They Didn't Quite Make it to the Olympics

It seems only a few months ago since the Paris Olympics. Perhaps I’m getting old. Perhaps, also, there hasn’t appeared to have been a gap between Paris and last night’s opening of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics because qualifying events for Milan Cortina began even before the Paris Olympics started.

Take ice hockey as an example. The qualification period for the ice hockey tournament began with the start of the 2020 Men’s World Championships, which contributed towards world rankings that decided which nations qualified to Milan. And the women’s ice hockey qualification began with the 2021 Women’s World Championships. The 2926 world ranking also included placings of all Hockey teams at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. So, if the same qualification criteria for is approved for next Winter Olympics, then all the ice hockey teams competing in Milan will have begun their qualification for 2030.

So, you can see that following the Olympics is more than just two weeks every two years for Olympic historians like myself.

Below is a chart of Team LGBT athletes who have competed in Winter Olympic qualification events or appeared in world/Olympic qualification ranking lists who did NOT qualify for the Olympics in the year listed. Many of them did become full Olympians before or after the years shown.

The chart is not authoritative and is not complete. I haven’t had time to research the past competitions of all of Milan’s Olympic first-timers and recently out athletes, to see if they have any previous involvement in Olympic qualification event. I’ve included the ones I already knew about. Regard this list as just a work in progress.

A lot more research is needed to reveal exactly who is eligible for qualification. Is the athlete regarded as sufficiently proficient in his or her sport to be considered eligible, for example? Some of the figure skaters listed below competed in Olympic qualification events when they were teenagers. This wouldn’t necessarily exclude them from qualifying, after all, Ondrej Nepela, was only 13 when he competed for Czechoslovakia in 1964. After the fiasco of Beijing 2022 and the young Russian figure skater, the lower age for figure skating has been raised to 17. It’s all very complicated, and as I said, a lot more research needs to be done.

Another criteria to point out concerns the current debate (or rather, current deliberate confrontation by both sides) on the inclusion of transgender athletes. Sex and gender testing have been part of international sport for decades. For the purposes of the chart below I will point out one name, Erik Schinegger. He competed in women’s alpine skiing in the early 1960s. He had been world champion in 1966, and the Austrian champion in 1967, and Austria’s top hope for gold at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble. In those days the IOC conducted gender tests on all athletes. Erik’s test revealed he was actually intersex, and was immediately banned from competing in all alpine skiing events. Erik chose to accept the decision and just as immediately began identifying as a man. Erik still something of a sporting celebrity. He appeared in the Austrian version of “Dancing With the Stars” in 2014. He now runs a skiing school in Austria. I wonder if he’ll be pooping over the border to watch the alpine skiing in Cortina, which is only a couple of hours away from his ski school

But I’ve rambled too much. Enjoy the list below. The list gives the year and host city of each Winter games. The name, nation and sport of each athlete is given underneath it. The OLY column indicates the number of Olympic Games in which the athlete has competed (either before or after their unsuccessful qualification year). “Alt.” indicates that the athletes became an Alternate team member, designated to replace any official Olympic team member in cases of injury or other incapacitation.

After it’s all over I’ll produce a complete Team LGBT Winter Olympian List.

