QUEER DIASPORAS AT SEA

- Episode 19- Transcript

Georgie Williams, voiceover: Trigger warnings for this episode include the discussion of violence, execution and rape; please proceed with caution.

Where do you go, when you are looking for places to belong? When we think of home, depending on who we are, this word may have many different connotations. In Season One of this series, we travelled tens of thousands of miles- from San Francisco to Kyoto, from London to Jakarta- but we have never investigated the space between the geographical borders. The word diaspora is defined as “a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin.” This term was originally used to describe the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, before describing the displacement of Jews after the Babylonian exile. In 2000, American sociologist Cindy Patton published Queer Diasporas, which she described as “essays that explore how sexuality and sexual identity change when individuals, ideologies and media move across literal and figurative boundaries.” Patton continues by calling upon what she describes as the archaic, original meaning of queer; a movement aslant, sideways. So what happens when a movement aslant takes us beyond where we originated, to new and uncharted places? And what happens when those of us deemed untraditional in our gendered or sexual practices, plant roots beyond the reach of dry land? Where do we begin with the history of queer life at sea? Welcome to Season Two and Episode 19 of /Queer. You’re here with me, your host, Georgie Williams.

Unless you have a strong stomach and the good fortune to have grown up near the ocean, you have likely spent little time on board a boat or ship. For many of us, these vessels are predominantly transportation from Point A to Point B- and are usually only favoured over air travel in situations where the journey is too short or inaccessible for a plane, or flying is significantly more expensive. The vast majority of us will spend our lives only venturing into the water as a consequence of wanting to get somewhere; not necessarily be there. But sometimes, some of us seek out these liminal, in-between spaces. In an unexpected twist, it was in one of these spaces that Season Two of /Queer began.

Having decided to travel in an economical and environmentally friendly manner as much as possible for this second season, and having grown up in a small seaside town where messing around on rowing boats with your friends was easier than finding somewhere more fun and safe to hang out as a teenager, I decided earlier in the year to legitimise my sea legs and acquire a Skipper’s licence. I hoped to eventually be able to travel by sea from one country to the other to conduct this research- and in turn, buy myself some time to do my background reading and write scripts before landing in each location to conduct interviews. I wasn’t expecting anything glamorous and I definitely wasn’t expecting anything queer. 

And then I was introduced to the Götheborg of Sweden. The Götheborg sailed in through London in the summer of this year and, at the encouragement of an enthusiastic taxi driver and my wannabe-pirate younger sister, I decided to pay her a visit whilst she was in port. The Götheborg is a near-perfect replica of a ship launched in 1738 which sank in 1745, and she is now the world’s largest operational wooden sailing ship. To walk her decks and breathe in the smell of tar on the ropes, the oak and spruce and fir that holds her together, is like walking back in time- or at least back into the maritime museums I ended up in on school trips as a child. The crew, who are comprised of paid professionals, volunteers and paying deckhands, is usually around 65 to 80 persons; many of whom sleep in hammocks in what would have been the cargo hold of the original ship- and they work in shifts, with each faction of the crew taking two 4 hour shifts a day, and squeezing their sleep in between. It would be a stretch to call their way of living glamorous; but the appeal was undeniable. When the opportunity fell into my lap to sail with her from Nice to Malta- the latter being a place where I was desperate to conduct some of my research- it felt too serendipitous to say no. I seized the opportunity with both hands. But I had no idea what to expect of my voyage. 

Before we get into the story of this passage any further, we should acknowledge that, although considered unusual in the modern day, throwing away domestic life for adventures at sea wasn’t always the most unexpected path for a queer person such as myself to walk. Oftentimes when we talk about gender and sexual diversity, we talk about ideas and concepts that are bound to a particular location; as it is often through the cultures of a particular country that we develop a frame of reference for what is “normal” or “abnormal” with regards to our relationships with others and with our own bodies. But a seafaring life has, at times throughout different periods of history, been a refuge for gay and gender nonconforming individuals. If you know where to look- and I’ll be honest, you really do need to know where to look as an academic, you will find a plethora of texts and publications whose sole focus is homosexuality amongst sailors and even pirates- from mid 20th Century England and 18th and 19th century China all the way back to the golden age of piracy from the mid 1600s to the mid 1700s- but you would not believe how much of this is behind a paywall. In fact, one of the PDFs I tried to download in preparation for this episode was priced at 174 Euros. For something that feels significant in terms of how we understand these traditionally hyper-masculine communities, you’d think it would be a little easier to learn about. But what I could find, with the help of a few resourceful academic friends, was this; the history around homosexual behaviour at sea is complex and varied. In Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth Century by Robert Burg, Burg argues that due to the exclusion of women from seafaring practices, homosexual acts were usually the sole non-solitary sexual outlet for men at sea. It does, however, bear noting that these homosexual acts were not always consensual or even between adults- so we cannot and should not project any rosy, modern ideals about gay sexuality onto these occurences. 

