Beijing 2022 - Another Record Breaking Olympics

As I mentioned last time I have been unwell in recent weeks. As a result I wasn’t able to follow and enjoy the Beijing Olympics as much as I had hoped. Therefore, there may be some information which I may miss today.

As promised, the updated complete Winter Olympian list is given at the end, but we’ll start with the Beijing results. This Outsports article lists all the lgbt medal winners. Team LGBT broke several records. It was the biggest ever team at the Winter Olympics and follows the trend shown in the summer games. However, in terms of total number of athletes who won medals Beijing ranks third with 15 (10 gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze), behind Turin 2006 (7 gold, 4 silver, 7 bronze) and Sochi 2014 (6 gold, 10 silver, 1 bronze). These numbers, however, include medals won by athletes who were not openly lgbt at the time. But Beijing did produce more lgbt Winter Olympic champions.

The table below gives the full Beijing results incorporated into the all-time rankings and top 8 finishers. The light blue sections indicate Olympians who won at least one medal and/or top 8 finish. The pale green N boxes indicate the positions of the Olympic debutantes. The = sign indicates that there may be Olympians from previous games who share the same results and ranking. Bear in mind that an Olympian who wins a medal may move down the ranks if other athletes win a higher, or more than one, medal.

Dutch speed skater Ireen Wüst consolidated her place as the most successful lgbt Olympian, and the most successful Dutch Olympian of all time. Ireen also became the first ever Olympian to win an individual gold medal in 5 successive Winter games. Her Beijing gold and bronze medals brings her total medal tally to 13, putting her in second place in the all-time most medalled Winter Olympian (she is 4th in terms of the number of gold medals, with the top 3 each having 8). With such a commanding lead it is very unlikely that she will be surpassed in the lgbt rankings in the foreseeable future (up to 2034), not unless another Michael Phelps or Ian Thorpe emerges to win multiple medals in one games. I don’t expect anyone will overtake Ireen Wüst in my lifetime.

On 4th February I mentioned that Angela Ruggiero was the first openly lgbt member of the International Olympic Committee and its Athlete’s Commission. Beijing could have seen the second, as Ireen Wüst was one of the candidates who put themselves forward for election to the two vacant seats. Unfortunately, she wasn’t elected.

For the first time there were openly lgbt flag bearers at the both the opening and closing ceremony. There have been other lgbt Olympians who had carried their national flags in previous games, but none of them were openly lgbt at the time (though I’m still trying to verify if Chris Witty was out when she carried the Stars and Stripes in Turin 2006). There has also been two flag bearers in one ceremony, but Beijing was the first time there has been one at each ceremony – Brittany Bowe at the opening, and Bruce Mouat at the closing.

The figure skating attracted the most controversy because of a failed drugs test. However, there was enough other notable facts that emerged from that competition. First of all, there was the largest contingent of openly lgbt skaters than ever before, a total of 7. This included the first known non-binary skater, Timothy LeDuc (though we don’t know for sure how all the previous lgbt skaters identified themselves). As has happened in previous sporting events, the lgbt media took it upon itself to police the words of commentators over the use of personal pronouns. In a democratic world only Timothy LeDuc has the right to decide what words were disrespectful.

Beijing provided us with the first lgbt Olympic champion in ice dance, gay Frenchman Guillaume Cizeron and his dance partner Gabriella Papadakis, In a competition full of queer elements Papadakis and Cizeron’s rhythm dance was heavily influenced by waacking, a form of street dance that originated in the Los Angeles gay and disco clubs of the 1970s. The queer theme was also present in the rhythm dance of the Canadian pairs skaters Piper Gilles and the openly gay Paul Poirier with their vivid orange “Rocketman” costumes and Elton John soundtrack.

Before we move on to other sports let’s return to the Russian skater at the centre of the drug controversy, 15-year old Kamila Valieva. This time we acknowledge concerns around her young age and the effect of competing at an Olympics. She’s not the only teenager to compete at the Olympics. Way back in 2016 I wrote about other teenage Olympians (which needs to be updated in the future). What doesn’t need updating is the age of the youngest ever lgbt Olympian (although he was never out publicly in his lifetime) the Slovak figure skater Ondrej Nepela who competed at the 1964 Winter Olympics a week after his 13th birthday.