1964 INNSBRUCK			OLY
John Carrell	USA	figure skating
Dennis Sveum	USA	ice dance
Wynn Miller	USA	ice dance
1968 GRENOBLE			OLY
Erik Schinegger	Austria	alpine skiing
Rick Inglesi	USA	figure skating
John Carrell	USA	figure skating
1972 SAPPORO			OLY
Robert Knapp	Canada	ice dance
1980 LAKE PLACID			OLY
Brian Orser	Canada	figure skating	2
Rob McCall	Canada	ice dance	2
Barry Hagan	USA	figure skating
Robert Wagenhoffer	USA	figure skating
Larry Schrier	USA	pairs skating
1984 SARAJEVO			OLY
Perry Meek	Australia	figure skating
Dennis Coi	Canada	figure skating
J. Scott Driscoll	USA	figure skating
Rudy Galindo	USA	figure skating
Darin Hosier	USA	figure skating
William Lawe	USA	figure skating
Doug Mattis	USA	figure skating
Caroline Paul	USA	luge
1988 CALGARY			OLY
Michael Chack	USA	figure skating
Philip DiGuglielmo	USA	figure skating
Rudy Galindo	USA	figure skating
Brian Grant	USA	figure skating
Doug Mattis	USA	figure skating
Mark Mitchell	USA	figure skating	Alt.
Grant Rorvick	USA	figure skating
Lance Travis	USA	figure skating	Alt.
Shawn Rettstatt	USA	pairs skating
1992 ALBERTVILLE			OLY
Damon Allen	USA	figure skating
Michael Chack	USA	figure skating
Derrick Delmore	USA	figure skating
Rudy Galindo	USA	figure skating
1994 LILLEHAMMER			OLY
Matthew Hall	Canada	figure skating	Alt.
Damon Allen	USA	figure skating
Derrick Delmore	USA	figure skating
Rudy Galindo	USA	figure skating
Mark Mitchell	USA	figure skating	Alt.
Russ Witherby	USA	pairs skating	1
1998 NAGANO			OLY
Francis Bureau	Canada	figure skating
Jeff Buttle	Canada	figure skating	1 & Alt.
Bradley Dalziel	Canada	figure skating
Joel Geleynse	Canada	figure skating
Christopher Mabee	Canada	figure skating
Tyler Myles	Canada	figure skating
Emanuel Sandhu	Canada	figure skating	2
Angela James	Canada	ice hockey
Sacha Blanchet	Canada	pairs skating
Michael Chack	USA	figure skating
Derrick Delmore	USA	figure skating
Josh Figurido	USA	figure skating
Timothy Goebel	USA	figure skating	1
Benjamin Miller	USA	figure skating
Matt Savoie	USA	figure skating	1
Eric Schroyer	USA	figure skating
Matt Evers	USA	pairs skating
2002 SALT LAKE CITY			OLY
Cédric Demers	Canada	figure skating
Christopher Mabee	Canada	figure skating
Keegan Murphy	Canada	figure skating
Tyler Myles	Canada	figure skating
Shawn Sawyer	Canada	figure skating	1
Frouke Oonk	Netherlands	speed skating
Cole Davis	USA	figure skating
Derrick Delmore	USA	figure skating
Benjamin Miller	USA	figure skating
Matt Savoie	USA	figure skating	1
Rohene Ward	USA	figure skating
Johnny Weir	USA	figure skating	2
Ryan O'Meara	USA	ice dance	1
Tricia Stumpf	USA	skeleton
Ryan Miller	USA	snowboard
2006 TURIN			OLY
Chavdar Arsov	Bulgaria	luge
Cédric Demers	Canada	figure skating
Ian Fotheringham	Canada	figure skating
Ehren Jaleel(-Wenrich)	Canada	figure skating
Pierre-Philippe Joncas	Canada	figure skating
Jean-Simon Légaré	Canada	figure skating
Christopher Mabee	Canada	figure skating
Keegan Murphy	Canada	figure skating
Jeremy Ten	Canada	figure skating
Frédéric Allain	Canada	ice dance
Eric Radford	Canada	pairs skating	3
Marieke Wijsman	Netherlands	speed skating	2
Frouke Oonk	Netherlands	speed skating
Cole Davis	USA	figure skating
Derrick Delmore	USA	figure skating
Scott Dyer	USA	figure skating
Timothy Goebel	USA	figure skating	1
Rohene Ward	USA	figure skating
Drew Meekins	USA	pairs skating
Keith Carney	USA	speed skating
2010 VANCOUVER			OLY
John Epping	Canada	curling
Evan Gammon	Canada	figure skating
Garrett Gosselin	Canada	figure skating
Ehren Jaleel(-Wenrich)	Canada	figure skating