In The Practice of Homosexuality Among the Pirates of Late 18th and Early 19th Century China by Dian Murray, Murray explains that, unlike in Burg’s explanation of seafaring life, the South Chinese culture was very different; and women and entire families were often involved in and present for life at sea- South Chinese pirates often had female partners and children sharing their cramped quarters, and women very often worked as hard as men on these ships and held rank amongst and fought alongside their male counterparts. On these grounds, Murray argues, homosexual behaviour was likely more of a choice and less of a situation in which individuals sought out intimacy in spite of their usual sexual orientation. However, Murray based a significant portion of her analysis off of texts detailing the detention and punishment of South Chinese pirates, and in doing so notes that punishment for homosexuality was less severe than piracy- and that detainees may have claimed to have been raped or sexually abused by captors and thus forced into piracy instead of being willing accomplices- in order to avoid being beheaded. Thus, the true sexual nature of South Chinese pirates is obscured by the nature under which much evidence around this subject was procured.

Of course, the evolving nature of social perspectives on homosexuality also explains why much of this history is obscured; in Men and Matelotage: Sexuality and Same-Sex Relationships within Homosocial Structures in the Golden Age of Piracy, 1640-1720, Nicole Keegan reflects upon the rewritten narrative surrounding history’s most famous pirate, Blackbeard- also known as Edward Teach. For clarity, Matelotage is the French word for "seamanship", and was an agreement made between buccaneers to share their incomes, and inherit their partner's property in the case of their death. In addition, they would pledge to protect and fight alongside each other in battle and otherwise act in the other's interest. Some historians have drawn parallels between matelotage and same sex marriage. Keegan notes that in A General History of Pyrates, written in 1724, that Blackbeard is described in a way that, and I quote, “allowed for sexual interactions between men, even as a passive participant, to be freely discussed” whereas in a later interpretation, a 1974 biography of Blackbeard, the author “maintains the heterocentric narrative of masculine pirates such as Blackbeard.” Of course, this will not be our first time coming across the idea of homosexuality negating masculinity; but here, it seems this conservatism has likely influenced how the history of seafaring communities has been recorded over the centuries.

Our final port of call on the academic journey to making this episode was Hello Sailor! The Hidden History of Gay Life at Sea by Paul Baker and Jo Stanley. Focusing predominantly but not exclusively on the practices of men in the Merchant Navy between 1950 and 1980, this book effectively confronts and, at times, subverts the notion of the sailor as a hypermasculine ideal; particularly in the contemporary Western world where masculine is often still equated to heterosexual. Once again, let’s be realistic here and acknowledge that in spaces ungoverned by larger forces or physically distanced from law enforcing organisations, abuses of power can and did happen. This novel addresses the fact that younger men of lower rank on ships did face abuse and maltreatment when aboard some of these vessels; and that in some circumstances, sex between men of different ranks was about exercising power and not necessarily emotional or physical intimacy. But Baker & Stanley’s book also tells the story of gay men in particular seeking refuge at sea; in a time when homosexuality was still illegal in the United Kingdom in particular, seafaring seemed to naturally generate environments where effeminate behaviour and crossdressing- not simply homosexuality- was tolerated and even celebrated. Away from the judgement of friends, family and wider society, the queers, in their numbers, went to sea.

But where does that leave us in the modern day? My plans to sail from country to country to conduct research did not, at any stage, account for finding much of these practices and values in contemporary seafaring circles. But when I boarded the Götheborg in early October, my assumptions were challenged radically; and they started with the ship’s carpenter.

This is where I must add a disclaimer for the quality of our interview audio; as it turns out, recording a conversation above a ship’s engine is a challenge for even the most hardy of seafaring podcasters. Listener discretion is advised. 

Eli Gafvelin, in interview: My name is Eli Gafvelin, or Eli if you want to. I work currently as the ship’s carpenter on the East India Götheborg and I’ve been here for a year approximately but I sailed here a lot before. I’ve been working on ships and with… wooden boat building, for the past 15 years. 

