Saturday, September 3, 2011

A statement in An Tir

An Tir will hold its Crown Tournament today, and there are three fighters who do not expect to be allowed into the list, because they are entering with a consor of the same gender they are.

It's not going to be a surprise to them, because SCA rules specifically say a fighter and consort must be of opposite genders.

In fact, the king and queen of An Tie actually support same-gender fighters and consorts.

Three three fighters are all long-time members and are peers. One of them is a female knight.

There's obviously a lot to this on this on many levels.

The group has a facebook page called "Inspirational Equality in the SCA" and an open discussion page as well. The group has done a petition and hopes to be on the Board of Directors' agenda in October in Seattle.

I will follow this up tomorrow.



5 comments:

  1. I totally support this. I can see only one small problem; how do we handle this according to the historical model, if one person doesn't choose to have a persona of the opposit gender and take on it's traditional role. We are trying to do some level of historical recreation.

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  2. We handled having sovereign princesses and a sovereign queen just fine. In period that could be very messy. Look at Mary Queen of Scots. Elizabeth only held onto power because she never married.

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  3. Hi, it's Nicolaa...
    Actually, there is historical precedent for joint monarchs of the same sex (although one was often considered the "junior" member.) Both Rome and Byzantium had joint emperors at points in their history. Henry II crowned his son, the Young Henry, as King as well.

    But to be perfectly honest, our institution of monarchy is not in the least bit period. Our rulers did not win a tourney to sit the thrones for a period lasting 4-6 months, and inheritance was not determined by a tourney, either. Our monarchs add pageantry, the ability recognize good works, and duties of command at wars and other such large events; they do not make us more authentic. Whether or not those who sit the thrones are of the same or opposite genders is not going to affect the parts of the SCA where historical authenticity is both possible and desirable, such as the study of medieval arts and sciences. Allowing those members of the populace who wish to be inspired by a member of the same sex to aspire to do so on the "big stage" of Crown Tourney is a matter of justice.

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  4. The SCA should not have any pretense of being a historical organization. Underarmour and tennis shoes are perfectly fine in a Crown Tournament list, so why not this. Just need to rewrite the Governing Documents to reflect the reality of what the SCA is and wants to be. As in the end, the SCA will do what ever it damn well pleases history be damned.

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  5. Argo: That rewrite would be very brief.

    Somewhere I have the actual numbering of the laws, but it is as simple as striking the four words "of the opposite gender."

    That's all it takes.

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