Cupids Galore

Happy St. Valentine’s Day.

I’ve mentioned several times before that the world celebrates St. Valentine’s Day on the wrong date, but that’s not going to stop me from celebrating it myself today with a look at that most famous character that sums up romance more than any other – Cupid.

In fact, I’m going to celebrate with lots of Cupids, and they all originate from the ancient Greek mythological figure of Eros. Once again, I’ve said several times before on this blog that Eros was inextricably linked with male same-sex love and relationships in the gyms and military training camps. Soldiers and athletes alike would make offerings to the statue of Eros. Every gym had one and the gym-toned men would pray to the god for success in battle and/or male love.

But Eros is only one of several other deities who were associated with love, whether gay or straight, and it might be worth resurrecting them all today.

All of these deities of love and romance take their collective name from Eros himself. Together they are called the Erotes. In Roman times they acquired several other names – Cupides and Amores.

Eros was the original god way back in the mists of time and the ancient Greeks developed more like him as they recognised different ways to be romantic. Some myths say that all the Erotes were the sons of Hermes and Aphrodite, though older myths say that Eros and fellow love god Himeros were present at the birth of their supposed mother (see my article on the birth of Aphrodite). In the famous painting of the birth of Venus by Botticelli the two winged figures on the left of the painting are Eros and Himeros. Because the Erotes were Aphrodite’s main attendants they came to be regarded as her children.

So, who were all these Cupids, the Erotes? And what kinds of love do they represent? The definitive number of the Erotes is uncertain as over time more were added. The Roman writer Propertius wrote in the 1^st century before Christ that there were a thousand of them. Below is a list of those most commonly listed.

EROS – the original god of love, and of the love between men.
ANTEROS – the god of mutual love and love returned.
HIMEROS – the god of passion and physicality.
POTHOS – the god of desire and yearning.
HEDYLOGOS – the god of flattery and sweet talk.
HYMENAIOS – the god of marriage and weddings.

What I think is interesting is that the ancient Greeks seem to have considered the Erotes as influencers of the unmarried. Once married the Greeks’ love/sex life became the responsibility of the goddesses Hera, Demeter and Aphrodite, depending on what the spouse was desiring – to be treated like royalty, to have children, or to be considered sensual, respectively.

The Greeks encourages their children to call upon the Erotes to find a same-sex or opposite sex partner before embarking on marriage.

The earliest known of the Erotes, as already mentioned, was Eros himself. Almost as ancient as him was Anteros. They are often called twins. Eros is familiar to us all, but so is Anteros if you’ve ever visited central London. The statue you see in the middle of Piccadilly Circus isn’t Eros, but Anteros.

Eros and Anteros were later joined by two more love gods. One was called Pothos. He was the god of passion. The other was Himeros and the two are “opposites” of each other. Pothos represented the passion felt between lovers in each other’s present, while Himeros represented the yearning and desire for an absent lover.

Finally we have the two Erotes responsible for the beginning and end of courtship. Hedylogos was the god of flattery and sweet talk. In effect, he was the god of the chat-up line. We all know how important it is to say the right thing when we first meet our future lover, and Hedylogos made sure we did. Once the initial chat up line has succeeded we’d need his help with further romantic words. I suppose he’s the one we can associate most with the St. Valentine’s Day card. Through the relationship the other Erotes would offer their influence until, finally, the couple would call upon Hymenaios.

I wrote about Hymenaios last May. Technically, Hymenaios should be the last of the Erotes or Cupides that anyone would ever need. On marriage the work of all the Erotes was over and the responsibility for romance within marriage passed, as I said earlier, to Hera, Demeter and Aphrodite.