Shawn Sawyer	Canada	figure skating	1
Benjamin Smyth	Canada	figure skating
Garnet Suidy	Canada	figure skating
Jeremy Ten	Canada	figure skating
Benjamin Westenberger	Canada	figure skating
Kaitlyn Weaver	Canada	ice dance	1
Eric Radford	Canada	pairs skating	3
Jamal Othman	Switzerland	figure skating	1
Camille Balanche	Switzerland	ice hockey
Tracy Call	USA	bobsleigh
Jason Brown	USA	figure skating	2
Christopher Caluza	USA	figure skating
Wesley Campbell	USA	figure skating
Scott Dyer	USA	figure skating
Timothy LeDuc	USA	pairs skating	1 & Alt.
Keith Carney	USA	speed skating
2014 SOCHI			OLY
Laís Souza	Brazil	freestyle skiing
John Epping	Canada	curling
Garrett Gosselin	Canada	figure skating
Benjamin Smyth	Canada	figure skating
Jeremy Ten	Canada	figure skating
Paul Poirier	Canada	ice dance	3
Eric Mitchell	Canada	ski jumping	1
Arieta Lédlová	Czech Rep.	ice hockey	1
Natalia Zabiiako	Estonia	pairs skating	1
Kévin Aymoz	France	figure skating	1
Manon Kamminga	Netherlands	speed skating
Christopher Caluza	Philippines	figure skating
Luis Fenero	Spain	ice dance
Johanna Fallman	Sweden	ice hockey	2
Scott Dyer	USA	figure skating
Adam Rippon	USA	figure skating	1 & Alt.
Megan Wessenberg	USA	figure skating
Joe Johnson	USA	ice dance
Rachel Parsons	USA	ice dance	1
Nick Traxler	USA	ice dance
Timothy LeDuc	USA	pairs skating	1 & Alt.
Jimmy Morgan	USA	pairs skating
2018 PYEONGCHANG			OLY
Simon Proulx-Sénécal	Armenia	ice dance	1
Nicole Silveira	Brazil	bobsleigh	2
John Epping	Canada	curling
Dustin Kidby	Canada	curling
Paul Poirier	Canada	ice dance	3
Kaitlyn Weaver	Canada	ice dance	1
Emerance Maschmeyer	Canada	ice hockey	2
Jaime Lee Rattray	Canada	ice hockey	1
Georgia Simmerling	Canada	ski-cross	2
Arieta Lédlová	Czech Rep.	ice hockey	1
Kévin Aymoz	France	figure skating	1
Bruce Mouat	Great Britain	curling	2
Letitia de Jong	Netherlands	speed skating
Andrzej Stękala	Poland	ski-jumping
Javier Raya	Spain	figure skating	1
Anna Kjellbin	Sweden	ice hockey	2
Scott Dyer	USA	figure skating
Amber Glenn	USA	figure skating	1 & Alt.
Megan Wessenberg	USA	figure skating
Joe Johnson	USA	ice dance
Marina Manta	USA	ice dance
Rachel Parsons	USA	ice dance	1
Alex Carpenter	USA	ice hockey	1
Fennell, John	USA	luge	2
Andrew Blaser	USA	skeleton	1
2020 LAUSANNE (YOUTH)			OLY
Ronja Mogren	Sweden	ice hockey	1
2022 BEIJING			OLY
John Epping	Canada	curling
Wesley Forget	Canada	curling
Dustin Kidby	Canada	curling
Geneviève Lacasse	Canada	ice hockey	2
Geneviève Lacasse	Canada	ice hockey	2
Matilda Nilsson	Finland	ice hockey
Chloé Auraud	France	ice hockey
Anthony Currie	Great Britain	ice dance
Cheryl Maas	Netherlands	snowboard	3
Andrzej Stękala	Poland	ski-jumping
Elena Stern	Switzerland	curling	1
Gracie Gold	USA	figure skating	1
Megan Wessenberg	USA	figure skating
Sidney Morin	USA	ice hockey	1
Amanda Pelkey	USA	ice hockey	1
Kendall Wesenberg	USA	skeleton	1
Breezy Johnson	USA	alpine skiing	2
Conor McDermott-Mostowy	USA	speed skating	1
2026 MILAN CORTINA			OLY
Belle Brockhoff	Australia	snowboard	3
John Epping	Canada	curling
Jaime Lee Rattray	Canada	ice hockey
Jill Saulnier	Canada	ice hockey	2
Micah Zandee-Hart	Canada	ice hockey	1
Kristen Campbell	Canada	ice hockey	1
Mélodie Daoust	Canada	ice hockey	3
Arieta Lédlová	Czech Rep.	ice hockey	1
Šárka Pančochova	Czech Rep.	snowboard	4
Sanni Hakala	Finland	ice hockey	2
Matilda Nilsson	Finland	ice hockey
Andrzej Stękala	Poland	ski-jumping
Ebba Berglund	Sweden	ice hockey	1
Johanna Fallman	Sweden	ice hockey	2
Jason Brown	USA	figure skating	1
Megan Wessenberg	USA	figure skating

