A Year of Llyfr Enfys in Tweets- Blue Bird Archives
Weclome back to my blog! I haven't written here in a while, been mainly preoccupied with my dissertation and work on Llyfr Enfys. But I wanted to take some time to come back to this blog a bit and reflect on some of the events of the past year.
17th-
1st-
3rd-
5th-
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I replied to the post expressing my joy at seeing LGBTQ+ inclusion on the flag of Wales. This, as it turned out, was apparently problematic, as one older man decided to go ham on my comment. Amongst other things (slurs etc.) he accused the Welsh LGBTQ+ community of disrespect to Welshmen who have died in wars and that if the Welsh dragon is any other colour other than red, it's offensive.
12th- Always worthwhile bringing up Kate Roberts! Her literature often can be seen to contain lesbian subtext- but this reading of her work wasn't societally acceptable for a long time. Glad that these things can be explored more freely now.
21st- Every so often, I include a term which I have translated/coined in my posts to see if it is a viable option. Something I feel quite strongly about is that A) asexual and aromantic terminology is underrepresented in every language and that needs to change, and B) the existing term for aromantic in Welsh is a little bit of an odd duck. The 'existing' term is aromantig ('existing' is in quotes as I had to dig quite a bit to find any previous usages of aromantic in Welsh at all, around 2 years ago, when I started. Suffice to say, while aromantig exists as a term in Welsh, I haven't come across many examples of using this term as opposed to putting the English word aromantic into a Welsh sentence).
26th- A brilliant night in Aber way back in March. It was the first LGBTQ+ event I'd been to since 2019 due to Covid. Met the brilliant Norena Shopland in person and had a great time watching the various segments they had on. If you're in Aber and fancy a queer night out, definitely have a look at upcoming Aberration events.
31st- Another LGBTQ+ day tweet, this time with two existing terms (rhyweddhylifol and rhyweddgwiar) and a coined term (hollrhywedd). Not sure if the last one will catch on, but if folks like it, it's theirs to use.
6th- Asexual day is important to me since I used to identify as ace myself, but later realised I was actually bisexual. Even so, I had friends in college who identified as ace and I know many lovely aces here in Aberystwyth who either speak Welsh or are learning Welsh. I've actually had people message me online to say that they didn't know there was a word for asexual in Welsh and that they were super happy that I'd written about it. It's a truly lovely thing to be able to do- if I can help one person feel like they are welcomed in Wales for who they are, it's a blessing.
24th- This tweet refers to a blog post from earlier this year reacting to the news that Jamie Wallis MP had come out as trans.
24th-
17th- Ah, the catalyst of my obsession with writing hyperfocus blogs. I am forever grateful to Hanes LHDT+ Cymru for hosting 4 of my blogs so far. I consider my work for Hanes LHDT+ Cymru to be 'formal' and my blogging here to be 'informal'. It's good to be able to write in both styles.
July
24th- Blog the 3rd! I enjoyed this one a lot- using my Ancestry account to find the records behind the headlines. If a newspaper report said someone was arrested, or taken to an asylum, I was able to find the corresponding prison/asylum documents and track the unheard stories of Welsh LGBTQ+ people of the past. It was a fascinating, albeit often tragic endeavour. I hope to uncover more stories as I go along, so that our Queer Welsh ancestors may not be forgotten.
28th- So, I feel able to talk about this now. This talk was one which the Trawsnewid project kindly helped me set up- however, we were the targets of possible hate crime trolling that day. Someone got hold of the online talk link and exposed themself on camera in front of me and the people who had come to see me talk. I can't thank the staff at the National Museum for the quick response at shutting that troll down. But regrettably, the police did not manage to take action on this person. I recovered enough for the talk itself- and the rest went perfectly well.
20th- A surprising thing this year was being included on the Pinc List! Completely unexpected- but I'm so glad people enjoy my work!
