80 Gays Around the World: Part 9) Pride and Prejudice in Moscow

Last time: The eccentricities of 29) Caligula (12-41 AD) led to the posthumous removal of his image from statues, the modern equivalent being removed from photographs like 30) Nikolai Yezhov (1895-1940), a Soviet official who had an affair with 31) Filipp Goloshchyokin (1876-1941), the man who organised the assassination of the Romanovs, though one who was assassinated earlier was 32) Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov (1857-1905).

Before the well-known Russian Revolution of 1917 there was the Russian Revolution of 1905. 32) Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov (1857-1905) was one of its most prominent victims.

The causes of the 1905 revolution were the same as those in 1917. Attempts to modernise and industrialise the Russian empire only led to the peasant class moving into urban areas for work, and workers’ rights was the most widespread reason for protests.

In January 1905 workers marched through St. Petersburg to the tsar’s palace to hand in a petition calling for more workers’ rights. Troops were instructed to keep the peaceful protestors out of the city centre. For some reason, troops began shooting at them and several hundred protestors (the actual number is debated even today) were killed. The event is known as “Bloody Sunday” and is regarded by many historians as the start of the 1905 revolution.

As a nephew of the Tsar, Grand Duke Sergei received high political office. He was appointed Governor General of Moscow in 1891 and although he was a great philanthropist and supporter of various charitable causes the same cannot be said about his politics. He wasn’t a great politician. By the time of the Bloody Sunday massacre he had resigned the governorship, but he knew that as part of the regime that was creating the problems he knew he was a likely target for assassination.

In February Sergei went to a concert at the Bolshoi Theatre. There an assassin awaited him, but when the assassin saw that Sergei’s wife and children were with him, his attempt was abandoned.

The Grand Duke’s wife was Princess Elizabeth von Hessen (1864-1918), a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria and the sister of the founder of the Mountbatten family. Despite having very happy marriage and fathering children, rumours of Sergei’s homosexuality were common during his lifetime. It’s difficult to find firm evidence for this one way or the other but it has been a subject of discussion in several historical books and biographies about the period for it to be ignored. Sergei’s supposed homosexuality was never publicly acknowledged. At that time it would have been difficult for him to admit to it, being a devout Roman Catholic, and with the pressures of being a member of the Imperial family and the scandal it would have caused at the time.

We can understand why Sergei could have felt entrapped by his homosexuality, if he was homosexual or bisexual. The growth of the Socialist and Communist movements in his lifetime were very vocally homophobic. Almost the entire history of Russia since then has been anti-gay. The old homophobic Communist laws that were removed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 came back with the election of an ex-Soviet KGB agent as its current President. He began re-introducing the Communist laws punishing homosexuality from 2010 onwards.

Two days after the aborted assassination attempt, the assassin saw his opportunity again. He spotted Sergei’s open carriage taking him to his former governor’s office. He threw his bomb straight into Sergei’s lap and it exploded instantly. The Grand Duke was literally blown to bits, the carriage driver was mortally wounded, and the assassin severely injured.

I mentioned in my “Pride Tops” and “Pride Bottoms” lists that Pride marches were banned in Moscow for a hundred years in 2012. Moscow has got the closest Russia has got to any form of annual physical Pride march.

The first Moscow Pride was held on 27 May 2006. The city council banned it but it took place anyway. It drew a number of high profile international activists, including Oscar Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland. The march was marred by violence and arrests and was eventually broken up by the police.

Successive Moscow Pride marches were similarly banned (except in 2009 when it served as Slavic Pride). In June 2012 all Pride marches in Moscow were banned for 100 years. The last one before the ban was on 28 May 2011. This also attracted international activists, including Dan Choi, Andy Thayer, and 32) Louis-Georges Tin (b.1974) who were all taken into police custody and later released.

Louis-Georges Tin may not be a name you’re familiar with, but I’m sure you know what his contribution to the global lgbt community is. He founded what is now called the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT). The original name was simply International Day Against Homophobia. Transphobia was added in 2009, and Biphobia in 2015.

Tin was born on the French Caribbean island of Martinique. He began his anti-racist and lgbt activism whilst at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.

There’s few details online about the precise timeline of events that led to the formation of IDAHOBIT, but it’s clear that by 2004 Louis-Georges Tin had organised a campaign to create a special day for victims of homophobia and abuse every 17th May.

But why did he choose 17th May? On that date in 1990, the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from its International Classification of Diseases. Although not universally supported, IDAHOBIT has been officially recognised and continues to be promoted by many governments around the world.