26 for '26 on the 26th

Belated Happy New Year, or early LGBT History Month UK, if you like. Here are 26 facts for 2026 on the 26th day of the year.

1) Gay actor Sir Alec Guinness (1914-2000) earned a small fortune by playing the role of Obi Wan Kenobi in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, which he called “fairy tale rubbish” and only appeared on screen for 20 minutes (excluding reused footage). As well as a relatively modest salary of $150,000 (for the international star that he was) he negotiated 2.25% of the profits worth around £95 million. His estate still receives millions of pounds every year.

2) “Moffie” is a slang term used in South Africa for an effeminate man. It derives from the word “hermaphrodite”. It is used as the tiltle of a 2019 South African film (based on a book of the same name) about a man conscripted into the army who fights to hide his homosexuality.

3) My previous fact lists have included celebrity memorabilia that went up for auction. Here’s a weird one. Gay author Truman Capote died in 1984 and was cremated. Half of his ashes went to his surviving partner, the other half to a friend, Joanne Carson. She buried half of her portion in Westwood Memorial Park, Los Angeles. After her death, what was claimed to be the remaining quarter of Capote’s ashes were put up for auction by her estate in 2016. They sold for $45,000 (£33,800).

4) Screenwriter Theo Toksvig-Stewart (b.1994), the son of Anglo-Danish lgbt icon Sandi Toksvig (b.1958), broke the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to get dressed in a traditional 6-piece Santa Claus costume. It was achieved during the 2019 Christmas Eve edition of the quiz show “QI” (recorded on 17 Aug 2019) of which his mother had been the chair since 2016. Theo’s time was 28.91 seconds. The record was broken just a few months later.

5) Although the Antarctica is a continent which, by international treaty, bans territorial claims by any nation, it sent a team to the Gay Games held in Sydney, Australia, in 2002, comprising of two members of the scientific research bases stationed there – powerlifters Mariah Crossland (1959-2014) and her straight colleague Erik Richards.

6) An old Greek legend tells that any man who drinks from the waters of the spring and fountain of Salmacis in modern-day Turkey, will become effeminate. The Greek poet Ovid went so far as to say it turned men intersex. I retell the legend here.

7) The majority of the original Creator Gods from mythology and contemporary faiths, were agender – they had no gender. The “creation” of gender was made by gods descended from these Creators. This mirrors science, which states that the first living organisms were non-gendered single cells, which is challenged by gender-identity activists.

8) Until 1977, Saturn was the only planet in our solar system known to have rings. Things changed when equipment recorded dips in the light from a star as the planet Uranus began to pass in front of it, and after it had passed. Transgender astrophysicist Dr. Jessica Mink (b.1951), the scientist monitoring the equipment, interpreted those dips to be caused by rings around Uranus. Subsequent space probes proved it.

