Putting Out the Rainbow Flag - Part 2

On 1^stJune I gave the history of the rainbow flag up to the mid-1980s. By 1986 the gay community was fighting global homophobia in the face of the AIDS epidemic. There was a desire to show the world that the community wasn’t about to destroy itself through sex and disease. One group of San Franciscans decided to show the world that gay men are as healthy as any straight man. This group were the organisers of the 1986 Gay Games under the leadership of Tom Waddell.

Waddell’s Olympic career is told here. When the first Gay Games were held in 1982 the AIDS crisis was just building up. By the time of the 2^nd Games the organisers decided to use the rainbow flag for the first time as a symbol of pride and celebration. The gay community in San Francisco was determined to show the wider lgbt community that it had to stop feeling sorry for itself and not let homophobia and AIDS drive it back into the closet.

The rainbow featured a lot in publicity for the 1986 Gay Games, even featuring on the cover of the official programme. Over 3,000 athletes from all over the world came to compete and many were seeing the rainbow flag for the first time. At many events and all around the streets the Rainbow Pride flag was waved enthusiastically – not in protest, but in celebration. It was a psychological boost that worked, and riding high on the euphoria of a successful high-profile Gay Games the San Franciscans had transformed the Rainbow flag.

But over here in the UK it was another 5 years before the lgbt community began to use the flag. Using symbolism that was already considered dated by the 1990s it was gay activists that were largely responsible for the delay. And, as in San Francisco, it was the community and not the activists who decided there was more to gay life than protest.

Many people in the UK say they first saw the Rainbow Pride flag at London Pride in June 1993. Some marchers and a few of the stalls flew the flags but few realised what significance it had. Even a glance through publications like Gay Times and Pink Paper reveals a distinct absence of rainbows before 1993.

In early 1994 the rainbow was seen in large numbers during rallies outside parliament during the campaign for the equalisation of the age of sexual consent. And in the months that followed Pride events around the country made extensive use of the flag at the head of their parades. The first was Brighton Pride in June 1994. London Pride followed a few weeks later.

Meanwhile, back across the Atlantic during the same weekend the rainbow flag reached another (literal) milestone in New York. To coincide with the 25^th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots Gilbert Baker, the creator of the original rainbow flag in 1978, was asked to make a special flag measuring one mile in length. At New York Pride, at the end of the 4^th Gay Games, 5,000 people carried the flag through the streets and the Guinness Book of Records was on hand to confirm this as the biggest flag in history.

The record was broken in June 2003 on the 25^th anniversary of the Rainbow flag itself. Gilbert Baker was again called upon to recreate his flag – this time in the original 8 stripes. The location for this was Key West, Florida, and was a quarter mile longer that the New York flag. So, on 16^th June 2003, the Guinness Book of Records confirmed again to Gilbert Baker that his rainbow flag was the biggest in the world. (The current record holder is a Syrian protest flag of 2011 – perhaps someone should try to claim the record back for the rainbow flag’s 35^th anniversary next year.)

Today the Rainbow Pride flag still hold the record as the most widespread international community flag in history. There is no capital city in the world that has not seen an lgbt citizen waving it or flying it, and also in the Vatican and as far north as the Arctic Circle and as far south as Antarctica. It has influenced hundreds of other flags and thousands of logos. It’s place in history is assured. And even though there have been attempts to introduce new designs it looks like the rainbow will be seen in lgbt skies for a good numbers of years to come.

Olympic Countdown

Continuing my look at the Sydney Olympics I’ll begin with an omission from part one. Danish handball player Lotte Kiaerskou won a gold medal with her national team. This brings the total lgbt athletes in Sydney to 41, and the gold medal tally to 10.

Now the remaining lgbt members of the home team. Lisa-Maria Vizaniari, one of the few out athletes at the games, was a Commonwealth gold and silver medallist discus thrower. She was coached by her girlfriend Michelle Reeves but only reached 8^th place, as she had in 1996. Lisa-Marie has since given up the discus and taken up boxing.

Making his Olympic debut on home soil was a gay man called Mathew who soon became Australia’s top diver. Not Mitcham, but Helm. Mat Helm competed in both individual and synchronised events though didn’t reach higher than 5^th place. By his next Olympics he was world champion.

Of the 7 lgbt Wimbledon champions to have been Olympians only 3 haven’t win medals - the Australian doubles players (and one-time life partners) Rennae Stubbs and Lisa Raymond (and, surprisingly, Martina Navratilova). Lisa debuted in 2004, but for Rennae this was her 2^nd games. With her then doubles partner she went out in Round 2. However, she and Lisa won the Wimbledon doubles title the next year. Other Wimbledon champions in Sydney were Conchita Martínez and Amélie Mauresmo, neither of whom got past the quarter-finals.