Georgie Williams, voiceover: I noticed Eli when we were introduced to the crew because he was the first person who had his pronouns on his nametag. Communicating your identity like this was something I had seen a fair amount of in corporate spaces but, on a ship like this, it was the last place I expected to see it. Eli and I got chatting; and I told him the work that I do. Eli told me he was transmasculine; he had come to this realisation during the COVID-19 pandemic. I was over the moon to be incorrect in my expectations of being the only trans person aboard ship- and I suddenly had a wealth of questions to ask him about who he was, what he did, and how on earth he ended up here.

To start, I wanted to know what Eli would have to say about the state of LGBTQ+ social awareness in Sweden; Sweden is a country whose reputation in Europe is one of progressivism- but since their new right-wing government abolished their “feminist foreign policy” in October of this year, doubts have been raised about the stability of social equality in this country- and to what extent their reputation reflects the lived experience of Swedish citizens of marginalised identity. This was perhaps an unfair question to ask someone who spent a vast portion of their time outside of the country. But I wanted to understand, as best as possible, how Eli came to find himself here and how that was, or wasn’t related, to his memories of growing up queer in Sweden. 

Eli Gafvelin, in interview: When I was a teenager I was pretty into the whole queer community in Sweden, but then through various things that happened I sort of fell out of that, and then I ran away to sea [laughs] So I kind of lost touch with the whole queer community of Sweden. Then I started dating guys, back when I was convinced I was a woman so then I sort of felt very ashamed of that, and withdrew from queer events and the queer community as a whole. Lately I’ve been trying to reconnect with that, I had the poor taste of realising I was trans just as the pandemic hit and everything just kind-of died, obviously. So I don’t actually know super much about the queer world in Sweden and I think the climate of course, compared to many other places in the world it’s open, It’s definitely gotten better since I was younger. I remember when I, when I came out as queer at the age of 15, I was trying to leave the house with a pride flag and my dad stopped me because he was convinced I was going to get beat- up. So It’s definitely better since then. 

I’ve worked for a long time on the school ship, sailing around with high school kids from Sweden, and they were just so chill about it they were just like ‘hello!’ somebody… there was just like, queer kids dating each other and nobody made a big deal out of it it was just like the most natural thing. When I came out when I was a teenager like, people were pretty chill about it but still got the whole, you know, I still had people coming up to me and being like ‘that’s disgusting’ and like ‘are you going to try and make out with me now?’ and all of that bullshit. So I think it is, all in all, it’s gotten a lot better, you do see a big backlash with trans related questions which seems to be a trend in at least Europe and the US at the moment, we definitely have that in Sweden too. 

Georgie Williams, voiceover: Eli is carving a path for himself in impressive and formidable ways; first and foremost, living in this seafaring community away from the constraints and security of life on land, but also as a transmasculine individual working in carpentry- with the construction industry having long been dominated, at least in the mainstream, by what appears to be cisgender and heterosexual, often working class, men. Naturally I had to ask him, how did he get here- and what is it like to be bucking the trend?

Eli Gafvelin, in interview: I just fell in love with ships essentially, I sailed this boat when I was um, I turned 20 aboard this ship, and I sailed on her during the first China voyage and I was the most incredible thing that I’ve ever done in my entire life, and I decided I want to do this for the rest of my life. I really like to be very dramatic and say “for the rest of my life” at the age of 22- anyhow, I decided to do that and when I was 22 I went to boat building school and I became a wooden boat builder or rather I started to learn about wood and boat building. It’s one of those professionals, you can never master fully. Um yeah, so for me it stemmed from just a love of sailing and this ship in particular- and from that came a passion for woodworking and traditional carpentry and traditional handicrafts and art like that, which I do feel very strongly about. And then me realising I was trans was just kind-of, to me it was a little bit unrelated to that – it is of course interesting that I ended up in a field like that [laughs] but its so um cis-normative and heteronormative, but I’ve also never really worked in any capacity as like a house carpenter or you know on building/construction sites or any such thing. Where at least I think that’s the most sort of place where that’s the most prevalent. I’ve been spared from that. I’ve been on some boats that have been really really shitty, but mostly, this is like, where all the hippies hang out and the dirty sailing hippies [laughs]. So generally people are like as cool as you can wish for them to be about it. Of course as I’m sure you’ve noticed there are a lot of like older men here that might not be totally chill with it – I think they know and they just ignore it, or they somehow don’t know either – even though I’m wearing a pronoun pin and I’m like quite open about it. So yeah! I mean I’ve been spared I think, but sadly in this world that still means you have to endure a lot of bullshit [laughs].