21st- This I'm quite proud of- adapting these pronouns into Welsh was a challenge, but I'm pretty happy with the result! The overall look and feel of ze/zir is pretty well conveyed by sê/sîr if I do say so myself.
15th- I wrote about sê/sîr and other Welsh pronouns in my September blog for Hanes LHDT Cymru. I'd recommend reading if if you're unfamiliar with Welsh pronouns.
23rd- I use 'friendly neighbourhood bi' a lot when discussing my bisexuality. Maybe its because Spider-Man in my head just has bisexual vibes.
27th- I still have yet to write up my notes from the exhibition- but it was a very enlightening one. Invaluable to me as I write my dictionary.
5th- CardiffLifeMag very kindly included me in their magazine this year! A surprise, but a welcome one.
9th- Every so often I come across LGBTQIA+ terminology in other Celtic languages. I make a point of writing them down and sharing them (especially with Manx, Breton and Cornish). These kinds of things are often undigitised and unknown unless you happen to stumble across a physical copy. Knowledge sharing is crucial to research sometimes! I keep notes on Irish, Manx and Cornish LGBTQIA+ terminology I come across, so if you speak these languages, it's worth checking in with me in case I have something that might be of use to you.
11th- Ah yes- the allan/mas distinction. I learned Welsh in Aberystwyth and heard both, but was taught mas. The university accommodation at Aberystwyth University had signs on the backs of the doors which would say "mynd mas?". Dod allan is the standard but I'm a sucker for mas, hence I mention both in this tweet.
26th- An unexpected but welcome award from my University this year! Fun fact- I made the earring I'm wearing in that photo.
2nd- My quest for dictionary data is a constant one. If it were humanly possible to read all of NLW too I would do it!
I'm 22 years old at the time of writing. That means I was a child of the Internet Age- an internet native so to speak. I remember how the Internet used to be when I was a kid. If it wasn't flash games like Run and Learn to Fly taking up your time, it almost certainly was blogging. Blogs existed everywhere when I was a kid. Before you could turn to Google to troubleshoot something in your life, blogs and forums were the main sources of community assistance which could help you resolve something. I can't count the number of times this year I've looked to the Internet for help in an old videogame I'm playing, and then inadvertently stumbled upon long forgotten blogs from 2006 with the exact answer I needed. I miss that carefree Internet, the one in which you can just post up with a blog and just write what comes to mind, no worries or self-consciousness about it.
So I'm essentially dialling down the formality of this blog to get a sense of those halcyon days again. Who knows? Maybe we need that sort of Internet in these times.
Twitter (which I only joined 2 years ago with the sole purpose of networking for my book) is going a bit tits up (told ya the formality is going to be dialled down by about 100). I'm still on the platform in some kind of vague hope things will get better again [anachronistic note: it didn't], but as a trans person and a writer, I don't fancy things are going to get stable over there any time soon. So, in the most inefficient way possible, I preserved about a year's worth of my tweets by clicking on and screenshotting every one. So, what follows is a year of Llyfr Enfys Twitter and some of my thoughts and opinions about each tweet here and there. Think of it as a weird kind-of director's commentary.
I will also list my social media alternatives to Twitter below in case it disintegrates before the new year:
Mastodon: @llyfraublaidd@toot.wales
Tumblr: llyfr-enfys
Instagram: Llyfr_Enfys
But without further ado, here we go:
January
As those of you who've followed my twitter for a while will know, I post on international LGBTQ+ days and other observances with a bit of trivia about the day and some queer Welsh vocabulary. I've done this for most 'mainstream' days, but this year I felt I wanted to push the boat out a bit and include queer subcultures in the days celebrated. As a low key leatherman, I couldn't pass on international fetish day. And so one of my first posts in 2022 was already vaguely suggestive. Ah well, c'est la vie.