9) Cherry Vann (b.1968) was the first female, and only openly lesbian, archbishop in the Church of England. On 26 July 2025 she was elected Archbishop of Wales (yes, Wales comes under the pastoral jurisdiction of the Church of England). She is also the serving Bishop of Monmouth, elected in 2019 as the first openly lesbian bishop.

10) According to a study published in June 2024 by the University of California’s Los Angeles School of Law, around 2.57 million lgbt people in the USA are parenting children under the age of 18. This includes adoption, fostering, and parenting step-children.

11) The world’s first gay periodical was “Der Eigene” (the nearest translation into English is “The Self-Possessed”). It was published in Berlin, Germany, by Adolf Brand (1874-1945) between 1896 and 1932.

12) “Riding the deck” is an old English slang phrase describing gay sex.

13) The original Rainbow Pride flag as designed by Gilbert Baker (1951-2017) had 8 stripes. From top to bottom these were coloured hot pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo and violet. This design was used for the 1978 San Francisco Day of Freedom Day parade. It changed to its now familiar 6 stripes (when not defaced by other elements) in 1979 because of the high cost of producing hot pink and turquoise, and turning by indigo to blue.

14) Figures released by the Ministry of Justice in the UK reveal that 1,169 gender recognition certificates were issued between March 2024 and March 2025.

15) Antonio Moreno (b.1984) is the first (and so far, the only) openly gay, former gay porn actor to be elected mayor. His former gay porn career was under the name of Hector da Silva was widely reported during his election campaign to become Mayor of Carcelén, one of the smallest electoral districts in Spain with less than 500 voting citizens. His election in 2023 saw his receive 51% of the vote.

16) There are only 2 pan-continental Prides on the 7 recognised continents. The oldest is EuroPride, founded in 1992. The newest is Polar Pride, founded in 2020, which covers all of the research bases on Antarctica as well as those above the Arctic Circle.

17) The first King of England to whom homosexuality is claimed was King William II Rufus (c.1057-1100). No contemporary sources make such a claim, and subsequent rumours of the opulent fashions he and his court favoured are given as the only “proof”. Reputable modern historians dismiss the claim.

18) Two insects have been named after Tinkerbell, the fairy created by the queer writer Sir J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) in “Peter Pan”. The first is a species of fairy wasp native to Costa Rica given the name Tinkerbella nana in 2013, and the second is a species of fly native to Canada given the name Meonuera tinkerbellae in 2018.

19) The last person in the UK to be fired from the armed forces for being gay was Richard Young (b.1974), a Royal Navy Reservist and chef on HMS Drake, in 1999. After a highly publicised campaign, he also became the first lgbt+ person in the UK to be reinstated in 2000 as a barracks guard at the Royal Navy base HMS Devonport.

20) “Nancy boy” is a derogatory term applied to gay men, particularly common in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s. Its precise origin is not known, but theories range from the name of a burlesque character in 1930s USA, the stage name of an English actress in the 1730s, and nickname given to US President James Buchanan (1791-1868).

21) The Traditionalist Mexican-American Catholic Church was a “denomination” founded in 2005. However, in 2006 the Mexican government revoked the “church’s” status because of its involvement in drug-trafficking and cult veneration of Santa Muerte, the neo-pagan deity of death. The “church” survived as an underground organisation until its founder and leader was imprisoned in 2011 for kidnapping and embezzlement. There are still a few followers of this cult in the southern USA.

22) Mrs. Content Stuyvesant, née Chesebrough, (1801-1876) is the 4-times great-grandmother of gay singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright (b.1973), and was the aunt of Robert Chesebrough (1837-1933), the inventor of Vaseline.

23) A non-profit charity in the UK called “Classics For All” promotes interest in classical music and arts in schools. It also organises mock trials involving some of the top-ranking judges in the country in which historical characters are accused of various crimes. Several of these trials have involved famous lgbt+ people. In 2022 Alexander the Great was put on trial for war crimes. He was found not guilty. In 2024 the Roman Emperor Nero was put on trial for neglection of care during the Great Fire of Rome. He, too, was found not guilty.