Teenagers’ bodies are not fully developed and they are at a disadvantage when competing against older athletes, no matter how good they are. They are more suited to the Youth Olympics, where there is a more level field of competition. That is why the Youth Olympics were created.

Elsewhere in Beijing we saw another record broken in the women’s ice hockey tournament. The Canadian team had 7 openly lgbt players, the largest in any team sport at the Winter Olympics. By winning the gold medal they became the largest lgbt group in a team event to become Olympic champions. They also broke the record of scoring the most goals in an Olympic ice hockey tournament, and that was before they played their semi-final.

That’s all the information I was able to gather during my illness, but I hope it still shows you just how prominent lgbt athletes continue to be at the Olympics. So, to bring this year’s Olympic coverage to a close here is the updated complete list of lgbt Winter Olympians.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MSdscNsNIXJU50YkPfaD9b0G2iT_yuv1/view?usp=sharing

Two Winter Firsts

The Winter Olympics return today surrounded by covid restrictions and diplomatic boycotts. But, as with Tokyo 2020, we should make the most of it and enjoy the spectacle of an international multi-sport event. The list o f out athletes competing in Beijing can be found here.

Last week we looked at the earliest lgbt Olympians and medallists and left us all wondering who was first. However you look at it, the first lgbt Olympic medallists were George Mallory and John Morris in 1924 for their 1922 Everest expedition. Figure skater Geoffrey Hall-Say and real-tennis player Eustace Miles may have been earlier (both 1908) if their sexuality can definitively pinned down. At the moment the lawn tennis player Leif Rovsing is the person we can prove was the first lgbt Olympian (1912).

In the previous lists that I have published the first known lgbt Olympic competitor at the official winter games (i.e. after 1924) was figure skater Ronnie Robertson at the 1958 Olympics in Cortina d’Ampezzo. He is the first lgbt Winter Olympian to win a medal (bronze) during competition. Research I was able to concentrate on during the covid lockdown in 2020 revealed that there was an lgbt figure skater who competed at the previous Winter Olympics in Oslo in 1952.

The newly identified first Winter Olympic competitor is Peter Firstbrook (1933-1985). Peter came from that hotbed of modern lgbt skating, Toronto, Canada. A lot of Olympic skaters, past and present, have trained or coached in Toronto at some point. Both Peter’s father and grandfather were engineers. His grandfather also invented a table saw. However, his mother’s brother was Hubert Sprott, a Canadian national champion figure skater in the neglected discipline for fours – two pairs of skaters performing together.

A more detailed look at Peter Firstbrook’s life and career can be found here, but I’ll go over it briefly.

Peter entered his first national championship at the age of 14, competing in the junior pairs competition. He came third. From then on his rise in the national rankings in singles, pairs and fours rocketed. He represented Canada at the Winter Olympics in Oslo at the age of 18, finishing 5th. Gold went to the legendary Dick Button, who performed the first ever triple loop in competition.

Peter was being tipped as a future world and Olympic champion, but he decided to turn professional in 1953. He toured with several ice shows for five years before suffering an injury which stopped him from performing fully. So, he turned to training. Peter retired from skating and coaching to join an artistic commune in Mexico. He died there are the young age of 51 of pneumonia.

The first and only known lgbt member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was Angela Ruggiero (b.1980). Angela was an American ice hockey player who won one gold, two silvers and one bronze over four successive Olympics. Her first were in Nagano in 1998 while she was still a student and was the youngest person on her team. They won the gold medal in what was the first ever Olympic women’s ice hockey tournament. It is testament to Angela’s value to the team that at the 2002 Salt Lake City opening ceremony Team USA chose her as one of the eight American Olympians to act as honour guard to the tattered Stars and Stripes that was recovered from the ruins of the World Trade Centre after the terrorist attacks of the previous September (as seen below).

Angela’s final Olympic appearance as a competitor was in Vancouver 2010. During those games she was elected onto the IOC’s Athlete’s Commission. She appeared at the closing ceremony with the other newly elected member, UK’s Adam Pengelly, to present gifts to some of the games’ volunteers.

Members of the Athlete’s Commission are elected for an eight year term and are full members of the IOC during that time. Their duties include raising awareness of issues that effect athletes and advise on various related issues. Angela Ruggiero took a leading role in the commission and was elected as it’s Vice-Chair in 2014, and it’s Chair in the last four years of her term. During her final two years she was a member of the IOC’s Executive Board.