One other god often included in the lists of Erotes was Hermaphroditos. His origin is different to all the other Erotes and his name gave rise to our modern word for a person born with physical attributes of both male and female. Originally Hermaphroditos was the beautiful winged son of Aphrodite and Hermes, hence his name. The ancient Greeks knew of the existence of hermaphrodites and made him their god. He was also the god of effeminate men because they displayed personality characteristics of both sexes. The myth goes that he went to bathe in the well inhabited by the water nymph Salmakis. Salmakis was smitten by his beauty but her advances were rejected. She prayed to the gods for her to be forever united with Hermaphroditos. They took her wish literally and her body was merged with his. Hermaphroditos then decreed that everyone who bathed in Salmakis’s well would become double-sexed as he had.

And there you have it, a whole host of Erotes or cupids ready to fire their arrows of love for St. Valentine’s Day. So when you’re with your loved one today, or thinking of someone special, for God’s sake duck!! With all those love arrows flying around you’re in danger of turning into a porcupine!! If nothing happens today, don’t worry, it’s the wrong day for all of that romantic stuff anyway. 

Olympic Alphabet : I is for ...

ICE

First of all, this is something of a special anniversary, because it was exactly 40 years ago today at the Innsbruck Winter Olympics (another “I” for today’s alphabet) that John Curry became the first openly lgbt Olympic champion (although, technically, he wasn’t openly gay till the morning afterwards).

Back to today’s actual “I” – ICE. The third largest group of lgbt Winter Olympians comes in ice hockey (the second largest is speed skaters, also an ICE group). To date there have been 9 identified ice hockey players and all of them are female. To compliment my article on the all-male lgbt Olympic figure skaters I’ll concentrate on the all-female group of ice hockey players.

This group can be considered as one of the most successful of all lgbt Olympians, summer or winter, with a high percentage of them winning medals than in any other group of athletes (I consider more than 2 athletes to constitute a “group”). You’ll see what I mean as you read through this article.

Below is a table showing all of the lgbt ice hockey players shown in chronological order and the position or medal they won at each. 

		1998	2002	2006	2010	2014
Canada	Nancy Drolet	S
Canada	Jayna Hefford	S	G	G	G	G
Sweden	Erika Holst	5	B	S	4
Sweden	Ylva Lindberg	5	B	S
USA	Caitlin Cahow			B	S
USA	Kathleen Kauth			B
Canada	Charline Labonté			G	G	G
Canada	Sarah Vaillancourt			G	G
Sweden	Emilia Andersson Ramboldt				4	4

Women’s ice hockey was introduced into the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, in 1998. Because the decision to include the women’s tournament had come well into the run-up period to the Nagano games the organising committee didn’t have time to organise it, appoint official and build venues in time. The IOC agreed to limit the tournament to 6 national teams – Canada, USA, Finland, Sweden, China and hosts Japan.

As you can see in the table above there has been at least 3 lgbt ice hockey players at all of the tournaments that the Olympics have held. Very few other sports that have appeared in more than one consecutive games, summer or winter, can display the same 100 percent attendance by lgbt athletes in that sport's entire Olympic history. What is unique to ice hockey, however, is the fact that at every tournament there has been at least 1 lgbt medal winner.

Canada had been world champions since that tournament began in 1990 and were the favourites to win the inaugural Olympic gold medal. As it happened they were beaten into silver position by their eternal rivals the USA.

Playing in forward position for Canada was Jayna Hefford. In her career she has won 7 world championship gold medals and 7 silver medals. Her Olympic career contains yet more unique lgbt records. Jayna is the only lgbt athlete, summer or winter, to compete in all tournaments that her sport has been held at the Olympics, and also the only lgbt athlete to win medals at all of them. Having retired in 2013 Jayna’s record will not be carried on to the 2018 Winter Olympics. Jayna is also the only lgbt athlete to win 4 consecutive gold medals, in effect being an Olympic champion for a complete 16 year period. Until topped by speed skater Ireen Wüst at the Sochi 2014 games Jayna won more Winter gold medals than any other lgbt athlete, and ranks equal second with Wüst and Greg Louganis behind Ian Thorpe in total gold medals. It’s all very impressive and confusing at the same time.