24) In March every year, the Kottankulangara Devi temple in Kerala, India, holds a festival in which thousands of male devotees dress as women. They do this to seek the blessings of the temple’s goddess, Bhaghavathy.

25) On 14 November 2021, Remembrance Sunday, the UK’s lgbt veteran’s organisation, Fighting With Pride, marched in the annual national commemoration and parade for the first time. The commemoration is attended by the monarch, senior Royals, all living Prime Ministers, the nation’s senior military officers, leaders of all faiths and no-faiths, representatives from every Commonwealth nation and territory, and thousands of serving forces, veterans, police, emergency services, civilian defence services, youth brigades, and other groups representing the millions of British and Commonwealth victims and survivors of all wars. Among those marching with Fighting With Pride was Carl Austen-Behan (no. 18 in the “20 Queer Facts” list).

26) The ubiquitous Christmas nutcracker in the shape of a human first became popular in the 1800s, even before gay composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) wrote his famous ballet. They were created in Germany, and after producing general soldier-type nutcrackers, the various makers began producing ones parodying local dignitaries and clergy. The first nutcracker made to honour a real person was in the 1870s, when a nutcracker representing the popular gay King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845-1992) was made and became an instant success.

Advent 4: Witches, Burning Effigies, Sex and Peaches

After three Sundays of Christmas trees and decorations let’s skip to the other end of the Twelve Days of Christmas and take a trip to Italy.

Among over 170 seasonal gift-bringers around the world that I’ve researched, one of the most famous is la Befana of Italy.

This is an edited version of an essay I have written for my personal Christmas files about la Befana. It is one of many, more academically-based, pieces I have written on various Christmas characters following several years of research. As such it contains more information and sources than I would normally include on this blog. La Befana is one of those characters whose history is so complex and massive that cutting it down has been difficult, but I hope you find what follows is of interest. I’ve expanded information on various lgbt+ aspects of la Befana’s history. So settle down for a longer read than normal.

Today, la Befana is depicted as a witch or old hag. Her name has become synonymous with witches, but not the scary Hallowe’en type but as a kindly old woman.

There are several variations of the legend behind la Befana’s gift-bringing activities. They all date back several centuries. The most common version is that she was an old woman who lived in the Holy Land during the time of Christ’s birth. The Three Kings arrived one night, after being told that la Befana was her village’s best hostess. They told la Befana that they needed to rest overnight on their way to visit the baby Jesus and give him gifts. They invited la Befana to go with them the following morning, but she declined saying there was some housework she needed to do.

The following morning she waved the Three Kings off on their journey. But their mission prayed on her mind and she couldn’t concentrate on her housework, so she decided to go and join them. Gathering up some small gifts to give to the baby Jesus she headed out into the village. But she soon realised that the Kings didn’t tell her which direction they were going. La Befana walked through every town and village looking for the baby Jesus, hoping to give her gifts to Him. Eventually, exhaustion took its toll and she collapsed and died. The baby Jesus, in one of those mysterious events that often occur in legends, took pity on la Befana’s fate and decided that from then on her spirit would be His gift-giving representative in Italy. Today, la Befana leaves gifts for all children in the hope that one of them may be the baby Jesus.

But how did she become a gift-bringer specific to Italy? And what involvement did a gay poet have in her development?

The most generally accepted origin of La Befana’s name is that it comes from the Italian word “Epifania” (=Epiphany), which is a Christian festival celebrated on 6th January and commemorates the arrival of the Three Kings at the Nativity. “Epifania” ultimately derives from the Greek word “epifaneia”, meaning “manifestation, or appearance”. The history of Epiphany is long and complicated and I won’t go into all of it – except for one thing: it’s the original date chosen by Gnostics in the 2nd century as the one on which the birth of Christ was celebrated.