Long before scientists accepted that homosexuality was as normal as heterosexuality they classed it as a mental illness or a disease. The famous psychologist Sigmund Freud regarded homosexuality as a type of paranoia. One of the leading figures in persuading medical science that homosexuality was not an illness or disease was a gay psychiatrist called 34) Dr. John E. Fryer (1936-2003).

In 1972, Fryer attended a convention of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in Dallas. His purpose was to give a speech calling for the declassification of homosexuality as a mental illness as labelled in the APA’s “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”. However, in making the speech Fryer had to publicly declare his own homosexuality, and in doing so was afraid of how this would affect his professional career and medical license. Therefore he made his speech in disguise, wearing a large wig, rubber mask, oversized clothing, and using the pseudonym of Dr. H. Anonymous.

There had been calls for the declassification of homosexuality before, but Fryer made the right speech at the right time. The APA removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses the following year. For this speech Dr. John Fryer has earned his place in American lgbt history as one of its leading champions who paved the way for the World Health Organisation to follow in 1990. It’s undoubtedly the only thing Fryer will be remembered for, but like everyone else, he had a life outside his activism.

John Fryer was also an accomplished pipe organ player and choirmaster. As a youngster he leatnt how to play the piano and he quickly progressed to the pipe organ. Believe me, I’ve did both in my local Methodist church when I was younger, and they are different instruments requiring different playing techniques. Wherever Fryer lived he offered his services as an organ player. During his tenure at Temple University in Philadelphia, he played the organ for their graduation ceremonies.

He was also the choirmaster at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. No doubt he played their pipe organ as well. Sadly, the church closed in 2007, but the organ was saved and is now located in Old St. Joseph’s Church nearer the city centre.

As for the rest of the property, the building was sold to the Waldorf School, who still own it. The stained glass windows, which John Fryer would have seen every time he stepped into the church, went elsewhere, including one of only three surviving windows designed by 35) Violet Oakley (1874-1961).

Next time: We rest in piece among some musical lgbt icons and find unexpected objects in the rain.

Pride Tops

Now that you’ve digested yesterday’s Pride criteria points let’s get down to the nitty gritty and see which Prides are held nearer to the North Pole than any others.

I should point out that there is also an annual Polar Pride. This is held by people working in research bases in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. It’s not really a public celebration, but neither is it a commercial one. However, Polar Pride feels very much like a regional Pride, and it is an important celebration of lgbt inclusion in sciences. I have had difficulty placing it comfortably in any of my criteria points. I will cover it in more detail on the next Polar Pride on 18th November when I hope to have come to a solution.

The map above shows the locations of the following 5 Prides. Bear in mind that they are not measured in distances from the bottom of the map, but in distances between the North Pole and the Arctic Circle.

I’m sure you know what the Arctic Circle is, but it might help if I explain what it is in case you’re not sure.

Its all due to the tilt of the Earth as is spins. The tilt never changes – the Earth does not always point towards the Sun. The illustration below explains it best. The Arctic Circle is an imaginary line that is a little over 66° north of the equator. You can see that above the Arctic Circle the Sun shines 24 hours a day in the summer because all of that area of the Earth is tilted towards it. That’s why the area is called the Land of the Midnight Sun. And in the northern hemisphere winter you don’t see the Sun at all because it’s tilted away.

Let’s get on with listing the top 5 northern Prides. If you ever lower yourself and consult Google’s AI (which unfortunately I had to do to ensure I looked at all sources available), none of these locations will be mentioned. Hopefully, after I publish this, AI will finally get it right. As I’ve said since AI was invented, Artificial Intelligence is for people who have none of their own or too last to do any research. So, let’s discover the truth about the top 5 northernmost Prides in reverse order.

5) BARENTS PRIDE, KIRKENES, Norway – 69° 43' N

There can’t be many places where a city’s Pride is always held in a totally different country. Barents Pride may be the only one.

The inaugural Barents Pride, held in Finland near the Russian border, was in 2018. Even though it doesn’t comply with the criteria that Prides arranged due to a specific event after 2000 would not be considered, it’s included because of its continuity and current compliance with at least 3 other points.

Barents Pride was formed in response to the homophobic laws being introduced into Russia from 2010 onwards. The Russian lgbt community was sparked into action, but the anti-gay laws meant that protest was illegal and all participants could be arrested. This included the lgbt community in the Russian city of Murmansk (68° 58' N).