In the Salt Lake City 2002 games Canada beat champions USA to the gold medal, and Sweden beat Finland to the bronze medal.

The Turin 2006 games had the most lgbt ice hockey players. None of them were openly lgbt at the time, though both of the Swedish players, Erika Holst and Ylva Lindberg, came out the following May. As you can see in the above table all of the players won a medal in Turin. Again, that’s another unique record. No other group of athletes (more than 2) in any other sport has achieved a 100 percent medal podium position. On a negative record-breaking point, the USA team lost to someone other than Canada for the first.

On home soil at the Vancouver 2010 games Canada held on to their title. Because of the world success of both the Canadian and USA teams there was some criticism that the rest of the world was being forced to compete on an uneven field. The IOC recognised this but stated that women’s ice hockey was still undergoing development as a world-class sport and that, given time, other nations could increase in experience and skill to rival Canada and the USA.

Sochi 2014 brought the issue of lgbt discrimination to the forefront of the Olympics. Many people called for a boycott of the games because of Russia’s anti-gay legislation. However, Russia has not been the only host nation with lgbt discrimination in its constitution, and teams have been more than happy to compete in those nations.

Three months before the Sochi games American ice hockey player Caitlin Cahow came out in response to Russia’s anti-gay legislation. She was one of several athletes who expressed an anti-boycott stand. She gave the example of Jesse Owens at the Berlin 1936 Olympics. How far, if at all, would the rights of black athletes have progressed if he had boycotted Berlin?

Other than Jayna Hefford there has only been one other lgbt person involved in the first and most recent ice hockey tournament. That person is coach Shannon Miller, considered to be the most successful women’s ice hockey coach of all time. In 1998 she was the national coach for Canada’s silver medal winners. In 2011 Shannon became a coaching mentor to the Russian women’s ice hockey team preparing for Sochi 2014. Unfortunately, Shannon has experienced discrimination – not Russia or by Russian, but by the American university team, the Minnesota-Duluth Dulldogs. In 2015 she and two other female sports coaches began legal actions against the university for discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity.

As we wait for the next full Olympic Winter games I look forward to the Youth Winter Olympics which begin tonight and wonder if any of the young athletes will come out and go on to compete in Pyeong Chang in 2018.

Out of His Cosmopolitan Tree : Kwame Anthony Appiah

Today’s subject, Kwame Anthony Appiah (b.1954), is a philosophy professor and cultural theorist. He has used his multi-cultural ancestry and upbringing to champion the Cosmopolitan philosophy.

In an article in “Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education” (2008) Appiah defined Cosmopolitanism as “universality plus difference”. That’s very much what various sub-communities have been, and still are, fighting for, to be accepted by everyone and to have their differences of race, gender, sexuality, religion, politics and ability recognised as of equal status. Some people have misused this philosophy to support their own political or economic ideals of globalisation. The internet has lots of sites which explains Cosmopolitanism better than I can.

Cosmopolitanism also applies on a personal level to Kwame Appiah, an Anglo-African, bi-racial, gay man with a white American partner. Kwame’s philosophies were directly influenced by the general cosmopolitan views of his father, the Ghanaian statesman Joseph Emmanuel Appiah (1918-1990).

Joseph Appiah was born into a family of noble Asante (Ashanti) blood. His ancestors have been involved in the government of the Asante state since it was formed in 1701. The Appiah family trace their lineage back to the founding father of the old Asante Empire, King Osei Kofi Tutu I (c.1660-1717). Osei Tutu was already the ruler of the Asante people. He managed to unite various other tribes and groups together against their oppressive rulers of the wider area. On succeeding in gaining his supporters’ nomination as their first king (or Asantehene) of the Asante Empire in 1701. A new constitution was formed, one which survives to this day among the Asante, one which survived the expulsion to the Seychelles of the royal dynasty by the British colonial government in 1896. They retained their court in exile.