February
1st-
An example of one of my LGBTQ+ international day posts. This is how they usually look- promise! Joking aside, these tweets are some of my favourites to do as they've proved instrumental in helping LGBTQ+ Welsh speakers connect with their language. Truly something I love to do.
A great conference which I really enjoyed! It was online, so I was able to stay in my student flat to attend. This does mean that I was actively making cups of tea/cooking with my laptop on the kitchen counter while the conference happened as I didn't want to take my headphones off for a second. The title of the conference was 'Y Ddraig Amryliw' - the Multicoloured Dragon. My next tweet would add some significance to that name...
5th-
This tweet is actually a reference to something that went down on Facebook a while ago, in 2021. I was in a group on there and saw that a member had posted a version of the Welsh flag which had rainbows on it. It looked a bit like this:
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Now, the whole interaction was unpleasant and I forgot all about it a few days later. But many months after that I was emptying my wallet and found my 2019-2020 bus pass (most useful pass ever! /s) issued by Mid Wales Travel. The dragon on it is purple.
Bigots are always incredibly selective with their justification for hate. The rainbow colours on the Welsh dragon were never the problem. Not unless, of course, he wanted to make the case that Welsh businesses which edit the flag to advertise are also disrespectful to the troops.
One of the more amusing hateful incidents I've ever had happen to me, that's for sure.
12th- Always worthwhile bringing up Kate Roberts! Her literature often can be seen to contain lesbian subtext- but this reading of her work wasn't societally acceptable for a long time. Glad that these things can be explored more freely now.
21st- Every so often, I include a term which I have translated/coined in my posts to see if it is a viable option. Something I feel quite strongly about is that A) asexual and aromantic terminology is underrepresented in every language and that needs to change, and B) the existing term for aromantic in Welsh is a little bit of an odd duck. The 'existing' term is aromantig ('existing' is in quotes as I had to dig quite a bit to find any previous usages of aromantic in Welsh at all, around 2 years ago, when I started. Suffice to say, while aromantig exists as a term in Welsh, I haven't come across many examples of using this term as opposed to putting the English word aromantic into a Welsh sentence).
What is 'odd duck' about it is that its counterpart, asexual, is translated into Welsh as anrhywiol ('an' = non, 'rhywiol' = sexual). But aromantic is simply Cymrycised and not translated. Anrhamantus ('an' = non, 'rhamantus' = romantic) makes more sense and follows the established pattern of 'an' + [adjective]- e.g. anrhywiol, anneuaidd. That being said, I can't see why aromantig and anrhamantus can't coexist until a consensus is found.
March
9th- My first ever exhibition! I usually do traditional art instead of digital, but as I live in Aberystwyth and not Swansea or Cardiff, I couldn't make a physical piece for the exhibition. Still, I'm happy with the art and concept I made!
26th- A brilliant night in Aber way back in March. It was the first LGBTQ+ event I'd been to since 2019 due to Covid. Met the brilliant Norena Shopland in person and had a great time watching the various segments they had on. If you're in Aber and fancy a queer night out, definitely have a look at upcoming Aberration events.
31st- Another LGBTQ+ day tweet, this time with two existing terms (rhyweddhylifol and rhyweddgwiar) and a coined term (hollrhywedd). Not sure if the last one will catch on, but if folks like it, it's theirs to use.
April
6th- Asexual day is important to me since I used to identify as ace myself, but later realised I was actually bisexual. Even so, I had friends in college who identified as ace and I know many lovely aces here in Aberystwyth who either speak Welsh or are learning Welsh. I've actually had people message me online to say that they didn't know there was a word for asexual in Welsh and that they were super happy that I'd written about it. It's a truly lovely thing to be able to do- if I can help one person feel like they are welcomed in Wales for who they are, it's a blessing.
24th- This tweet refers to a blog post from earlier this year reacting to the news that Jamie Wallis MP had come out as trans.
May
17th-
In May I was interviewed about my project for the first time! I was very nervous and could not stop moving my hands, but overall, I think I did well. If you're interested in the interview, check out Ruby's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG-NAv60g80.