When you think which sport would have the most lgbt competitors in Sydney which would you say? Swimming? Beach volleyball? In fact, the combined contingent of both is less than the actual top sport – equestrianism (8). Ironically, when Australia hosted the Olympics in 1956 horses were subject to strict quarantine and the equestrian events were held in Stockholm. Last time I mentioned the 4 equestrian medallists. Two others, Robert Costello (USA) and Carl Hester (GB) came 8^th in their respective events.

The remaining riders are particularly note-worthy in that they are the first male couple to compete at the same games. New Zealander Blyth Tait was one of the best known riders. At his first Olympics in 1992 he won 4 medals. His partner was Paul O’Brien. The pair met in the UK where they both went to train. The Sydney Olympics looked good for Blyth and Paul. Blyth was chosen as team captain and carried their national flag at the opening ceremony. Unfortunately, his first horse died in quarantine and both his 2^nd horse and Paul’s horse were withdrawn injured. The best result either of them reached was 8^th in the 3-day event team competition. Blyth returned in 2004 and Paul was an Olympic selector in 2008.

In the athletic stadium was Swedish long jumper Peter Häggström and German heptathlete Sabine Braun in her 5^th and last Olympics. She finished in 5^th place. In the pole vault competition was fellow German Yvonne Buschbaum, the reigning European Junior Champion. In 2007 he announced his retirement from sport and began gender reassignment. He adopted the name Balian and became a pole vault coach.

Edinanci Silva, the Brazilian judoka who underwent surgery to enable her to compete at the 1996 Olympics as a woman, returned but lost in the semi-finals. At the other end of the weight categories was American Lauren Meece, who went out in Round 1.

In the cycling competition partners Judith Arndt and Petra Rossner took part, though not in the same race. Another cyclist was Chris Witty, becoming the first and only lgbt Olympian to compete at both the summer and winter games. She finished in 5^th place in the 500m time trial, helping to break the Olympic record.

In the pool we had Francilia Agar of Dominica and David Pichler of the USA. The US diving coach was former Olympian Patrick Jeffrey. In the Paralympic events was swimmer Anne Polinario of Canada who won 3 bronze medals. She was trained by her father Rafael, who is the only lgbt Olympian to be parent of another.

Three other lgbt athletes debuted in Sydney – German fencer Imke Duplizter, Swedish footballer Victoria Svensson, and South African hockey player Marilyn Agliotti.

To end the games Sydney put on the campest closing ceremony ever. Centre stage was gay icon Kylie Minogue. Also performing was Darren Hayes with Savage Garden. But what raised eyebrows, and quite a lot of criticism from some Australians, was the appearance of 50 drag queens and the eponymous bus from the film “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”.

For more, official, information on the Games go to www.london2012.com

Turing Centenary

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing, without whom little of this would have been possible.

Star Gayzing - Cancer and Hydra

The Ancient Greeks REALLY had a thing about Heracles/Hercules. Even before I’ve dealt with his own personal constellation he’s cropped up several times already in my Star Gayzing series. It seems that wherever you look in the night sky there’s a reminder of him. The constellations of Cancer and Hydra are just more reminders.

The Babylonians pictured Cancer as a crab or a turtle. It seems perfectly natural for the Greeks to see it as such as well, but how did they explain it?

In the legends of the 12 Labours of Hercules the great hero battles against monsters and confronts difficult challenges. Among the most famous is the slaying of the 7-headed Hydra. As seen in the Disney cartoon as soon as Hercules chops off one head another 2 grow in its place. But unlike the cartoon the mythical hydra is killed by burning the severed neck sumps before the new heads can grow. Eventually all the hydra heads are gone and Hercules slays the monster.

However, in amongst all this action the myths say that Hera, the enemy of Hercules, sent a crab to keep pinching at the hero’s ankle to distract him. Being a hero Hercules just stepped on the crab and carried on slicing. Hera placed the crab and the hydra beside each other in the night sky as constellations.

But Hercules had help with this particular labour. As the crab kept nipping at his ankles Hercules called to his boyfriend Iolaus for help. He was also Hercules’ nephew and the most important of his many male lovers. The two had been travelling companions on many journeys. It was actually Iolaus who came up with the idea of burning the hydra’s neck stumps to stop new heads from growing, and he dashed around with a burning brand at the ready every time Hercules sliced another head off. For some reason, when the American tv company made the series “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys”, which was quite popular a few years ago, Iolaus was Hercules constant companion – yet for some reason they never mentioned that he was his lover (I wonder why).