All was not lost, because across the border in the Finnish city of Kirkenes just over146 km (90 miles) away activists were organising protests that were legal. Activists from both cities joined together to create the first Barents Pride in Kirkenes, named after the Barents Sea which is the part of the Arctic Ocean that forms their joint coastline.

Of course, the Murmansk activists cannot make themselves known publicly for fear of arrest, so they tend not to advertise their presence at Barents Pride except to the Kirkenes lgbt community. Lgbt attendees from other Russian cities have also attended.

This year’s Barents Pride continues to serve as Kirkenes Pride and unofficial Murmasnk Pride and will take place in late September.

4) SÁPMI PRIDE, UTSJOKI, Finland – 69° 54' N

Europe is home to several multi-national Prides (I will cover these in more detail next year). The northernmost of these is Sápmi Pride, held in the northern regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland in the region called Samiland, the general area popularly known as Lapland. This area is the home to the ethnic people called the Sámi.

Sápmi Pride began in 2014 in Sweden and is held in a different location every year in one of the three above-mentioned countries. Sadly it cannot be held in the Sámi region of Russia because of the country’s anti-gay laws.

In 2020 Sápmi Pride was due to be held in Utsjoki, Finland, the furthest north that it been held. I’m sure you’ll know why it was cancelled (covid, of course). However, like the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Sápmi Pride in Utsjoki was just postponed for a year and was held in 2021 between 5 and 8 August.

This year’s Sápmi Pride also takes place in Finland in Inari (68° 54' N) on 8 August.

3) ALTA PRIDE, Norway – 69° 58' N

Alta was the first location north of the Arctic Circle to have a Pride. The current Alta Pride committee is apparently unaware of that their first Pride was held in 2010.

The first Alta Pride that is currently recognised by the committee took place from 25 to 28 August 2022, though there were a variety of lgbt events taking place the year before. The reason why I know about the 2010 Pride is because I made notes of media reports of it in my archives when it happened.

It has been common throughout history for younger generations to assume they are the first to do or think of anything important or new, like organising Pride. There may not have been any research done, or no contact with older generations who experienced such events. Although their intensions may be praised, younger generations have to learn that many people who were born before them are still alive and much can be learned from these older generations. Just because youngsters have left school, college or university it doesn’t mean they know everything. Sadly, they think they do, and it happens too often and youngsters are spreading a distorted view of history (“presentism” is mainly to blame, but my rant can wait for another day!).

I have to credit Alta with what history and what contemporary media reported, copied into my archives at the time, and say that the first Alta Pride was in 2010. This year’s Alta Pride will be from 20-23 August.

2) HAMMERFEST PRIDE, Norway – 70° 96' N.

The northernmost Pride on continental Europe. This is not a stand-along event like most Prides but is part of annual cultural festival held in the town of Hammerfest called Hammerfestendagen (Hammerfest Days). The festival usually lasts for a couple weeks and Hammerfest Pride is just one event among many. This year’s Hammerfestendagen is from 13-19 July.

Even though Hammerfest Pride is not a stand-along event it does have its own independent organising committee, programme of events and march. This year, their Pride march will take place on 16 July.

And the current record for being the location of the northernmost Pride on the entire planet goes to…

1) LONGYEARBYEN PRIDE, Svalbard, Norway – 78° 13' N.

Possibly also the remotest Pride in the northern hemisphere, furthest from any other human habitation. Longyearbyen is the main town on the Norwegian island of Svalbard almost 800 km (nearly 500 miles) from the northernmost point of continental Europe. It has a population of around 2,500.

The first Longyearbyen Pride was held on 17 August 2019 and was organised by Svalbard native Lene Leanette Dyngeland (b.1967). It has been held every year since including 2020. Svalbard is such a remote island that there was little chance of covid ever reaching it. This year’s Longyearbyen Pride will be on the last weekend in August.

The nearest other Pride to Longyearbyen is the above-mentioned Hammerfest Pride 870 km (540 miles) away.

So congratulations to the inhabitants of Svalbard and Longyearbyen. It is very unlikely that their record will ever be broken unless one of the very few towns in the northern part of Svalbard has its own Pride. The only other settlements further north are in Greenland, Canada and homophobic Russia, and it doesn’t look like any of them with be hosting a Pride any time soon. Don’t forget what I said above about Polar Pride. Some of their events may take place further north, but they are not really public in the strictest sense. More about that in November.