The exiled Asante royal family received only partial recognition from the UK government of their former status in 1924 and in 1931 a new king-asantehene succeeded to the exiled Asante throne. His name was Osei Tutu Agyeman Prempeh II (c.1892-1970). He worked hard with the Asante tribal representatives, the colonial government back home in Africa, and nationalist groups to have the Asante Confederacy, as the empire was now termed, restored. He was successful and is hailed as one of the greatest heroes of modern Ghana and the Asante. He was recognised by the UK government and awarded a knighthood as a head of state in his own right.

In King Prempeh II’s court his Chief Secretary, a kind of Prime Minister, was James Wellington Appiah. Not only was he his Chief Secretary but he was also his brother-in-law, having married James’s sister. James’s son was Joseph Appiah, Kwame’s father. Joseph was also to become as leading figure in Ghana politics, and also held the position of Chief Secretary to King Prempeh II’s successors. After the independence of Ghana from the British in 1957 Joseph became an MP in the new parliament.

Kwame Appiah’s maternal ancestry is no less distinguished in politics and statehood. In 1959 his father Joseph married Enid Margaret Cripps (1921-2006), known to all as Peggy. She was the youngest daughter of one of the UK’s most famous and controversial politicians, the Rt. Hon. Sir Stafford Cripps (1889-1952). Crips was expelled twice from the Labour Party and had Communist sympathies. During World War II he has a seat on the War Cabinet and later served as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The post-war economy was difficult to control and in the end he did what all failed Labour Party Chancellors have done – he devalued the pound. Sir Stafford’s father was also an MP before being created the 1^st Baron Parmoor in 1914. He became a member of the UK’s first ever labour government in 1924.

The Cripps family had many political family links and two of Sir Stafford Cripps’s great-grandfathers were MPs. One of them, Richard Potter, became an MP because of his disgust at the unfair and corrupt representation within parliamentary seats and was instrumental in influencing the Reform Act of 1832. Richard’s son, also called Richard, married the daughter of Kwame’s other MP great-grandfather. But the main connection between them was the railways, not politics.

Richard Potter jr was Chairman of the Great Western Railway and President of the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada. Lawrence Heyworth (1786-1872), MP from 1848 to 1857. The Heyworth family were northern wool merchants who saw the invention of the railway as a means of expanding their market. They even expanded into South America where Lawrence became a director of the Central Argentine Railway. Back in the UK he began to move away from business and into railway investment.

Lawrence Heyworth was also a campaigner for the free trade movement and the abolition of slavery. He married one of his servants and had several children, the eldest of whom married Richard Potter jr.

Returning to the Cripps family line we can go further back. Lord Parmoor’s parents were cousins, both grandchildren of William Lawrence, a surgeon. Their brother was Sir William Lawrence, 1^st Bt., a physician to Queen Victoria. Their ancestors included the Fettiplace family who can trace their line back to the Boleyns. Kwame descends from Queen Anne Boleyn’s great-grandfather.

Through several lines Kwame Appiah is descended from some Magna Carta barons of 1215 and an illegitimate son of King Henry I of England (1068-1135).

If you look at Kwame’s Wikipedia page you’ll see the claim that he also descends from the Winthrops of America. He isn’t. His great-great-uncle married a Winthrop, not Kwame’s ancestor.

On both sides of the family Kwame Appiah has political and royal blood from both Europe and West Africa. With such a family background it would have been hard for him not to be an advocate for Cosmopolitanism and the acceptance of diversity.

Polarity Rocks!

Way back in March 2013 when my theme for the year was science and my “Ology of the Month” was geology I wrote about the work of a gay geophysicist Allan Cox and his role in proving the theory of continental drift. That validation wouldn’t have been possible without the work of another gay geophysicist with whom he shared the Vetlesen Prize (the “Nobel Prize” of the geological world) in 1971. The other recipient was Stanley Keith Runcorn (1922-1995).

