide community will welcome him and all the others with open arms.

Extraordinary Lives 3

Peter Sewally (1806-1846+)

In June 1836 a black woman by the name of Mary Jones was arrested in New York for picking pockets and stealing wallets. The thefts occurred at night when Mary roamed the streets looking for men to start chatting her up. When the men started to get amorous and intimate Mary would pick their pocket. Sometimes she took the men back home to get even more intimate! Her crimes went unreported for a while, probably because the victims (all white men) were embarrassed. But police got a big shock when Mary was searched after her arrest. She was a man. No wonder her victims were embarrassed.

During his trial “Mary Jones” revealed himself to be Peter Sewally. His testimony is one of the first accounts of the life of a black man in America’s early lgbt community.

Sewally was born in New York in 1806, presumably to free black Americans. He claimed to have served in the army, but in which regiment isn’t known. Afterwards he began work in the homes of what he called “girls of ill fame”, meeting and greeting their “customers” at the door and collecting the money and acting as a sort of house-keeper. It was these “girls of ill fame” who first persuaded Sewally to dress as a woman, saying he looked better like that. He didn’t seem to offer any resistance to the idea and, by his own account, attended parties in New York and New Orleans dressed as a woman quite openly. Whether the other party-goers realised he was a man is uncertain. But it does seem certain that he began looking to have sex with men in his female attire.

Sewally’s trial was reported in the New York papers with each of them trying to out-do the other in revealing the lurid details of the case (and they say tabloid gutter press is a modern disease). In court Sewally was a victim of ridicule. Having chosen to appear in the dock dressed as woman someone behind him reduced the court to howls of laughter by snatching off his wig. Just the sight of a black man dressed as a woman was enough to reduce one court official to tears of laughter.

Such behaviour in court would reduce anyone in Sewally’s place to despair, but he was strong and firm, and utterly determined that he show the court who he was. Sewally was eventually sentenced to 5 years in the state prison for theft. A few days later a drawing appeared showing Sewally in his female clothes.

After his release Sewally remained out of public scrutiny until 1845 and 1846 when he returned to his masquerade and was imprisoned twice more.

What the story of Peter Sewally shows is that very early on in American history black men were cross-dressing and looking for sex with other men. The fact that the Afro-American community accepted him seems to indicate that they were more liberal than their white contemporaries when it came to displays of gender variance.

Pilgrimage to Constantinople

One of the places I would love to visit, as a sort of pilgrimage, is Istanbul. I’d like to see an object in the collection at the Archaeological Museum there of a unique gravestone. It was placed over the graves of two men who died in 1391. Nowhere in the world is there another like it. It depicts their coats of arms in the manner of husband and wife (my own coloured interpretation is shown here). The lives of these men supports the widely held belief that they were a “gay” couple.

The men’s names are Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe. I first came across this couple when I worked at Nottingham Castle and did research for the guided tours I gave of the underground passageways. Sir William was Constable of Nottingham Castle and Keeper of Sherwood Forest from 1381. He and Sir John were the same age and probably first met during the English campaigns in France in the 1370s. After that their lives became intertwined and were rarely mentioned separately in medieval records.

Sir John was also a poet. Both he and Sir William were friends of Geoffrey Chaucer and testified in his defence at his rape trial. Indeed, it is Sir John who seems to be the first to call Chaucer the “Father of English poetry”. Chaucer was also a member of the royal court, and in his role of Clerk of the Works came to Nottingham castle during Sir William’s and Sir John’s time there to supervise repair work.

Sir William married a Yorkshire heiress in 1366, and it is through her connections that I believe inspired Sir John to write the original version of “The Geste of Robyn Hode” in the late 1380s. This ballad is the oldest ballad in terms of origin, and almost every character and event can be traced to the family backgrounds of Sir William and his wife, even down to the identity of some of the Merry Men – including some of the minor ones. But that’s a subject for a whole entry in itself. Back to William and John.

Both men were Lollard Knights, influential members of the court who supported the church-reforming views of John Wycliff. Sir John wrote a lengthy treatise in defence of Lollardy. The Archbishop of Canterbury wasn’t too enthusiastic and banned its preachers, including one who was arrested in Nottingham and imprisoned in the castle. But, as Sir William was the Constable and a Lollard Knight it will come as no surprise to learnt that the preacher mysteriously escaped. The Archbishop of Canterbury was helpless to punish Sir William, mainly because Nottingham was under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of York – who just happened to be Sir William’s brother!

During the reign of Richard II both men became Knights of the King’s Chamber, trusted courtiers who were privy to the king’s private thoughts. As such they were sent on diplomatic missions together on the continent. One of these was to Constantinople in 1391. No-one knows the actual reason why they went, but they arrived at a bad time. The city had been ravaged by a plague the year before and some of it lingered. Sir John Clanvowe succumbed to the plague on this day, 6^th October, in 1391. The companions and colleagues on the mission sent news back to London of what happened – and what happened next. The Westminster Chronicle (a medieval manuscript not a newspaper) written shortly afterwards from eye-witness accounts says that Sir William died 4 days later – not of the plague, but of a broken heart. And it is perhaps these eye-witnesses who ordered the placing of a marble gravestone with their joint coat of arms to be placed over their graves in Constantinople.

At that time there was a ceremony in the Catholic church called “wedded brotherhood” which was identical to marriage but for 2 men. With references to William and John as “brothers” in so many documents, and their apparent inseparableness, makes it possible that William and John were “wedded”.

Perhaps in a few years time I can make that pilgrimage to see their gravestone on the 625^th anniversary of their death in 2016.