24th-
Another LGBTQ+ awareness day post. In this one I suggested using 'holl-' to prefix pansexual in Welsh, though to the people I've mentioned this to, there's been split opinion! Some people love the intensity that 'holl' implies in Welsh, others found it a bit strong. How do you feel about it? Let me know on social media!
June
17th- Ah, the catalyst of my obsession with writing hyperfocus blogs. I am forever grateful to Hanes LHDT+ Cymru for hosting 4 of my blogs so far. I consider my work for Hanes LHDT+ Cymru to be 'formal' and my blogging here to be 'informal'. It's good to be able to write in both styles.
July
3rd- Blog the 2nd! I have an entire Gdoc filled with newspaper 'clippings' from online archives. Most of which I haven't written about yet. Always more to cover!
16th- In 2021 I only did LGBTQ+ awareness days for topics under the LGBTQ+ acronym. Subcultures were not included in my original posts. But this year I decided I wanted to include more niche days and subculture days too! Plus, the drag flag is gorgeous.
24th- Blog the 3rd! I enjoyed this one a lot- using my Ancestry account to find the records behind the headlines. If a newspaper report said someone was arrested, or taken to an asylum, I was able to find the corresponding prison/asylum documents and track the unheard stories of Welsh LGBTQ+ people of the past. It was a fascinating, albeit often tragic endeavour. I hope to uncover more stories as I go along, so that our Queer Welsh ancestors may not be forgotten.
28th- So, I feel able to talk about this now. This talk was one which the Trawsnewid project kindly helped me set up- however, we were the targets of possible hate crime trolling that day. Someone got hold of the online talk link and exposed themself on camera in front of me and the people who had come to see me talk. I can't thank the staff at the National Museum for the quick response at shutting that troll down. But regrettably, the police did not manage to take action on this person. I recovered enough for the talk itself- and the rest went perfectly well.
August
10th- A cause close to my heart- I haven't updated it yet for 2022-2023. There's already been lives lost. It's solemn, but necessary work to make sure they aren't forgotten.
20th- A surprising thing this year was being included on the Pinc List! Completely unexpected- but I'm so glad people enjoy my work!
21st- This I'm quite proud of- adapting these pronouns into Welsh was a challenge, but I'm pretty happy with the result! The overall look and feel of ze/zir is pretty well conveyed by sê/sîr if I do say so myself.
September
23rd- I use 'friendly neighbourhood bi' a lot when discussing my bisexuality. Maybe its because Spider-Man in my head just has bisexual vibes.
October
5th- CardiffLifeMag very kindly included me in their magazine this year! A surprise, but a welcome one.
9th- Every so often I come across LGBTQIA+ terminology in other Celtic languages. I make a point of writing them down and sharing them (especially with Manx, Breton and Cornish). These kinds of things are often undigitised and unknown unless you happen to stumble across a physical copy. Knowledge sharing is crucial to research sometimes! I keep notes on Irish, Manx and Cornish LGBTQIA+ terminology I come across, so if you speak these languages, it's worth checking in with me in case I have something that might be of use to you.
11th- Ah yes- the allan/mas distinction. I learned Welsh in Aberystwyth and heard both, but was taught mas. The university accommodation at Aberystwyth University had signs on the backs of the doors which would say "mynd mas?". Dod allan is the standard but I'm a sucker for mas, hence I mention both in this tweet.
26th- An unexpected but welcome award from my University this year! Fun fact- I made the earring I'm wearing in that photo.
November
December
1st- A tweet in remembrance of Terrence Higgins from December this year. I had not yet observed World Aids Day on my Twitter before that so this would be the first.
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Thank you to all of you who made it this far! I'll be signing off for the rest of the year now, but don't forget to follow me on other social media in case the Bird App ceases to exist. See you all in 2023!
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