Here’s a quote about Keith Runcorn (he was always known his second name) which shows how important he was to geophysical research. It comes from the introduction to “Mantle Dynamics: Treatise of Geophysics”, edited by David Bercovivi, who described Runcorn as “a unique figure in that he was at the forefront of major discoveries in palaeomagnetism that led to the modern theory of plate tectonics…”.

Stanley Keith Runcorn was born in the industrial north west of England in 1922. For a man whose professional career revolved around rocks it’s not surprising to learn that his father was a monumental mason. Despite these humble origins he went on to study at Cambridge University, where he was during most of World War II.

Runcorn’s work in the field of geophysics and geomagnetism would eventually lead to an invitation from NASA to help in their Galileo Orbiter project and their research into interplanetary magnetic fields. He was even accepted an invitation to join the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1981.

Runcorn never hid his homosexuality but didn’t involve himself in gay rights. He travelled almost constantly, researching and lecturing, attending conferences and accepting academic positions around the world. His stamina was immense, as was needed in his favourite leisure activity, rugby. He was an active president of the Newcastle University rugby club when he was a professor there.

It was on one of his many lecture trips that he met his death. In 1995 Runcorn was invited to speak at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego. One night he picked up a professional kick-boxer and karate black belt in a bar and took him back to his hotel room. The next morning his battered and strangled body was found in his hotel bathroom by a maid. The kick-boxer was later arrested and found guilty of murder.

Runcorn became interested in geomagnetism in 1946 shortly after becoming a physics lecturer at Manchester University, where he met fellow academic Alan Turing, the “Father of the Computer”. He later moved to Cambridge University and in 1956 he was appointed Professor of Physics at Newcastle University. He remained there until his retirement in 1988.

It was known that rocks retain their magnetic orientation as they cool, thus indicating the direction of the magnetic North Pole at the rock’s formation. Runcorn and his colleagues discovered some rocks had a reversed polarity to layers immediately above and below them indicating that the magnetic North Pole was at the geographic South Pole. Some of these rocks also showed the polarity pointing in different directions, as if the magnetic North Pole itself had moved.

This movement of the North Pole wasn’t a theory which all scientists accepted. At first Runcorn himself didn’t accept that it indicated continental drift, only what is called apparent polar wandering. He changed his mind when he moved from Cambridge to Newcastle in 1956.

The continental drift theory wasn’t universally accepted. It had developed from late Victorian studies into earthquakes. The invention of the seismograph helped to prove that shockwaves moved through the centre of the planet in several ways, and this led to the realisation that Earth wasn’t a solid lump of rock but had a molten interior and solid core. Once the scientific world got their heads around that idea a new one emerged, or re-emerged. Sir Francis Bacon way back in the 17^th century noticed that the coastlines of West Africa and South America almost fit together. He didn’t give any explanation or reason for this, but in 1915 Alfred Wegener brought this “coincidence” back to the science world, with evidence from fossils, to create the continental drift theory. As with other theories like black holes, evolution and the sun-centred solar system, other scientists laughed. It was the study of paleomagnetism in rocks, and the works of Keith Runcorn and Allan Cox among others, which helped to prove Wegener was right.

Finally another quote. This one was written in his own lifetime, in celebration of his 60^th birthday, and was published in “New Scientist” on 28^th April 1983. Peter J. Smith wrote, “Runcorn has probably made more original contributions to more branches of the subject than any other geophysicist; but if history judges his work on that basis alone, it will come up with an incomplete assessment. For what would be missing would be the effect of his enthusiasm on others, in ways not recorded in the formal literature. There is no one better at persuading people to do things they might not otherwise have been inclined to do. There is no one better at perceiving likely growth points in geophysics, at getting the money to pursue them and at encouraging people to work on them. And finally, there’s no one with a more impressive grasp of the whole field of geophysics on Earth – or the Moon for that matter.”

It is Runcorn’s work in interplanetary geophysics and for NASA which we will return to in the future in a “Star Gayzing” article.