As well as being a member of the Athlete’s Commission Angela was a member of many others. Among them were the Co-ordination Commissions of the Lillehammer Youth Winter Olympics (2012-16) and the PyeongChang Winter Olympics (2012-18), and that of the current Beijing games. She has been a member of several Olympic Bid committees, and since leaving the Athlete’s Commission has become a member of the IOC’s Digital and Technology, Ethics, and Nomination commissions.

As a member of the IOC Angela was called upon to present medals at various ceremonies (London 2012 and Rio 2016), and has run in the torch relay three times (London 2012, Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018).

There’s no space to give justice to Angela’s full involvement in the Olympic movement and sports administration outside the Olympics. Her influence extends beyond 2022. In 2016 she was appointed as Chief Strategy Officer of the Los Angeles 2024 bid. This meant that as an IOC member she was ineligible to vote on who would by awarded the 2024 Olympics. In the end, this didn’t matter. As we know, there was only one other bid submitted, Paris, and no-one was showing any interest in bidding for 2028. So, between them, the LA and Paris Bid committees and the IOC decided to give the 2024 Olympics to Paris, and the 2028 Olympics to LA. Angela remained as Chief Strategy Officer until stepping down in 2020.

I had hoped to produce the full Winter Olympian list today. Unfortunately, I’ve been ill in the last few days and have been unable to complete it. It will produce it after the games have finished, when it will be have been fully updated with the Beijing results.

The other table that I can show you today is the current medal rankings of the Olympians who are returning to Beijing 2022. I’ll briefly go over the format. Athletes are list in order of rank. All placings up to eighth position are counted (these usually receive an Olympic finalist diploma). The WINTER rank gives that athlete’s position in the all-time Winter Olympic rankings only (any medals of placing achieved during a Summer Olympics are not counted). The FULL rank gives the athlete’s position when all summer and winter Olympics, and all lgbt Olympians are included. Bear in mind that there have been a substantially lower number of Winter Olympians (114, including Beijing 2022) than Summer Olympians (492 to date). Also bear in mind that this list does not include athletes making their debut in Beijing.

February Birthdays

 

Olympic Winter in Summer

The first covid lockdown gave me the chance to do a lot of new Olympic research. Last year I presented some of it for the Tokyo games, but there was so much more new information that I'm going to split the rest of it into two. Part one is given here, and the rest on February 4th. 

As with other recent Olympic Games I have again been collaborating with Outsports to provide the most complete list of lgbt athletes who will be competing in Beijing in a couple of weeks time. I’ll produce the full Winter Olympian list with the Beijing names on February 4th. To see the Beijing list as its updated, go to the Outsports website here.

Later I’ll look at the possibility that the first lgbt Olympians may have competed in 1908, predating the previously named athlete by twelve years. First I want to look at a centenary in lgbt Olympism – the first gold medallists. However, the medals weren’t actually awarded until two years later at the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, in 1924. At the 1894 Olympic Congress which founded the Olympic movement an Alpinism Prize was created. This was to be awarded for achievements in mountaineering in non-Olympic years and was first awarded at the Chamonix games.

The Alpinism Prize, consisting of gold medals, were awarded to the thirteen British and Australian members of the 1922 Everest Expedition, the first formed specifically with the aim of reaching the summit. The medals were presented at the Chamonix closing ceremony and were accepted by the deputy leader of the expedition, Lt.-Col. Edward Strutt. The Sherpas and guides were also awarded medals some years later. Even though the medals are often regarded as Olympic gold medals, the IOC doesn’t count them in their medal tables, but in my opinion, and in the opinion of others, their receipt of an Olympic gold medal qualifies their status as Olympic medallists.

Everest and the Rainbow Pride flag.

The most famous member of the 1922 expedition is George Mallory (1886-1924). He never got to see his medal. At the time they were being presented he was on his way back to the Himalayas on the Everest expedition on which he was to die. I wrote a little bit about Mallory several years ago here.

Even though there’s still debate about Mallory’s sexuality, there’s none about another member of the 1922 expedition, Maj. John Morris (1895-1980). He wrote about his sexuality in his memoirs. Morris’s role in the expedition was as transportation officer and interpreter, ensuring that all supplies and equipment were ordered and transported to the correct locations.