Georgie Williams, voiceover: History is, as we are learning, rich with stories of gender & sexuality diverse peoples going to sea to avoid social persecution or find a sense of community and connection with others; whilst occasionally being able to earn a liveable wage. Eli’s experience on the water far outweighs mine and, from his space in his carpentry workshop he gets to watch the crew’s comings and goings across all legs of the journeys that the Götheborg makes. As someone who is now woven so deeply into the fabric of this ship, I wanted to know- does he think queer culture exists at sea in the modern day? And how does the dynamic of a crew help create connections like this? 

Eli Gafvelin, in interview: Yeah I would say I think it’s really delightful how lately I am just starting seeing from the queer kids coming here and when we were in Copenhagen and that is not what it was for me at all when I started sailing. People were not openly queer at all. That was not a thing. Or I’m sure it was, but people were not particularly open about it. Now it seems to be much more… Either that more people come here or if people are just more comfortable with being open about their identity in general, and er, it makes me really happy. 

But it’s interesting also to think about sailing like historically, how it has been a place where people have sort-of come and been able to kinda.. You know the outcasts of society they would come here… which is both like a beautiful thing and also, you know, an unfortunate thing, when you get these people who have never had to like learn how to behave together with other people and are just, you know, kind-of assholes and never had to change. But sometimes you just meet these people who are, sort of, accepted for their personalities and people are .. they just let them be who they are, which is a beautiful thing and I think definitely onboard ships, there is a big acceptance of people, or at least onboard the ships where I have been – or at least the good ships. [laughs]. You turn into this big dysfunctional family in a way that I think is really beautiful, and here we’re really lucky that most people are really great people. But even when you’re on board with people that you might not be super fond of, you’ll learn to co-exist in this way that I find fascinating. You kind of learn their quirks and their … what they want and don’t want, what kind of breakfast they have and to make sure it’s there, how to hang the coils when this particular Bosun comes on board and like, it’s just all of this kind of managing of individuals and I think for sure that um to me, well, in general there’s just a big acceptance for queer people that people are more open it’s not the biggest deal anymore. Maybe we’ll become a queer utopia here on ships, I certainly hope so! Yeah, as for acceptance of a gender-queerness, sadly… as long as you still… are a cis person or present as a cis person people are cool with most things because they’re used to seeing, used to seeing people who are presenting in different ways so that’s not really a big deal but to be open and talk about it can make people very uncomfortable, sadly. But I hope maybe in another 20 years we’ll be in a place where everyone is perfectly chill about it.

Georgie Williams, voiceover: Naturally, we cannot extrapolate what Eli says here to represent all sailing communities; he knows that as well as I do. We cannot assume that the culture here on the Götheborg; the openness, the representation of queer individuals, is an example of the broader sailing community; but that isn’t to say that what we have seen here is anomalous or a one-off. And I knew what he was talking about; there are names I will not share here but I can attest to having found myself, on this ship, surrounded not only by people who accepted me but by people just like me. In a context like this, it would feel inappropriate to throw around labels like homosexual or bisexual, but the diversity of the crew indicated to me that connections were formed on the grounds of genuine care for one another and not inhibited by one’s gender identity. Having lived and worked in places before where my identity as a gay and, by extension, queer person was treated as taboo or even unprofessional, this was not the standard set by the inclusive crew of the Götheborg.

Eli and I finished by talking a little bit about what it means to be the representation when you can’t find it- and how sometimes, in a space seemingly not built for people like us, it becomes a responsibility of ours- to make us human instead of something mythological to the people around us. 

Eli Gafvelin, in interview: I try to always be open about it- when I was sailing with the kids or just to make sure I always mention it in passing because it’s one thing I never had had when growing up like there was no visibility whatsoever, there was like no.. you didn’t see queer people, you didn’t talk about queer people, or it was like once, in school there were people who came there and I’d be like “yeah there are gay people like, I’m a gay person” and like, that was that, then never again. 

Georgie, in interview: Like a cryptid! 

Eli, in interview: Yeah like a cryptid, “Here’s Mothman”. Mothman never came to my school there’s … [laughing] 

Georgie, in interview: Queer icon, Mothman.

Eli, in interview: [laughing] er yeah so I don’t know. But yeah I always made sure  to mention that in passing so they would know that it was an option. 