Tomorrow we’ll go as for away from Longyearbyar as possible when it comes to celebrating Pride and look at which five are the southernmost and nearest to the South Pole, as well as some honourable mentions.

Pride Tops and Bottoms

As the USA comes to the end of its Pride Month let’s look at some of the locations around the world that have held notable Pride events.

A couple of years ago I made lists of some of the first Prides and highest Prides. Since then there have been many hundreds of new Prides. Over the next three days I’ll give specific lists of the northernmost and southernmost Prides – the top and bottom of Pride, you could say.

There’s no universal definition of a Pride. The list below is purely my own choice of defining criteria compiled to help me to decide which Prides I could consider. It’s not intended as a universally accepted list.

I wanted to keep the list as simple as possible, but the more I thought about it the more points I came up with. I have considered as many variations of Pride that I can to ensure that no Pride is left out. However, there are some Prides which I think should not be included, and these are explained in the list.

In regions where homosexuality is illegal and Prides have been known to take place in secret in the past, they do not need to comply with any of the following criteria.

I realise that a lot of these points will be unnecessarily detailed, but they helped to organise my mind even if they confuse yours. So sorry if you think this list is a mess. Ideally, I think a Pride should try to include at least three points between 1 and 10.

1) It does not need to have the word “Pride” in its name. The event should ideally include the word Pride (or its equivalent in non-English languages) in its promotional material or make it clear that it can be referred to as a Pride.

2) The Pride must promote lgbt diversity, inclusion, acceptance and respect as its main objective. Protests can occur and be used as the central themes, but other issues must be included in the official programme. The organising committee should avoid making exclusions to any event based on politics, religion, or opposing views as much as possible, except when public safety to attendees, spectators, the public, or protestors could be at risk. The Pride must be non-violent.

3) Continuity over the years is not essential, though events can be regarded retrospectively as Pride by later Pride committees. See also point 5.

4) A Pride should be held only once in any calendar year (see points 9 and 10 for possible exceptions). Promotional and fund-raising events for Pride will not be considered.

6) The Pride must be advertised publicly giving its name, dates or full range of dates, and principal venues or focal point (e.g. for the march).

6) It should have an organising committee of three members or more, preferably volunteers. Historic inaugural Prides may not have had three committee members, and these will be considered if they complied with other points.

7) There should be a central public focal point accessible to all participants, whether in the open air or an indoor venue (excluding private residences). It may need to restrict the number of attendees due to limitations of space or safety requirements. For larger Prides there can be other content such as entertainment, food and drink venues, and a market which includes charity and community stalls. A festival of a variety of artistic events can also be organised or sanctioned by the Pride committee.

8) Any march or parade must be through public areas and open to all, free of charge, and non-violent, consisting of local lgbt communities and groups, and participants of diverse identities, political beliefs and opinions. This includes any planned march that is banned or cancelled. Exclusions should be avoided, except when public safety to attendees, spectators, the public, or protestors could be at risk.

9) A Pride can celebrate a specific identity (e.g. Transgender Pride, Black Pride, Leather Pride, etc.), but must welcome those who do not identify as members of that group as well as the public. These should take place on a different date or venue to any other Pride held in the same location, unless when held as a single joint event by their separate organising committees.

10) An official national, regional, provincial, or state Pride can take place simultaneously in difference cities, towns and locations. Each Pride must be officially publicised as being part of the regional Pride. Each location will be treated separately for the purpose of determining the geographical range of the regional Pride. Other Prides held on the same date but not connected to the regional Pride will be considered separately.

Finally, if the next point applies to any event that calls itself a Pride, it will not be considered for the time being (any exceptions are given).

11) The Pride event should not be organised for profit by an independent commercial business or company (e.g. Disney Gay days). Some Winter Prides held at ski resorts will only be considered if the Pride has not been organised by the ski resort itself. Pride events held by organisations, companies, charities, and businesses for their employees will not be considered, but they can be represented at Pride events. They can take part in the march, or have a market stall, but they must not be there to sell any of their products. There presence must only be to support the lgbt community (free handouts are usually welcome). Alternative Prides, held in direct competition to established Prides, will also not be considered for the time being.

These points cover most of what I think a Pride can be. They are not official and subject to constant revision, so if you know of a Pride that doesn’t meet at least three of points 1-10 but which obviously qualifies, make a comment below and I will amend the list after I’ve collected evidence of its eligibility should anyone question its inclusion in the future.

That’s enough of the boring bits. Tomorrow I’ll tell you what you really want to know, beginning with the TOP 5 northern Prides. The day after that I’ll list the BOTTOM 5 southern Prides.