Morris joined another Everest expedition in 1936, once again as transportation officer and interpreter. His assistant was Tensing Norgay, the sherpa who successfully reached the summit of Everest in 1953 with Edmund Hillary.

After leaving the army in 1937 John Morris became a lecturer at several Japanese universities, but after Japan entered World War II Morris was repatriated to the UK. Almost immediately afterwards he joined the BBC Far Eastern Service working in the same office as the vehemently homophobic author George Orwell. After Orwell’s death Morris wrote of the constant homophobic abuse he received from him. From 1952 to 1957 Morris was appointed Controller of the BBC’s Third programme (now called Radio 3) the corporation’s channel dedicated to classical music.

At the moment, George Mallory and John Morris are the first known lgbt Olympians. But can we identify an lgbt Olympian before them who actually competed at the games? Research has come up with two possible names.

Before them I’II mention E. F. Benson (1867-1940). He is best known as a novelist and member of a remarkable queer family which I looked at briefly here. Benson was also an accomplished figure skater, competing for Great Britain in international competitions. In 1900 he became a member of the National Skating Association. Even though Chamonix 1924 is the first official Winter Olympics, several winter sports were included in previous summer games. In London in 1908 figure skating made its Olympic debut. Benson joined the organising committee with responsibility for figure skating. He also wrote several books on the subject.

Even though he wasn’t an athlete, E. F. Benson is the first known lgbt member of an organising committee (though not of a national Olympic committee – see below). His sexuality is well recorded, though two other men from London 1908 show how it is often difficult to ascertain a person’s sexuality from that period in time. Let me say from the start that we cannot claim that either of these men were gay or bisexual, only that there isn’t enough evidence to know beyond doubt.

The first was a close friend of Benson, Eustace Miles (1868-1948). He won a silver medal in jeu de paume (another name for real tennis, as opposed to lawn tennis) at the 1908 Olympics. He was the amateur world champion 8 times. He and Benson studied at Marlborough College where their friendship began. It is known that Benson had a huge crush on Eustace Miles, and some of Benson’s biographers suggest a physical relationship between them. Benson’s diaries and letters are too discreet to know for sure, and no-one has yet written a full biography of Miles. In 1906 Eustace Miles married Dorothy Killick. They had no children.

Miles and Benson wrote several books together on healthy diets, sport and exercise. Miles advocated what would today be considered fashionable but what was regarded as “fad diets” in his lifetime. These revolved around vegetarianism and no alcohol. He opened what was probably the first vegetarian restaurants and health food shops in Britain. Even though these were very successful his ideas soon went out of fashion and he went bankrupt.

What can we say about Eustace Miles’ sexuality? Here’s a quotation from “The Life of E. F. Benson” by Brian Masters (Chatto and Windus, 1991): “His [Benson’s] abiding friendship, however, one that survived all the trivial upheavals of romance, was with Eustace Miles… The attachment of Fred [E. F. Benson] and Eustace Miles bears all the marks of a mature and sensible alliance, based on more than physical beauty and the flutterings of a malleable heart.”

The second name to consider is Geoffrey Hall-Say (1964-1940). He won a bronze medal in the figure skating competition organised by E. F. Benson. At the age of 44 he is still the oldest person to win an individual Winter Olympic medal. Very little is known of his private life, though his sporting influence went beyond skating. He was a keen snooker player, a council member of the Billiards Control Club, a boxing administrator and a yacht racer. Hall-Say never married and lived for a time with other bachelors, and in the 1930s he moved to Brighton, a town known for its gay, drag subculture at the time.

Geoffrey Hall-Say’s private life is similar to that of many gay men of his time who lived in the closet. Much more research is needed to determine if he was also one. An irony is that his childhood home of Oakley Court in Berkshire will be familiar to many as Dr. Frank N. Furter’s castle in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.

The London 1908 Olympic competitor badge, which both Eustace Miles and Geoffrey Hall-Say would have worn.

Perhaps we’ll never discover the identity of the first lgbt Olympian. Too much secrecy surrounds the lives of people in those days. We can only speculate.

