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Showing posts with the label Wales

UK’s First Trans MP: a Conundrum for the Conservative Party?

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  UK’s First Trans MP: a Conundrum for the Conservative Party? Earlier this year, Jamie Wallis MP came out as transgender. Following a car crash in late November 2021, he described his reaction to the incident as being linked to his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which he developed as a result of blackmail and rape. Wallis is an MP for the Conservative Party, having unseated Labour’s 30-year hold on the Bridgend constituency. This, combined with his transness, makes for a rather unusual situation for the Conservative Party at large, having spent the last twelve years introducing policies that have had a negative impact on the transgender community in the United Kingdom.  Wallis, in an interview with Sky News said that he wishes to transition as ‘quick as possible’ but also mentions that the process will be ‘challenging and difficult’ with ‘lots of hurdles’. Additionally, he mentioned that  ‘it's not going to be done overnight, it's going to take many, many years’...

The Welsh Church 2- Electric Boogaloo (Hunting the oldest queer terms in Welsh)

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  The Welsh Church 2- Electric Boogaloo (Hunting the oldest queer terms in Welsh) (or, 453 years is too long to keep calling us this) (Consider supporting me on my ko-fi here or my etsy here if you are able)  (CW: homophobic slurs in Welsh and English)  In my last essay about the homophobia and transphobia embedded in the Welsh Church (or Church in Wales) I wrote about the homophobic lines in Leviticus 18:22 and how there has been no edition of the Welsh Bible that does not have the homophobic implications of those lines. It got me thinking, what about the other, more dubious lines in the Bible that contain homophobia or even transphobia? And did this get extended into Welsh?  I began by gathering together all of the lines in the Bible known to be homophobic or justify homophobia. They are: Leviticus (Lefiticus) 18:22, Leviticus (Lefiticus) 20:13, 1 Corinthians (Corinthiaid) 6:9-10, 1 Kings (Brenhinoedd) 14:24, 1 Kings (Brenhinoedd) 15:12. In the King James Bible (...

Dictionaries in Welsh and English: Discrepancy of common Gender and Sexuality terms?

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  Dictionaries in Welsh and English: Discrepancy of common Gender and Sexuality terms? Data volunteered by other Welsh speakers who own bilingual English-Welsh Dictionaries Current data up until the 11th of October 2021  (w)= Welsh Side of the Dictionary (e)= English Side of the Dictionary [if these are known] The Hippocrene Dictionary (1993) has anrhywiol for asexual Geiriadur Newydd notes these terms are unacceptable

Trans in Wales- introduction

  Trans in Wales- introduction There's something rather odd about being trans in Wales. It's a converging of nationality (sometimes adoptive) and marginalisation. But in all my time spent living in England (18 years), I've encountered so many more institutional problems there than in Wales. Right off the bat in my gender journey navigating England's finest trans-unfriendly healthcare networks, I experienced institutional transphobia. My first referral to a GIC in Manchester fell through after my attempt to seek mental health support for reasons unrelated to my transness were revealed to the professionals I had encountered. I never got that referral. That was back when I was in college, in England. Having gone through the mentally stressful ordeal of disguising my lateness returning to where my parents lived as studying late and the bus arriving  later than usual, I struck out alone to a busy hospital, where I'd carefully organised my appointment with a medical profe...

The Welsh Church (Church in Wales) is still homophobic and transphobic: An Essay

The Welsh Church (Church in Wales) is still homophobic and transphobic: An Essay (Consider supporting me on my ko-fi here or my etsy here if you are able)  The Welsh church has a long history of homophobia and transphobia that is often overlooked when critically examining its power and status in Wales. If we are going to build a fair and free Wales for all, we need to be addressing the latent homophobia and transphobia within what would otherwise be, a fairly decent institution of Welsh culture.  Homophobia and transphobia has permeated much of society ever since strict ecclesiastical gender norms and gender roles came in and were enforced by the populace against anyone who appeared outside of these norms- either by way of their love of the same gender, or by their transgressing of the lines of gender itself and identifying with a gender that they were not assigned at birth.  Famously, the Bible is cited to justify church-based homophobia in Leviticus 18:22, which reads...

Taking a Critical Eye to Transphobic Headlines- Why anti-trans language is front and center:

  Taking a Critical Eye to Transphobic Headlines- Why anti-trans language is front and center: Originally written 16th June 2021 Many of us (trans people in the UK) are fed up with headline after headline announcing hatred for trans people, with a seemingly simultaneous endless love for transphobes. I for one, check the news frequently enough to notice things that perhaps those who haven’t been glued to each headline won't do– that being a very interesting trend of journalism standard pattern breaking that betrays the BBC's innermost policy on trans news articles. The BBC is a very interesting media outlet to look at- especially because it is supposed to have an unbiased look upon the world. Realistically, we all know that completely unbiased reporting is nigh on impossible for any person- it’s part of the human experience that we tend to slip benign and malignant views into our work- be it written, visual or otherwise intended for wide audiences. Now, I’m no prescriptivist. I...

Introduction

  Luke A. B. ‘s Trans Blogging  Hello there! I’m Luke. This has been a long time in the making but I’m finally getting my thoughts together on a blog.  I’m a 20-something trans guy and a writer. I’m currently working on a Welsh LGBTQ+ dictionary  and have 3 other books I’m writing or have written about transmasculinity. I’m a Welsh speaker  (learning at Uni) and studying Celtic Studies. I have a twitter for my dictionary at @LLyfr_Enfys  (here).