Until then, the map below shows you the latitudes marked with a red line showing where those 10 listed Prides are located.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 10) Turning the Page

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 24) John Menlove Edwards (1910-1958) was a pioneering climber, as is 25) Alex Johnson (b.1989) who trained for the Olympics, which had first awarded gold medals in climbing (in the form of mountaineering) in 1924 to 26) George Mallory (1886-1924) and his team for attempting to climb Everest, still a popular challenge, achieved by 27) Silvia Vasquez-Lavado (b.1974), the first openly lesbian climber to complete the Seven Summits, which she did as a healing process for the sexual abuse she received as a child, as did author 28) Dorothy Allison (b.1949).

28) Dorothy Allison addressed her experiences of child abuse from her stepfather in much of her writing. Other social issues often associated with such abuse – poverty, working class background and unemployment – are also addressed. Her first full-length novel, “Bastard Out of Carolina”, published in 1992, is seen as being semi-autobiographical.

Dorothy’s rise from childhood poverty and abuse has been an inspiration to some women. She was the first member of her family to graduate from high school. She then went on to graduate from The New School in New York City with an MA in urban anthropology.

It was her involvement with a group of militant feminists while at college in the 1970s that Dorothy was encouraged to write. She had always made up stories as a form of escape but now her feminism began to influence what she wrote. On the activist side Dorothy was involved in the Barnard Conference on Sexuality, an event about which I wrote briefly in this article in relation to Gayle Rubin’s contribution to what became known as the Feminist Sex Wars (Gayle Rubin was number 14 in my previous 80 Gays series).

Dorothy Allison’s first published work, “The Women Who Hate Me: Poems by Dorothy Allison”, appeared in 1982. This was followed in 1988 with “Trash: Short Stories”. This was to be the first of Dorothy’s works to win a Lambda Literary Award. In fact, it won two – one for Best Lesbian Fiction, and one for Best Lesbian Small Press Book.

These were two of categories of the very first Lambda Literary Awards held in 1989 for new lgbt literature. The awards were born out of the growing amount of lgbt literature that had been published in the USA since the 1970s. This went in hand with the growth in the number of lgbt bookshops. One of these gave its name to the awards, the Lambda Rising bookstore in Washington DC, founded by 29) L. Page “Deacon” Maccubbin in 1974.

An activist since the early 1970s Deacon Maccubbin became a successful businessman with a small chain of his Lambda Rising bookstores in various cities. The name was influenced by the popularity of the Greek letter lambda as a symbol of gay activism at the time (before the pink triangle became widely used). By 1987 there was enough lgbt literature being published that Deacon used his knowledge of the industry to publish “Lambda Book Report”, a bi-monthly review. This led to him creating the Lambda Literary Awards in 1989.

In 2003 Deacon helped to save the first lgbt bookstore in the USA from closure. This was the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York. It had acquired something of a legendary status in the city’s gay community from the moment it opened. When Deacon purchased the bookshop it had already been passed from one owner to another for several years and was in danger of closing down for good. Deacon sold the bookshop in 2006 at a time when there was a downturn in lgbt bookshops nationwide, hampered by the growth of online selling and lgbt books being stocked in mainstream stores. The Oscar Wilde Bookshop finally closed in 2009.

The Oscar Wilde Bookshop was opened on 24th November 1967 as the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. It was the brainchild of Craig Rodwell (1940-1993). In 1992 Craig was awarded a Lambda Literary Award for his services to the lgbt publishing. In 1973 the bookshop moved from its original location to Christopher Street, where Craig had an apartment and where the Stonewall Inn is located.

Craig Rodwell was one of the leading protestors at the Stonewall Riots of 1969 and he later persuaded a cross-nation organisation of gay rights groups to hold the first modern Pride march, the Christopher Street Liberation (or Gay Freedom) Day march, to mark the riots first anniversary. I haven’t included Craig Rodwell in the numbered sequence of “80 More Gays” because I want to include another activist from that time, and I intend to write more about him and the creation of Pride in June.

Other organisers of the first Christopher Street Liberation Day march, who met in Craig Rodwell apartment on Christopher Street itself, was 30) Ellen Broidy (b.1946). She worked in the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in its original location while she was studying at New York University a short distance away. Ellen was also an activist. She set up a Student Homophile League at college, and was a member of the Gay Liberation Front and the Lavender Menace.