Even more recent research has uncovered the presence of an lgbt individual at the very first modern Olympics in 1896. He wasn’t an athlete, but the Chairman, later the President, of the German Empire National Olympic Committee. His name is Prince Aribert von Anhalt (1864-1933). He is the first known lgbt member of a national Olympic committee.

The prince’s homosexuality was hinted at in his lifetime, but later and modern historians claim that his marriage to Queen Victoria’s grand-daughter ended after he was found in bed with another man. I’ll write more about Prince Aribert in a future “Game of Gay Thrones” article.

Whatever contribution they have made to the Olympic Games, whether as an athlete, coach, committee member or judge, we can now say that there has been an lgbt presence at every Summer Olympic Games – except 1904.

On February 4th I’ll publish the full update list of lgbt Winter Olympians with some facts and figures. Among them will be the newly identified first lgbt Winter Olympic competitor (as opposed to mountaineers or the Summer Olympians discussed above) and the Winter Olympian who has had the biggest influence on the games.

January Birthdays

 

Advent 4: Christmas Travesti

Over the past three Sundays I’ve presented some results of research into Christmas gift-bringers and characters. I’ve shown how some of them have changed gender over the centuries, and that some of them have often been played in traditional customs and pageants by someone of the opposite gender.

The terms “cross-dressing” and “drag” have become too associated with expressions of gender and sexual identity. Today I’ll be using an additional term. In the performing arts the term “travesti” is used to describe the portrayal of a character by a person of the opposite biological gender, regardless of whether that person is lgbt or not (to confuse matters even further, I’ll not be using the term “travesti” as used in South America for transgender people).

As with a lot of things, travesti roles began in ancient times. Here we have to make another distinction. Historians and academics often give the impression that ancient communities never did anything that didn’t involve religion and worship. The buzz word “pagan” appears like a virus, spreading through research and literature to explain everything we don’t have evidence for. What very few historians mention is that some traditional customs could have originated because people just wanted to have fun and let their hair down. Children role-played for fun just as they do today. Fun and faith went alongside each other, just like our modern Christmas. The Roman festival of Saturnalia, often erroneously quoted as being the origin of Christmas, is an example. So little is known about Saturnalia that no-one knows what they did except have wild parties. Evidence does suggest, however, that role reversal took place, but none to suggest it involved cross-dressing.

Some activities in religious festivals seeped into secular life, and vice versa. Today it is often impossible to say which effected the other the most. As far as cross-dressing in concerned, many pre-Christian religions had male priests who wore female masks in some ceremonies. Female masks have been found in Greek temples dating to 5,000 years ago. They were also used in Greek theatre in both comedies and tragedies.

The early Christian Church frowned upon cross-dressing, teaching that it was immoral and antisocial. It even became illegal to cross-dress in public in many nations. However, if the person (a man) was doing so as part of a theatrical performance, it was okay. This explains why the Church accepted travesti roles in religious ceremony. During the Middle Ages processions and portrayals of Biblical stories were popular. They were a way for the Church to inform the ordinary people who couldn’t read about Bible stories. This gave rise to the Passion plays of Easter and the Mystery plays of Christmas. In both of these plays female roles were played by men, even the role of the Virgin Mary.

During the Middle Ages communities began to organise their own little celebrations. The Mystery plays evolved into community “mumming” plays in which comedy, parody and travesty were common. Celebrations were also often adapted from local folk customs. In central Europe many of these customs took place in winter around Christmas or the winter solstice. Christian elements were added to these customs, and celebrations of the arrival of St. Nicholas to distribute gifts on December 6th was among them. St. Nicholas didn’t become associated with Christmas or gift-bringing until the 12th century, so we can be sure that these new customs don’t date before that. There’s no written evidence for most of them until the 19th century. Last week I gave a few examples of these customs in which St. Nicholas’s wife is played by a man – like the Wiefke of the Klaasohm and the Nikolowiebl of the Buttnmandllauf customs. These were acceptable to Church, State and society because they were regarded as performance, not a life-style choice.

In several countries from the 17th century there are records of groups of men who gathered and cross-dressed in private clubs – the Molly houses of the UK, for example, and various bars in the USA. Some of these men performed (sing, dance, recite, play an instrument) for the amusement of the others. This is where modern drag originated.