Unfortunately, because of Iolaus’s help with this labour, Hercules was given 2 extra ones by King Eurystheus on top of the 10 he had originally given him. I’ll tell you more about Eurystheus and the Labours of Hercules next month when we learn about the first one.

Putting Out Sean Campbell's Flags

Way back in January you may have read how my guest blogger Sean Campbell created the Feather/Drag Pride flag. Today I’m looking at some more of his designs.

As Sean explained in his post all of his flag designs originated during his time in the publishing industry. In the early days on the Palm Springs Gay and Lesbian Times at which Sean worked there was a limited number of images they had access to. In June 200 the magazine ran a special Pride edition and rather than hunt around getting copyright clearance for photos and images Sean came up with the imaginative idea of designing flags for various sections of the lgbt community.

As well as the Feather/Drag Pride flag featured in January, Sean also designed the following 3 flags.

LESBIAN PRIDE

This is composed entirely of established symbols. The colour lavender has been used by and for the lgbt community for many decades. The history of it’s use will be gone into in more detail in a future Flower Power post, the colour symbolism passing to the flower. The black triangle was used by the Nazis in their colour-coded persecution. The most famous of these was the pink triangle used for homosexuals. The black triangle covered several so-called “anti-social” groups which included lesbians. The Nazis believed that women who didn’t actively produce little Nazis were not fit for society and “anti-social”. The black triangle has been used by lesbian and women’s rights groups many times. Sean’s flag design also turns the symbol into a positive affirmation of female power by placing the double-edged axe, the labrys, firmly on top of the triangle. The labrys was an ancient symbol of matriarchal power in the eastern Mediterranean, and I said more about that in my post on World Digger’s Day.

COWBOY PRIDE

Although there had been a more widely used Cowboy Pride flag based on the Rainbow flag prior to Sean’s, this one moved away from the rainbow stripes to concentrate on the Leather Pride flag which may not be immediately obvious. This flag was originally designed for the leather cowboy “fetish” community. This is reflected in the black stripes which are in the same positions as they appear on the Leather Pride flag. It avoids traditional lgbt symbolism, except a white triangle. A horse’s head provides an element of life into the design.

I don’t know if there’s a Cowgirl Pride flag out there, but I’ll be very interested to know in anybody has seen one.

GAY USA PRIDE

Variations of this design had probably been used unofficially in several places in the USA, being a format often used before Sean Campbell changed the blue behind the stars to pink. This was another of the designs used in the 2000 Pride edition of the Gay and Lesbian Times (Palm Springs edition).

Fate That Waited 7 Centuries?

"Edward II and Piers Gaveston" - detail of an engraving from a painting by Marcus Stone (1840-1921). Edward and Piers are on the left, Queen Isabella and the disapproving courtiers watch on.

I’m not sure if I believe in fate. I certainly don’t believe in coincidence. So I am sometimes gob-smacked by similarities in history and the present day that you wouldn’t believe if it was put into a novel. One of these similarities centres around me, one of my ex-partners and Piers Gaveston.

Gaveston was the lover of King Edward II, one of the most famous “queens” of England. Their relationship was part of the reason why Edward was hated by the ruling classes (he was adored by the people because he actually talked to them and helped them thatch roofs, dig ditches and trim hedges). Piers, on the other hand, was undoubtedly arrogant and he thought nothing of insulting the top officers of state publicly. But he knew King Edward wouldn’t do anything to stop him.

Like a later King Edward, Edward II put his heart first. The only difference is that in medieval times the king didn’t abdicate – not until he was forced to.

Gaveston was showered with gifts and titles. Some of these were traditionally held by the English barons but Gaveston, being a Gascon knight, became the first “foreigner” to be given them. This included being appointed Constable of Nottingham Castle and Keeper of Sherwood Forest, and on one occasion regent of England which the barons certainly thought wasn’t right.

Gaveston was forced into exile by the barons 3 times, and when Edward brought him back for the third time the barons had had enough. They captured Gaveston and condemned him to death. Before they could arrange the execution Gaveston was seized by the Earl of Warwick and was ignominiously murdered by the roadside – 700 years ago today.

As for King Edward, a rebellion led by his wife and her lover Roger Mortimer forced him to abdicate in favour of his teenage son, but Mortimer made sure he was out of the picture for good by having Edward murdered as well.