Many lesbians joined gay rights and feminist groups in the 1960s and 1970s. Soon many of them realised that lesbian issues were either being ignored or opposed by those groups. One group in particular, the National Organisation for Women (NOW), was critical of any attempt to include lesbian issues. The NOW president went so far as to label lesbians as a “lavender menace”. This was to spark the creation of a new activist group which took its name from that insult. Ellen Broidy was one of the women of Lavender Menace who announced themselves in spectacular fashion at NOW’s second Congress to Unite Women on 1st May 1970.

Just as the first session of the congress was about to begin the lights in the auditorium went out. Thirty seconds later they came back on again, and standing across the front of the stage and in the aisles were 19 women wearing t-shirts which bore the words “Lavender Menace”. Ellen Broidy was one of them. So, too was Rita Mae Brown, who was featured in my original 80 Gays series (as number 57). Rather than being removed by security guards the women managed to turn the session into a discussion on lesbianism and heterosexism. They were helped in that the chair of that session was in on the act, as was the woman operating the lights.


One of the few remaining original t-shirts worn by members of the Lavender Menace when they protested at the Congress to Unite Women. This one belonged to Martha Shelley and was donated to the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 2014.

Not long after this Lavender Menace changed it’s named to Radicalesbians. The group fell victim to a common problem among many of the early lgbt activist groups – some members want to be more radical and political and others don’t. Splinter groups were often formed and eventually they all lost their support. The Radicalesbians disbanded in 1971.

NOW, however, has continued. Even in the 1970s lesbians who belonged to Lavender Menace and the Gay Liberation Front also belonged to NOW and were active in promoting lesbian involvement. One of the leading members of NOW who left the Radicalesbians to form other groups was 31) Barbara Love (b.1937).

Next time on “80 More Gays”: Things go swimmingly, particularly in Helsinki and Melbourne but not in Vietnam, as we go from lgbt activism to anti-war protest.

Stonewall 50: Reclaiming Our History

The 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots is being commemorated across the USA this weekend. Pride of place is going to the Stonewall Inn itself and New York Pride which this year has been appointed World Pride.

Even though the Stonewall Riots were a significant event in the history of the lgbt community in the USA it wasn’t the first and only event to make a difference, and here in the UK it made little difference at all, not directly. On both sides of the Atlantic there were gay rights groups already in existence. Stonewall sparked a movement that became the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), and it was the publicity and militant action of the GLF that inspired a worldwide movement. It is the GLF who kept the Stonewall Riots in the minds of campaigners and the public, to the virtual exclusion of the other riots and homophobic attacks that had occurred before and after 1969. Thanks to the efforts of the GLF the legacy of Stonewall has dominated lgbt rights since 1969.

The biggest legacy of the GLF was the Pride march, a version of the many other protest marches that have been around for centuries.

If I’ve learnt anything by researching history it’s not to believe everything people tell you. As a schoolboy in the years around 1969 I was taught the standard Victorian view of British history. I was taught that Kings Richard the Lionheart and Henry VIII were good kings. I was taught that Florence Nightingale was a pioneer in nursing. I was taught that the British Empire was the most beneficial empire the world had ever seen (not unlike Trump’s distorted view of his USA). None of it was strictly true.

The Stonewall Riots have become a sacred event with only one interpretation that is deemed acceptable. That is not how history should be written, however much we dislike the facts. It is a fact that one section of the lgbt community was NOT more responsible for the events of 28th June 1969 than any other, despite the insistence of some that they were so. The phrase “who threw the first brick” is often claimed to have originated from the events of Stonewall, yet the phrase had been in use in the UK since long before the Suffragette movements of a century ago. And Stonewall wasn’t the big news that sent a shockwave across the world or America. It gained little attention outside the east coast of America. It is only the actions of the GLF that promoted the riots over those that had occurred many times before across the nation.

Social media and the internet is a curse as much as a blessing when it comes to informing people of their heritage. In the 50 years since the Stonewall Riots a lot of misinformation and urban myths have built up around them, some based on misinterpretation of media reports or on the personal testimony of one person who was present that only gives one perspective. Even the word Riots is been challenged by people who were there. If the lgbt community expects some respect then it should not falsify its history to score points against homophobia. Can we even trust ourselves if we lie?

In the past couple of years historians have been looking afain at Stonewall and have been trying to sift through every scrap of information to come up with a more complete picture of the events and immediate impact of 28th June 1969 and the few nights that followed.