An event in 19th century London about a couple of men renowned for cross-dressing on stage hit the headlines. Their names were Ernest Boulton (1847-1904) and Frederick Park (1847-1881). They have a kind of Christmas connection - Park was baptised on 5th January (Twelfth Night) 1847, probably being born around New Year’s Day, and Boulton was born on 18th December 1847 (his birthday was yesterday).

They performed under the stage names of Stella Graham and Fanny Park and became quite famous. They even had publicity photographs taken of them in their drag costumes. Sadly, because cross-dressing in public in England was illegal at the time the pair were arrested outside the Strand Theatre in London in 1870. This was, however, not the first time that they had appeared in public dressed as women. Both had appeared in court on previous occasions relating to their cross-dressing. They were put on trial for outraging public decency and sodomy. The public followed its progress closely and the courtroom was often overcrowded.

Their first trial dealt with the charge of sodomy. The prosecution insisted that the fact that Boulton and Park were homosexual (a new word at the time) “proved” they were guilty. Many witnesses gave damning evidence against them, though the judge criticised the means by which some of that evidence was gathered. The jury took less than an hour to find Boulton and Park not guilty. This caused great rejoicing in the courtroom and Boulton fainted. A few days later they pleaded guilty to the charge of outraging public decency, thus negating a trial for that offence, and they were bound over to “keep the peace” (a sort of probation) for two years against a fine of 500 guineas. Both returned to the stage and toured in England and the USA, though not together, and not very often in drag.

When Boulton and Park were performing British theatre was experiencing its heyday. It was the period when the modern tradition of British Christmas pantomime (nothing to do with miming) acquired its present form. Some of that tradition came down through the medieval mummers plays. It also evolved out of the Italian “commedia dell’arte” tradition which featured characters like Harlequin, Columbine and Pierrot. Add a big influence from Victorian Music Hall (burlesque) and you get the pantomime that the UK loves to this day.

What people love about pantomime is the comedy, the songs, the spectacle, the slapstick, and above all, the stories and characters. A good traditional pantomime usually has two leading travesti roles, one played by men, the other by a woman. The pantomime dame is the most important. This is always a man in drag, usually a well-known comedian, appearing in ever-increasingly outrageous or elaborate costumes. The travesti dame role first appears way back in 1731 in “Dick Whittington”, my favourite pantomime. Dame roles became more frequent and popular in the final days of Music Hall. Another feature is that the dame has pockets full of sweets and she regularly throws them into the audience, though this has no connection to the Christmas gift-giving of the characters in traditional customs.

Perhaps because of its outrageousness and opportunity to slip in many sexual innuendos the dame character has been played by many gay actors – Sir Ian McKellen, Douglas Byng, John Inman, Wayne Sleep, Danny la Rue, Stanley Baxter, Christopher Biggins, Jack Tripp, Paul O’Grady, the list is endless. Sometimes the dame is the villain, like the two Ugly Sisters in Cinderella.

The other travesti role in pantomime is that of the Principal Boy, always played by a woman. This character is often the hero of the pantomime – Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, Prince Charming, etc. In recent years, certainly since the 1960s, these roles have often been played by young men, usually the most famous pop star of the day.

So, there you have it. The pantomime dame is a descendant of the medieval Christmas processions and Mystery Plays in which the Virgin Mary was played by a man. The Mystery Plays evolved into mumming plays in which comedy and over-the-top characters helped to inspire the first British pantomimes and the dame.

Examples of travesti (left to right): Weifke (centre) in the Klaasohm custom; a publicity photo of Boulton (left) and Park (right); a typical British pantomime dame.

If we look at the history and development of Christmas and its many gift-bringers we find that there is no single influence or ancestor. What began as a Christian festival has lent its name to many celebrations, traditions and customs held during the Christmas season that have evolved over time. Just like our own family trees, many influences and many people and places have produced what we have today.

This is my final article of 2021. Thank you so much for being with me through this year, and I hope you’ll stay with me in 2022 when we’ll kick off with a list of January birthdays, and in mid-January look forward to the Beijing Winter Olympic and the newest list of lgbt Winter Olympians.

Have a very Merry Christmas and whatever festival and celebration you observe, and a Happy New Year.

Advent 3: Christmas Can Be a Bit of a Drag

The “family tree” of Christmas gift-bringers that I have been working on, and which I had hoped to present to you today, has proved so much of a tangled web that it is not ready. Perhaps next year?