In 2018 I wrote about Christmas and the Gnostics. Basically, the Gnostics were various small sects of Christians spread around the eastern Roman Empire. They didn’t celebrate Christ’s death at Easter, but celebrated his birth instead. Christians didn’t celebrate birthdays, mainly because of high infant mortality rates – they preferred to remember their deaths (like modern memorials and individual burials). Gnostics believed that the world and its inhabitants were evil, and the birth of Christ was a manifestation of God’s goodness, hence they adopted the word “epihaneia” for a special day of prayer and worship to celebrate the event (the name Christmas for Christ’s birth was adopted by Western Roman Christians much later).

One of those eastern Gnostic sects were the Carpocratians in Egypt. They believed that if the world and its people were evil then procreative sex was bad and non-procreative sex (specifically with the same gender) would bring them salvation. Western Christians accused them of being promiscuous and of having gay orgies, but there’s nothing to indicate they were having any more sex than anyone else.

The Gnostics, including the Carpocratians, are believed to be the first to celebrate Christ’s birth on January 6th. When the Western Christian authorities in Rome realised that the eastern Gnostic worship of Christ’s birth was becoming too popular they decided that rather than ban celebrating Christ’s birth they decided to come up with their own date. Unlike the Gnostics, the Western Roman Church used various clues in the New Testament and traditional dates of Christ’s crucifixion to came up with December 25th. Even though the Gnostics eventually faded away, their date of January 6th for Christ’s birth still survives in some east African and central Asian denominations (Eastern Orthodox Christianity also celebrates Christmas Day on January 6th, but it has nothing to do with the Gnostics).

To complicate matters, Roman Christians decided to keep Epiphany as the celebration of the “manifestation” of Christ, the doctrine that Christ was revealed to the world as its Saviour through the arrival of the Three Kings, and this eventually led to many Roman churches, particularly those around the Mediterranean where the Gnostics had been most influential, adopting January 6th as a gift-giving day, They later moved it to St. Nicholas’s Eve, December 5th, and that’s another story on its own.

Italy is one of those Mediterranean regions who adopted Epiphany as their original gift-giving date. They called it Pasca Epiphania, Pasca in this sense means “feast”, a Christian term used for a “holy day”, a day of worship, prayer and commemoration of a specific person or event (ultimately derived from the proto-Indo-European word for “god”). Of course “holy day” is where our modern word “holiday” comes from. There’s so much more to say about the Italian Pasca Epiphania and its origins, but we must concentrate specifically on its link to la Befana.

In winter, and often around Epiphany time, many European nations held bonfires as a traditional celebration in winter. On these bonfires they burned effigies of an old woman, said to represent the old year (much like an old man often represents the Old Year today, though he isn’t burned – this can link us to Baby New Year, an image popularised by gay artist J. C. Leyendecker). This bonfire custom still survives in Italy, whether called Guibiana, Panevin (or Pan e vin), or several other names. In medieval Venice, where the bonfire festival was held near Epiphany, the effigy gradually acquired the name reflecting the date – Befana. The name quickly spread across the whole of Italy (much in the same way as the name of the 17th century terrorist Guy Fawkes, still burned on bonfires in England every November 5th, became misappropriated by the USA in the 19th century to mean “man” or “person”). So, the name Befana was just an Italian slang term for an effigy of an old woman, and was later applied to humans in the meaning of a witch or hag.

But why burn an effigy of an old woman in the first place? Well, it is believed that what was originally burned was a large log on which was painted a face. Sound familiar? It’s the most likely origin of the Christmas log, and the Spanish “pooping log”, the Tìo de Nadal which is burned the day after Christmas Day. So, even if some Christmas traditions in different parts of the world seem unconnected, there is a connection if you go back far enough. And why a woman? Well, those bonfires held in winter were also to celebrate the end of harvest. Most cultures had a female deity that presided over harvest, like the Greek goddess Demeter, so burning effigies of female deities represented the gratitude to the goddess of a fruitful harvest and the hope of a good one the next year (modern New Year celebrations are pretty much the same thing).

