Ten defining people and moments in Welsh LGBTQ+ history you should know about
This LGBTQ+ History Month, we've rounded up 10 change-makers and defining moments in Welsh history you should know about
The start of February marks the beginning of LGBTQ+ History Month. In Wales, a new series of timelines will be released by writer and historian Norena Shopland celebrating and raising awareness of the diverse sexual orientations and gender identities that have existed in Wales from the earliest of times.
The extracts date from early myths and legends of Wales; the 9th century laws of Hywel Dda who tried to establish inheritance rights for hermaphrodites (who would now be referred to as intersex); right up to modern times. Twenty-three timelines will be published this month that can be copied, adapted or used for creative interpretations.
This will make Wales the only country in the world to provide such detailed histories at a county level and lays the groundwork for timelines covering the history of race, religion and disability to ensure that the whole of society is represented in Welsh history.
These unique documents are developed from training funded by the Welsh Government as part of their LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales: Together in Pride, which wants to make Wales the most LGBTQ+ friendly nation in Europe. The training in LGBTQ+ language and history has been delivered to local libraries, museums, archives and other organisations in Wales for the last two years and provides an aid to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer people and other diversities are included in historical narratives.
This type of training has not been funded by any other government in the world. From discussions with participants, it became apparent that what was needed was more local information so that county residents could be aware of, and celebrate their own history rather than rely on mainstream narratives that have little or nothing to do with their county. Here is a just a selection of ten people and moments that feature on the exciting new timeline, as selected by Norena.
Hywel Dda
In the 10th Century, Hywel Dda(Howel the good) was a king of Deheubarth who eventually came to rule most of Wales. One of his biggest achievements was the codification of laws in Wales, often known as Cyfraith Hywel (the Laws of Hywel Dda). These laws were written in Whitland Abbey between c940-945. In the laws, the rights of hermaphrodites (what we would know refer to as intersex) are defined:
"If a person be born with the members of a man and those of a woman, and it be doubtful of which it may make use; some say, that according to such as it principally may use, its privilege is to rank; but, if it make use of each, the law says, that it is to rank with the highest privilege, and that is the privilege of a man: and, if it should become pregnant, the offspring is to have the patrimony of the man who caused the pregnancy; but, if it should make a woman pregnant, the son is then to obtain its patrimony."
(Image: National Library of Wales)1 of 10
Katherine Philips (1632–1664)
London-born Katherine Philips was one of the first poets to write of same-sex attraction. She married parliamentarian James Philips and moved to Cardigan Priory in 1648. The influential Civil War poet was the first woman to have a play commercially produced and was known for breaking the rules of poetry. Known as the 'Welsh Sappho', she was one of the first notable female poets in the UK and many of her poems appear in lesbian anthologies.
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Fanny Rees (1853-1874)
People may have heard about Cranogwen (pictured) but perhaps not her partner. A local milliner's daughter, like Sarah Jane Rees, or Cranogwen, Fanny rejected the feminine role expected of her and quit her job in the mills to become a writer under the bardic name of Phania. Twelve years after Fanny’s death, Cranogwen wrote an essay in her magazine Y Frythones describing Fanny. In the essay, Cranogwen wrote: "We always felt privileged to hear what she said 'Pan' about what, and how much she said. How polished she was in her words, and so cautious and slow in her remarks, so witty in her way, that it would always be a pleasure and a pleasure to hear her word and remark."
(Image: Copyright Unknown)3 of 10![Mary Charlotte Lloyd (1819-1896)]()
Mary Charlotte Lloyd (1819-1896)
Mary Charlotte Lloyd was a sculptor born January 23, 1819 in Corwen, Denbighshire. Mary studied with French artist Rosa Bonheur and in the studio of Welsh sculptor John Gibson in Rome, where she found like-minded feminist and lesbian circles, and met Frances Power Cobbe.
Mary’s partnership with Frances, the Irish suffragette, social reformer and anti-vivisection activist, began in about 1860 and lasted for the rest of Mary’s life. Later in the 1860s, they settled in South Kensington and enjoyed ‘many social pleasures of a quiet kind.’ Mary was often the more introverted of the couple, especially as she longed to return to Wales, where they only spent the summers when they lived in London.
(Image: Library of Congress)4 of 10