Olympic Alphabet : H is for ...

HOMOPHOBIA

There have been several equality and human rights issues that have affected the modern Olympic movement. The biggest current issue surrounds the acceptance of lgbt athletes and their life-style. A recent ruling by the International Olympic Committee has, to some extent, clarified its position on the inclusion of transgender athletes, but only time will tell if it brings full trans inclusion.

Here we are, two years after the Sochi Winter Olympics and Russia shows no signs of repealing the anti-gay laws it introduced just before them. In this modern era news and views are disseminated instantly around the world via the internet and digital media and it is very easy to forget that similar controversies didn’t get as much global coverage as they would do today.

The example I want to give you today is of an anti-gay controversy that occurred in the run-up to the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics. Most people will remember the terrible bomb attack that killed Alice Hawthorne and injured over a hundred others. The bomber had previously targeted an abortion clinic and a gay bar. The other anti-gay controversy involving the Atlanta Olympics gained much national coverage but received little beyond its shores.

In the ultra-traditional Cobb County in the Olympic host state of Georgia, USA, concerns about gay lifestyles had been bubbling under the surface for several months in 1993. A local theatre had some gay references in a play and complaints were made to the County Commissioners. During summer the Baptist church in Marietta, the county capital close to Atlanta, of which many members were very right-wing, held a workshop at which its pastor, a television evangelist, voiced concerns that the “gay agenda” was threatening the “traditional family structure”.

A draft resolution was presented to the Commissioners, co-written by the pastor, which expressed those same concerns. Among the reasons given in the draft was the recent decision taken by Atlanta to give some domestic rights to same-sex partners, the Georgia State governor offering to host a future Gay Games in the city, and the 1993 March on Washington for LGB Rights. The Baptist pastor and his congregation were having NONE of that on their doorstep.

Despite a local group organising an opposition meeting a week before the County Board met on 10^th August 1993 the Commissioners voted 3 to 1 to adopt the resolution. The only dissenting Commissioner was Bill Cooper. At a later meeting they also withdrew all arts funding, including that for the local theatre.

Opposition became very vocal. The Cobb County Coalition formed on 31^st August and arranged rallies, protests and a Queer Family Picnic/Protest and attracted national attention. The Commissioners resolutely refused to rescind the resolution. Then matters became more intense when the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) awarded the volleyball competition to Cobb County on 30^th January 1994. The newly constructed volleyball centre in Marietta had its grand opening that same week with much celebration.

Choosing a Cobb County venue was the catalyst for the formation of another protest group called Olympics Out of Cobb by Jon-Ivan Weaver and Pat Hussein in Atlanta on 14^th February 1994. The group lobbied ACOG most strongly urging them to reconsider their decision, but ACOG tried everything it could to avoid being dragged into one side of the dispute on Cobb County’s anti-gay resolution, re-iterating the ideal of an Olympic truce.

A truce was far from the minds of either side. Gradually other community groups and organisations began pinning their colours to one side or the other. Rabbi Stephen Lebow gained support of 37 other interdenominational clergy in calling for the resolution to be dropped, only to be followed a few days later by the Marietta Baptist church gaining 200 clergy calling for it to be retained. A “compromise” offered by the Commissioners found little support on either side.

In June 1994 the lgbt community stepped up its campaign. At Atlanta Pride on 18^th June Cobb County Coalition and Olympics Out Of Cobb took part in the march and received huge amounts of support. Then on 22^nd June there was an unexpected turn of events. Shannon Byrne, daughter of a Cobb County Commissioner who voted in favour of the resolution, came out publicly as a lesbian. She expressed her concerns, and those of others living in Cobb County, and of the pains of being targeted. Then, just over two weeks later Greg Louganis, the greatest Olympic diver of all time, who had himself only recently come out publicly at the opening ceremony of the Gay Games in New York (on the same day as the Atlanta Pride march), called upon ACOG to remove the volleyball contest from Cobb County. Ironically, or even as a result of the Cobb County controversy, the volleyball competition at those Gay Games attracted over 20 percent of all the athletes attending – that’s over 2,000 volleyball players! Greg make his appeal at a reception organised by the US Olympic Committee at which he received the Robert J. Kane Award for his Olympic achievements. He used his acceptance speech to mention Cobb County and the general absence of support of lgbt athletes.