If you’ve read the previous two Advent articles you’ll know just how much gender confusion there is around at Christmas. This is, as historians remind us, a hangover from non-Christian festivals from the past. I won’t label all of them as “pagan pre-Christian” because a lot of the traditions attributed to paganism were created relatively recently (e.g. the pagan Slavic gods have been proven to be 18th century inventions).

Gender reversal among traditional characters is a common element in many pre-modern customs, both religious and secular. The prominent feature is male-as-female transvestitism. There are, it should be emphasised, many, many traditional female Christmas gift-bringers and characters around the world. Although equally important as their male counterparts they have no gender-queer characteristic, except the ones I’ve mentioned in the previous two Sundays who were primarily transgender in essence – it is the character themselves that changed gender.

There are many regional, Christmas traditions and customs that include male-as-female cross-dressing. From my research I have been able to group them into three categories as follows.

1) The wife of St. Nicholas. We must distinguish St. Nicholas’s wife from the modern Mrs. Santa Claus as established in her present form by Katherine Lee Bates in 1889. The customs in the regions where St. Nicholas is given a wife have no connection to the American Santa Claus. In the article I wrote on Mrs.Claus several years ago I said that St. Nicholas wouldn’t have been given a wife because he was a Catholic bishop. Since then, I have been doing years of research and discovered current traditions where St. Nicholas has a wife in a supporting role. Here are some of them.

Last Sunday I mentioned that in Limburg, Belgium, an incarnation of the gift-bringer St. Barbara under the name of Sinte-Berb came to be regarded as St. Nicholas’s wife. There’s no indication, however, that she has ever been portrayed by a man in drag.

St. Nicholas’s wife appears most frequently in the Christmas customs of the Netherlands, Germany and eastern Europe, usually appearing on December 5th or 6th, St. Nicholas’s Eve and Day. In each case the character of St. Nicholas is portrayed as a medieval bishop similar to the Dutch Sinterklaas, and is most cases his wife is one of a group of companions, both demonic and good. The Nikoloweibl (Nicholas-wife) of the Buttnmandllauf custom of southern Bavaria is one of the good companions, often carrying a basket of sweets to give to children. This custom involves St. Nicholas, Nikiloweibl, an angel and demonic straw men parading through the local villages. They visit people’s homes, perform songs or play pranks, and receive gifts before moving on to the next house. At one time Nikoloweibl was always played by a young man. Today he is often played by a teenage boy in drag, but young women have been welcomed as the saintly wife in some areas since the 1950s. In other areas Nikoloweibl has been dropped in favour of a larger role for the angel, always played by a girl.

Perhaps the most unusual, not to say fun, drag wife of St. Nicholas is Wiefke in the Klaasohm celebrations on the Frisian island of Borkum. Klaasohm means “Uncle Claus” and occurs on December 5th. A group of seven young unmarried male villagers dress in costumes with exaggerated masks, each representing a caricature of St. Nicholas, hence the name. A boy dressed as Wiefke accompanies the senior Klaasohm as the group parade through the village, just like Nikolowiebl does in Bavaria. What distinguishes the Klaasohm custom from all the others is the climax to their parade. The villagers gather in the village square as the Klaasohm and Wiefke climb onto a brick pillar. What they do next is….. well, I’ll let you see for yourself. Here’s a video of the climax to the 2016 “Klaasohmfest”. Wiefke is the character dressed in red.

2) Witches and “perchten”. These are actually two different groups of characters but they share a lot of characteristics and are often interchangeable in some times and places. Perchten is a term used for both good and demonic characters of any gender in traditional winter customs. The term may be related to Frau Perchta, the name of a female deity from ancient folklore who evolved into a child-belly-slitting boogey-woman appearing on Twelfth Night (January 5th).

One perchten-type character based on someone we met last week is the Lucky or Luken of Bohemia and the modern Czech Republic. These female characters are an amalgamation of St. Lucy with St. Barbara, “ancestor” of the veiled Barborka brides played by men in Poland. Once again, tradition says that the Lucky should be played by a man. The Lucky, up to six in number, have different appearances depending on which part of central Europe they occur. Some have white-painted faces, some have long beaked masks. What they have in common are white robes and a broom with which they sweep their way through the streets and into houses. The earliest records of the Lucky, however, describe these women as belly-slitting boogey-women like Frau Perchta.