Almost 700 years later I found myself working at Nottingham Castle as a tour guide. This was the place where the tyrannical Roger Mortimer was captured and deposed by the powerless teenage king who wanted his power back. The most popular part of my tours were when I explained how Mortimer was executed – hanged, drawn and quartered – and demonstrated on a volunteer child (not for real, of course!). In 2004 my tour helped to win the Best Guided Tour in the UK award for Nottingham Castle.

A couple of years after I started working at the castle a young man called Mark joined the team. We quickly became friends (at the time that was all it could be because he already had a boyfriend). For reasons I won’t go into here I left Nottingham Castle in 2005.

Mark went to off to university, and when he came back to the area a couple of years later we met up again. He was now single, and before I knew it we were briefly seeing each other. That’s when I asked if I could research his ancestry. I wished we were still working at Nottingham Castle – you’ll realise why.

For a few years I’ve known I’m descended from King Edward II. Researching Mark’s ancestry I discovered he was descended from Piers Gaveston. That really put a tingle down my spine! Was it fate that brought me and Mark together I thought? If nothing else it would have been a unique publicity angle for Nottingham Castle if we were still working there. But realistically I don’t suppose it’s anything but chance.

However, it’s a story I still use on my lgbt tours of Nottingham. I also mention that I’m descended from both Roger Mortimer and the Earl of Warwick, the men responsible for the murders of Edward II and Piers Gaveston. So if it was fate perhaps it cancelled itself out! My relationship with Mark didn’t last long, so perhaps history was telling me it wouldn’t have lasted anyway!

Olympic Countdown

The Sydney Olympics of 2000 were the gayest ever! As well as an impressive 40 athletes the closing ceremony could not have been more camp! To give the Sydney games justice I’ve decided to split it into 2. Today I’ll concentrate on the 17 medallists – also the most for any Olympics. Even though 40 is an impressive number, only 8 were out publicly.

Leading the lgbt medal table was the home country Australia. Defending her gold medal was hockey player Alyson Annan. During the games she and her husband, Argentinian Olympic hockey player Max Caldes, split up. It was in this tournament that Alyson became friends with rival player Carole Thate of the Netherlands. They had both played against each other 4 years previously as well, with the same result – gold for Australia, bronze for the Netherlands. Retiring from competition Alyson moved to Holland where she and Carole married in 2005.

The Australian beach volleyball player Natalie Cook dominated the competition with her volleyball partner and they won the gold. They became Members of the Order of Australia in the following honours list. Natalie went on to compete twice more at the Olympics.

Other Australian medallists were Daniel Kowalski (gold, swimming), and Ji Wallace (silver, trampoline).

Returning to go one better than a silver medal from 1996 was cyclist Michelle Ferris. Competing on home soil added extra pressure from national expectations. Michelle was up against her old rival from France but could only manage silver again. The nation’s disappointment disappeared when Michelle said that the only important thing was that she had beaten her personal best time – and beat the Olympic record with her rival.

Although retired from elite competition, Michelle continues to take part in Masters events and the Gay Games, competing in the Cologne games in 2010 winning a gold and silver medal.

The Danish handball team successfully defended their gold medal. This competition saw for the one and only time in Olympic history a married couple playing against each other – Camilla Andersen (Denmark) and Mia Hundvin (Norway). They registered their partnership earlier that year and  played in a preliminary round match against each other. Mia and the Norwegian team went on to win bronze. Their relationship, however, didn’t last long and they divorced in 2003.

The sport with the most lgbt medallists in 2000 was equestrianism. British paralympian Lee Pearson made his debut and instantly entered the record books as the first gay paralympian, and finished the games with another record of being the only lgbt athlete to win 3 gold medals at one Olympics.

One remarkable incident occurred at the medal ceremony of the team dressage. Of the 12 people who received medals, 3 of them were men – and all of them gay. They were Robert Dover and Guenter Seidel (both USA, bronze) and Arjen  Teeuwissen (Netherlands, silver).

The women’s football competition also saw a couple of medals. On the gold medal-winning Norwegian team was Bente Nordby. In the semi-finals they beat Germany, who then beat Brazil to the bronze medal. On the German team was the 1999 German Female Footballer of the Year, Inka Grings, while German substitute goalkeeper Nadine Angerer didn’t get a medal because she didn’t play in the bronze medal match.

The remaining lgbt gold medal went to Sheryl Swoopes on the US basketball team.

Finally 2 bronze medals – Swedish high jumper Kajsa Bergqvist, and Dutch swimmer Johan Kenhkuis in the 4x200m freestyle relay.

Next time I’ll look at the other lgbt athletes at Sydney, and camp it up with the closing ceremony.

For more, official, information on the Games go to www.london2012.com