The controversy was now something ACOG and the IOC could not avoid addressing. They announced that they were considering moving the volleyball competition out of Cobb County as a means of avoiding unwanted attention and probable disruptions and protests to the events, carefully avoiding any comment that could be used by either side as support for their views. The County Commissioners then bounced back saying that they’d withdraw their venues from the Olympics if ACOG demanded the removal of their anti-gay resolution, thereby effectively shooting themselves in the foot. Two days later ACOG moved the volleyball contest out of Cobb County.

But that wasn’t the end of the matter. As the 1996 Olympics got closer Cobb County held on to its resolution and campaign groups continued to protest. Various threats from the more extreme protestors to disrupt the Olympic torch relay which was to pass through Cobb County in July 1996 were avoided by ACOG deciding to redirect the relay out of Cobb County in April 1996.

By this time two other US counties had passed similar anti-gay resolutions – Spartanville and Greenville counties in South Carolina. Spartanville quickly dropped its resolution after the first wave of protests. Greenville, however, held out and received the same treatment as Cobb County, the Olympic torch relay was rerouted out of the county, much to the understandable dismay of the few torch bearers whose legs of the relay were cancelled.

As we move through the 21^st century and look around at anti-gay legislation in all levels of government it seems, at times, that nothing has changed in the 20 years since the Atlanta Olympics. Change is always gradual and it is to be hoped that all politicians will soon stop challenging the lgbt lifestyle.

Extraordinary Life : Holocaust Survivor

To commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day we look at a Holocaust survivor whose life straddled both sides of the conflict. His name is Pierre Seel (1923-2005). I must give Chris Furneaux of the Australian lgbt radio and online channel Joy 49.9 the credit for suggesting I write about him today.

As his name suggests Pierre Seel was French. He was born in Alsace, a part of France that borders Germany. For centuries the region has been a political ping-pong ball bouncing between the two countries. During Pierre’s lifetime he found his home town, and indeed his own nationality, changing twice. From 1871 Alsace was a French province but at the end of the Franco-Prussian War it became part of the German Empire. Then, after the defeat of the German in the First World War possession of Alsace was returned to France.

In France at the time of Pierre’s birth there was no law prohibiting homosexuality though the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church led many to hide their sexuality in public, and even from their own families, as was the case with Pierre.

In 1939 he was in a well-known gay “cruising” site when his watch, a precious gift from his godmother, was stolen. He reported it to the police, but the officer he reported it to was not sympathetic. He shouted abuse at Pierre because of his admission to being in a notorious cruising site and placed his name on a list of homosexuals. This list had no official or legal purpose but it was to prove disastrous to many in a very short time.

The Second World War began with Britain, followed by France, declaring war on Nazi Germany later in 1939. In response Germany invaded and annexed Alsace. Now Pierre and his fellow Alsace natives found themselves being treated as German citizens subject to the laws of Nazi Germany. Pierre joined many others in working secretly for the French Resistance.

That list of homosexuals to which Pierre’s name was added was handed to the German authorities and soon Pierre was arrested by the Gestapo and subjected to painful physical and emotional torture, including being forcibly sodomised with a wooden stick.

In May 1941 Pierre was transferred to the Schirmeck labour and “rehabilitation” camp in the south of Alsace. More than 15,000 Alsatian citizens were imprisoned there over the next 4 years, all being forced to work with little rest or food. There were none of the infamous Pink Triangles on the uniforms of the gay prisoners, this camp did not use them. Instead Pierre wore a blue bar which was used to indicate someone who was anti-social. This also implied homosexuality and was virtually just as bad. Life for a gay man in the labour camp was still hazardous. Gay men could not find comfort in their own subgroup because fellow prisoners and SS guards alike regarded them as the lowest class of society.