The sweeping of streets is also a frequent activity in other Christmas traditions. In the town of Rauris near Salzburg, Austria, you can encounter the Schnabelperchten. This is a group of men dressed as peasant women with beak masks and brooms like the Lucky. On Twelfth Night they sweep their way through the houses of the town making bird-like “caw caw” sounds.

Some of the female Christmas characters are more like traditional witches than human-bird hybrids. It is no surprise that these witch characters are perfect for men to portray. In the Trestern custom of Pinzgau, also in the Salzburg area, is a character called Hex. This is a witch who also sweeps her way through houses like her Schnabelperchten neighbour, which makes me think the two characters have a common origin. Nowadays the Hex is often played by someone wearing a Hallowe’en witch mask though originally it was man with witch make-up.

3) General female characterisations. This category includes human, non-demonic female characters. Perhaps the most famous of these is La Befana, one of the principal Christmas gift-bringers in Italy, and yet another character who carries a broom. She could be included in the previous category if it wasn’t for her origin. She is generally depicted as a stereotypical witch today, but originally La Befana (who first appears in the 1500s) was just an old woman. There isn’t much evidence to suggest that she was often played by a man in traditional celebrations, but a modern portrayal of her is worth a mention.

For the past few years on January 6th Venice has held a very special gondola race. It’s part of the Regatta della Befana. Dozens of gondoliers dress up as La Befana and race along the Grand Canal. The winner is the first to grab a sock dangling from the Rialto Bridge full of Christmas goodies. It sounds like great fun, certainly more fun than the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in the UK.

There are quite a few female characters that are more “normal”. As well as Hex in the Pinzgau Trestern there is Lap and Lappin, a married couple, both played by men. Sadly, they have traditionally been played as a couple with intellectual disabilities, and Lappin is always portrayed as pregnant.

Among other female characters in traditional Christmas customs played by men are: Zusslweibl in the Klöpfeln custom from the Italian Alps, appearing on the three Thursdays before Christmas; Jumpfere the virgin in the Bärzeli-Buebe custom of the Hallwil in Switzerland (also home of the Wienachts-Chindli I mentioned last Sunday), appearing on January 2nd; and the Huttfroueli, an old woman who appears in several local customs in the Alps, appearing between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

One final entry into this group is another Alpine character. In various Swiss towns on either New Year’s Eve or January 13th groups of men dress up as various characters, the Silvesterklaus. They go from house to house, singing, yodelling and wishing everyone a Happy New Year. Among the Silvesterklaus is a character played by men, the Schöne. The name means “beautiful”, and the men put on traditional female Swiss costumes and wear masks of a young woman’s face with a large, elaborate, and very heavy headdress.

But what about women dressing as male characters? While the majority of the cross-dressing roles have been men in drag there have been a few instances in modern times of women playing male roles. As mentioned above and last week, the instances of women playing the Christkind came about because the gender of the character itself changed from male to female. Instances of women playing male characters have increased in recent years, particularly as one of the most controversial Christmas character of our time, Zwarte Piet.

Discussing and analysing the racism attributed to Zwarte Piet, the black-faced companion of Sinterklaas, is outside the scope of this blog. What these accusations, modern interpretations of race that have no relation to the historical development of the character, have forced the Dutch to question Piet’s inclusion in Christmas festivities. In a lot of places a compromise has taken place. Instead of Piet appearing in black face he has begun to appear in red-face, green-face, blue-face, and any other colour. At the same time more women are playing Piet, and the traditional male name and gender of the character is generally retained. A similar change is beginning to occur in portrayals of the demonic Krampus. With the increase in the worldwide appeal of the character more women are beginning to dress up as a new character, a female Krampus, in traditional European festivals. Krampus has always been regarded as a male demon. Both the Krampus and Piet are instances of a traditional character evolving before our very eyes.

Who knows which of the Christmas characters we love today will remain the same in a hundred years. Who knows what influences will change them, and who knows which new characters will appear as a result. Will the current cultural climate of increasing recognition of gender diversity and racial representation have any effect?

But, let’s go back to antiquity next week and look at the history and development of the tradition of men playing women in festivals and theatre to see why this is so, and look at the version that is hugely popular in the UK at Christmas time.