On this 50th anniversary I believe we must begin to put more emphasis on the facts, implications and legacy of the Stonewall Riots instead of concentrating on one aspect or person. We need to get to the root of the myths and weed out the ones that have no basis. There is always a place for urban myth in society – it illustrates the attitudes, fears and perspectives of different groups in any society at a given period. But society has to be aware what is urban myth and what isn’t. So, now is the time to start to establish a definitive narrative of the Stonewall Riots before it is swamped in those myths.

Several weeks ago, as I was fact-checking the final draft of this article, I came across a YouTube video produced by the New York Times which covered exactly the same points as I had written. It put across my point about being true to our heritage far more eloquently than I did. In the end I decided that the video was much more suited to today than my intended article, so the video is shown below.

One point to correct in the video is the fact that the first march to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots were held in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles on 28th June 1970. This is not true. As I have proved in my article “Pride Cities” the first was held in Chicago the day before on 27th June. Chicago was also the first city to use the word “Pride” for their march – New York didn’t use it until 1971. This is an example of the way an urban myth can begin, with someone making a claim that isn’t backed up by fact which becomes accepted as such.

The Forgotten Victims of Franco

Eighty years ago this month the Spanish Civil War was nearing its end. On 27th February 1939 Britain and France recognised the government of Gen. Francisco Franco and his Nationalists as the legitimate government of Spain. The war went on for several more months until Franco declared the war had ended on 1st April.

Until Franco came to power Spain’s lgbt community had “enjoyed” a higher degree of freedom than most of Europe. Sodomy had been decriminalised in 1882 and the Second Republic (1931-1939) had been more liberal than the preceding monarchy. The power of the aristocracy and the Catholic Church had been reduced.

All that changed when Franco took over. The Catholic Church regained its political powers and things like abortion and divorce were made illegal. Although there was no new law re-criminalising homosexuality or sodomy the lgbt community saw an increase in opposition and victimisation.

In 1954 Franco reformed Spain’s 1933 Vagrancy Law to include homosexuality, thereby making it illegal once more. To the Nationalist government this was a step made to “correct and reform” homosexuals rather than punish them. But punish them they did with harassment, arrest and torture. In 1971 homosexuality was declared a mental illness rather than a crime with the introduction of the Law of Dangerousness and Social Rehabilitation. Gay men were sent to “correction camps” for “corrective treatment”, or physical and psychological abuse, as we would recognise it today.

Even after months of this forced “therapy” convicted homosexuals had little chance of finding employment afterwards as the police would inform employers of their employee’s record as a homosexual.

When homosexuality was legalised once more in Spain in 1979 (40 years ago this year) several years after Franco’s death, democracy, the monarchy and more liberalism were introduced. However, men and women who had been still convicted for their homosexuality were still being discriminated against. In 1976 the Spanish government issued pardons to all political prisoners under Franco, but not to homosexuals as it was still classed as a “mental Illness” that required “correction”.

It wasn’t until this century that the Spanish government decided to finally wipe out the convictions of all those who were convicted of homosexuality or underwent treatment. Homosexuality had been legalised two years earlier. Those who had been affected felt that there should be more than a pardon. More than anything, many of them called for financial reparation to cover the hardships they had endured because of their convictions.

In 2004 the Association of Ex-Social Prisoners of Spain was formed. Antoni Ruiz, its president and one of Franco’s victims, had been arrested and convicted of homosexuality in 1975. He was jailed, raped by other prisoners and subjected to psychological torture by the prison authorities. After years of campaigning the government agreed to give financial payments to Ruiz and all surviving victims of Franco’s homophobic laws. In 2009 Antoni Ruiz was the first to receive any of this compensation, receiving 4,000 euros.

Each case for compensation that goes before the Commission for Compensation of Former Social Prisoners is treated individually. As of January 2018 only 116 people had been successful in their case. I have no data for the thirteen months since then.

While the persecution of gay men and women by the Nazis has become deeply engraved into lgbt heritage the persecution in Franco’s Spain, which went on long after the Nazis were defeated, has gone largely unnoticed outside Spain. Unlike the Holocaust there are no memorials to Franco’s lgbt victims and many people today are surprised that Spain, a nation that has been in the forefront of lgbt rights in the 21st century, has had such a recent homophobic past.