When Pierre was arrested he became separated from his boyfriend Jo but he saw his beloved again in the labour camp. He could not acknowledge Jo, but watched in horror as the guards stripped Jo naked and set the guard dogs on him. The bloody death of his boyfriend marked Pierre for the rest of his life and gave him a fear of dogs.

To his surprise and relief Pierre was released, the camp’s commander having been satisfied that he had been “re-educated”, though Pierre would have to report daily to the Gestapo. Pierre returned home to his family but nothing was ever said of his experiences or sexuality.

Now a “free German” citizen Pierre was conscripted into the Nazi army. He was placed in the Wehrmacht which contained other Alsace natives forced to fight against the Allies. Then, in 1943, he was surprised again, this time to find himself being sent to the Nazi’s Aryan-breeding programme. He was only there for a few days.

By summer 1944 Pierre found himself on the Russian front, one of the most hostile combat zones of World War II. As the Allies pushed from the west and the Soviets from the east the Nazi regime began to crumble. Pierre found himself the only survivor of his post and surrendered to the Soviets.

He made his way to Poland where he joined a refugee convoy of concentration camp survivors. The Red Cross arranged for them to travel to Odessa on the Black Sea and Pierre was placed in charge of order and discipline at the refugee camp there. Eventually he managed to catch a train back to Paris and from there back to Alsace. He never revealed the full truth of his experiences, they were too traumatic, and for nearly 40 years his story was hidden in his memory.

Alsace once more changed hands after the defeat of the Nazis and the French laws were restored – except one. In 1942 the Vichy government of Nazi occupied France outlaws sex between adults and minors. This law was retained after liberation. Pierre received abuse from his own family because of his sexuality and eventually he sank into what he called “years of shame” when he tried to come to terms with his sexuality.

The memorial illustration dedicated to Pierre Seel, one of several produced by the Italian lgbt rights group Arcigay in 2015.

In 1950 he decided to marry, not telling his bride about being gay. They had 3 surviving children. Family life was very unsettled as work took them all around France. He also felt uncomfortable relating to his children, He became stressed and depressed and haunted by nightmares, He turned to drink and tranquilisers. The stress grew as the decade progressed and in 1978 Pierre and his wife separated.

In 1981 Pierre attended a book launch for “The Men With The Pink Triangle” by Heinz Heger, one of the inspirations for the play “Bent”. It was then that Pierre decided to speak out, anonymously in writing at first, about the truths behind the persecution of gay men by the Nazis. He was particularly keen to highlight the French victims, as most of the prevailing stories of persecution were about German gay men.

Pierre became a well-known activist and campaigner for the recognition of lgbt Holocaust victims at memorial commemorations. In 1994 he published his life story with the help of a journalist and fellow activist Jean Le Bitoux. Because of his high profile appearances in the media and elsewhere Pierre received more homophobic abuse, some of it physical. Through it all Pierre’s dignity and resolve remained steadfast.

By 2003 Pierre Seel was receiving official recognition for his activism. In 2005 France’s President Jacques Chirac spoke about the plight of French Holocaust victims, a tribute to Pierre Seel’s campaigning.

Pierre Seel died 7 months after President Chirac’s speech. By the end of his life he had gone to live with his partner Eric in Toulouse and had received the acceptance of his lifestyle from his family. A street near where he lived in Toulouse was named after him in 2008.

Pierre’s persecution during the Holocaust was not unique, except perhaps for his forced non-combative career in the Nazi army, but his testimony as one of the very few French gay Holocaust survivors and his personal experiences helped to change French attitudes to Nazi persecution of their countrymen on occupies France who were all too often forgotten during remembrances.