The first printed use of the word “befana” in the sense of an old woman occurred in 1535 in a poem called “Sonetto in descrizion dell’Arcivescovo di Firenze”, or “A Sonnet Describing the Archbishop of Florence”. It was written by Francesco Berni (c.1497-1536), a satirist and comic poet whose works often included coded sexual references to boys. The sonnet was a sarcastic dig at the archbishop and begins with the words “Chi vuol veder quantunque pò Natura / In far una fantastica befana”. Translated into English this reads “If you could see what Nature does / In making a fanciful witch”. Berni uses the word “befana” figuratively, using it to call the archbishop an ugly and disgusting old woman. He may even have been using it in the sense of a befana puppet. Perhaps both.

Francecso Berni was born in Florence into a well-connected family. In 1517 he went to live with a Catholic cardinal who was a distant cousin. It was in Rome that Berni began writing poetry. In 1523 the cardinal’s nephew “exiled” Berni to a monastery in Abruzzo near the Adriatic coast over some homosexual scandal. Why exiling Berni to a closed community of men would have removed him from any gay impulses is a mystery. As to the exact nature of the scandal there are no surviving details.

However, it is known that Francesco Berni was a member of an influential group that included other gay writers. His works were so distinctive in their satire and coded gay references that his style has been named after him – Bernesque poetry.

Perhaps the most obvious coded gay references Berni used are contained in private letters to his fellow gay friends. In the letters he asked friends to provide, and thanked them for sending him, “hams”, a slang term for buttocks (with their accompanying young men!), and “peaches”, a slang term for the penis. These “hams” and “peaches” were to be “eaten” himself, as he himself put it, or passed on to other friends.

But, let’s get back to la Befana. The first printed reference to the term befana being used to denote Epiphany occurs on a few years after Berni’s reference, in around 1541. It appears in a comedy play called “La Trinunzia” by Berni’s Florentine contemporary and fellow-writer of Bernesque poetry, (who has no known link to enjoying or passing around Berni’s “hams” and “peaches”), Agnolo Firenzuola (1493-1543). In his play a character says the line “Hannomel detto le pecore la notte di befana, che tutte favellano”. This translates into “Hannomel said the sheep on Epiphany night, that they all talk”. This echoes another popular medieval European legend that all animals could talk in human languages on Christmas night.

The use of Befana as the name of an old woman who give gifts at Epiphany, the use we are most familiar with today, comes in another comic poem, a heroic epic called “Il Malmantile Racquistato”, or “Malmantile Recaptured”. It was written by another Florentine writer, Lorenzo Lippi (1606-1665). The poem was published posthumously in 1676.

Lippi’s first reference says: “Le balie si servano della voce befana, per intendere una di quelle larve che nuocono a’bambini, come il bau ecc., e gli persuadono che ci sia la befana cattiva e la buona, e che venga nelle case per la via delcammino.” This translates into English as:” The nurses use the word befana to mean one of those masks that frighten children, like the woof, etc., and they persuade them that there is a bad Befana and a good one, and that she comes into the houses [to reward or punish] along the way.”

That’s the early development of Italy’s “female Santa”, la Befana. There’s so much more history covering her complete transformation into a popular Christmas character, which includes contributions from other Italian gay (or suspected gay) writers such as Giordano Bruno and Count Giacomo Leopardi, but we must leave it at that or we’ll be here until next Advent.

I’ll just conclude by mentioning that la Befana has influenced several other seasonal characters and traditions around the world, which is yet whole new essay in its own right. Briefly, the characters Babushka (Russia), La Vieja de Belen (Dominican Republic), and to some extent Mari Domingi (France), are all old woman with back-stories about hosting the Three Kings and searching for the Baby Jesus.

And that’s it for today, and for 2025. Next year will bring many changes, which you’ll learn about in due course. I want to give you all a BIG THANK YOU for reading my blog, and in particular for reaching the mile-stone of a million page views. I can’t express how humbled and honoured I am that so many people find what I write remotely interesting.

I’ll sign off by wishing you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and wish you all the best for the New Year.