Georgie Williams, voiceover: This is, I hope, the first of many episodes where we will get to look at the history of gender and sexuality diversity at sea- and what I found on the Götheborg sets the bar incredibly high for what I hope to find next. There is, undeniably, more that can be done on the Götheborg to foster an accepting and diverse community here; the majority of the crew on board were Swedish and, as is the cultural stereotype, many were white and fair haired. Not to say this crew was in any way homogenous in race- but that my questions around how accessible practices like sailing are to racial minorities have persisted, even after this trip. But I saw those conversations happening on ship- about how we open doors to opportunities like this to a broader range of people. The sentiment that seemed to emerge during my time on ship, quite simply and in a way that shouldn’t seem radical at all, was that many of us are out there. The queer diaspora exists; beyond the constraints of geographical borders- we are going about our lives as we would on land; working jobs, looking out for one another, but with none of the heterosexual or cisnormative constraints we might be afraid of when heading off to sea. The crew of the Götheborg are professionals of the highest order; they ensured we were all safe and secure both physically and psychologically for the entirety of our passage to Malta; and many of them were also queer. These two truths go hand in hand. 

Where do you go, when you are looking for places to belong? When we think of home, depending on who we are, this word has many different connotations. In Season One of this series I travelled the equivalent of one and a half times round the earth; I have crossed borders and seas many a time to find out what gender and sexuality looks like in countries around the globe. I have, perhaps short-sightedly, often believed in the power of geographical places to be where like-minded people- people on the margins- congregate. When I set out for Season Two, I had perhaps vague plans in mind to perhaps interview someone about what it is like living at sea- moving from one place to another. I had no idea what to anticipate of my time aboard the Götheborg. Never in my mind did I imagine that our first episode would become a love letter to her. 

I told visitors who roamed her decks when we hosted our open ship days in Malta that I believe, now more than ever, in the power of the village; not merely the concept of rural life, and I say that as someone who grew up in a county best known for farming. The village is not about the ecology or the labour that a geographical location is known for- the village is a concept of human behaviour, a way in which we design our lives around each other. Villages are where everybody knows everybody; where we all pitch in, earn our keep, feed each other and keep eachother entertained. We laugh over meals; we towel each other down when the rains come in. We teach each other something new. When you are queer, this becomes so much harder to find. Villages, as I have often known them, require you to go through the motions of upholding particular values in order to belong- values like heterosexuality, identifying with your birth gender- aligning with gender roles and having domestic ambitions. None of these things were required of me aboard the Götheborg. I broke bread with women and their girlfriends, I shared my experiences of taking testosterone with the transmasculine carpenter and watched people of the same gender fall in love, between shifts and under the stars as we sailed across the Mediterranean. There are people on that ship, who love me. There are people on that ship to whom I was not just communicable- I was seen and understood, and I believe I am missed. Eli joked about the queer utopia and yes, for a moment, let’s not be idealistic; no place can be without miscommunication or misunderstanding or hurdles to be faced in how we accept and respect one another- and there is so much still to be done to increase the inclusivity of these kinds of spaces- but for the first time in my life I feel what I imagine some sailors have felt for many generations, escaping to sea to be with their comrades- their peers, with whom nothing needed be unsaid or hidden. And the feeling is incomparable.

I hope to return to the Götheborg in the late winter, following research I plan to conduct in Malta, Turkey and South Africa- and I will take my brain where it needs to go- but if you get lucky, and you can look out over the Mediterranean Sea to Barcelona, you might see my where I left my heart- safe in the village. 

This episode of the /Queer Podcast was edited by Sam Clay, transcribed by Bronya Smith, scripted, produced and hosted as always by me, Georgie Williams. A very special thanks to Eli Gafvelin for his wonderful contributions to this episode, as well as Jared Mustafa-Holzapfel for his assistance with background research. Thanks also to our loyal Patreon subscribers- the pennies you drop into our project are the very meals I eat in some of the world’s most dubious hostels. If you’re not a patron and want to support the podcast, you can find the /Queer Patreon at patreon.com/slashqueer. That’s S-L-A-S-H Queer. The link is also available on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages. We are still selling all our /Queer merchandise on Threadless and are still accepting donations via Ko-fi and you can find the links to both in the description for this episode. It is so good to be back in the driver’s seat of /Queer and I would be over the moon to have a wee bit of your support as we continue to make this project happen. Finally, I would like to dedicate this episode to the brave, bold and brilliant crew of the Götheborg of Sweden. You have my love, my gratitude and my devotion- and I cannot wait to be back with you all very soon. 

This episode was recorded on location on the Götheborg of Sweden. Music in this episode was composed by our resident audio king, Sam Clay. If you enjoyed this episode or have any feedback, please get in touch on Instagram or Twitter at @SlashQueer or email us at slashqueer@outlook.com. Until we reach dry land- stay kind, stay radical and stay queer.