Intersex Pioneer

Today we celebrate a birthday and celebrate a pioneer of intersex awareness. The birthday we celebrate is that of Herculine (Abel) Barbin, who was born on this day 1838 in the village of St. Jean d’Angély, a couple of miles off the French Pacific coast near La Rochelle. In 2004 the date of Herculine’s birthday was chosen as the Intersex Day of Remembrance, also known as Intersex Solidarity Day. With Intersex Awareness Day on October 26th, a period of intersex awareness covering the days in between is becoming more popular internationally.

Herculine Barbin was assigned female at birth and was raised as a girl. Later in life she wrote her autobiography in which she uses female pronouns for herself until she wrote about the time when he chose to self-identify as male. In respect to her memory that is what I will do.

Thanks to the generosity of local citizen’s Herculine’s widowed mother was allowed to place her in the local orphanage at the age of 7. She was treated well and was later placed in a convent school for a wider education.

Herculine was an excellent learner, except in things like needlework and embroidery. Books were here forte. After she had taken her first communion Herculine returned to her mother in La Rochelle. A noble family had befriended her mother and accepted her into their family home. Herculine also became like family. She became a kind of personal assistant to the ailing head of the family and often read newspapers, letters and books to him as he lay in bed. One of these books had a lasting effect on Herculine. It was Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”.

This classic of Roman literature has provided me with several articles over the past few years. “Metamorphoses”, as its name implies, is a collection of legends and myths that have change, often physical, as their theme. These include the stories of Hyacinth, Tiresias, Narcissus and Cypress.

At the age of 17 Herculine was persuaded to become a trainee teacher at a girl’s school. Unlike previously in the convent school Herculine was placed in a dormitory with other female trainees. This made her uneasy because she was now beginning to show signs of male puberty. Hair was growing on her upper lip. Although very self-conscious about this Herculine did her best to ignore glances.

Despite her fears over her appearance Herculine found a close companion called Thécla. They were inseparable and kissed often. Herculine fell in love. Several times the nuns running the school admonished them for showing too much affection, and heartache followed when Thécla told Herculine that their affair must end.

On gaining her teaching certificate Herculine was appointed to a girl’s school. She soon found a new love in Sara, the daughter of the hear mistress. They soon developed a passionate affair. Herculine, however, felt guilty that she should have such emotions for a woman. She confessed her guilt to her confessor, a priest who was generally unpleasant with everyone. Needless to say he wasn’t supportive of Herculine’s plight.

During the summer break Herculine had the chance to see another confessor. He was more compassionate, in his way. Bearing in mind the lack of knowledge, experience and awareness of intersex issues in the 1850s the confessor’s words are surprising. In her autobiography Herculine recorded his response: “… you are here and now entitled to call yourself a man in society. Certainly you are, but how will you obtain the legal right to do so? At the price of the greatest scandal, perhaps.” The scandal refers to Herculine still working a male teacher in a girl’s school. The confessor continued, “And so, the advice I am giving you is this: withdraw from the world and become a nun; but be very careful not to repeat the confession you have made to me, for a convent of women would not admit you”. This advice was not unexpected, coming from a priest, but it was much better than the treatment she got from the science world.

During the second year at the school Herculine began experiencing severe pains in her abdomen. A doctor was sent for and he examined her. He was astonished at Herculine’s intersex physicality and produced only more pain for her during the examination. His prescription was for her to leave the school at once.

A third confession of her physical and emotional pains before the local bishop led to him making her see another doctor. This doctor was worse than the previous one. A more thorough and invasive examination was conducted, all in the name of science, her doctor insisted. At the end of his examination he advised Herculine to self-identify as a man.

It was a heart-breaking decision for Herculine. She left the girl’s school and her beloved Sara. Now Herculine had adopted the male forename on Abel.

In 1860 Abel received an official document from the local magistrate confirming in law that he was a man. Needless to say the local people noticed the change in his outward appearance and demeanour. The press treated this with sensationalism, much to the distress of Abel and his mother.

Abel got an invitation to join the Paris railway company. He worked there for a while until a change of management forced his redundancy. With only enough money to cover a month of unemployment Abel began to sink into depression as the month-end approached and with no other employment in sight. Fortunately he found employment as a waiter’s assistant on a ship bound for America. This is where Abel’s autobiography ends.

In February 1868 Abel Barbin’s body was found in his 6th floor room on the Rue de l’Ecole de Médicine in Paris. He had apparently died of carbon dioxide poisoning from a charcoal stove. The verdict of suicide was given. And so ended the life of the first intersex person to chronicle his or her life.

The life of Herculine/Abel Barbin still resonates with many young intersex people today who was struggling to find acceptance and awareness of the issues that face them.