Dragon Flag Wars: Finals

Petitions - UK Government and Parliament

Petition: Reverse the decision to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill

I want the Government to reverse their decision to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, as this legislation contains importa

hey if you're a UK resident can you sign this petition and if not please rb to spread the word

this is an official UK government petition that they have to respond to if it reaches 10,000 signatures

Mis Hanes LHDT+ 2024 / LGBT+ History Month 2024

Mis Hanes LHDT+ Hapus 2024! Heddiw yw diwrnod olaf y mis, ond dwi'n dathlu’n hwyr gyda fy hoff lyfrau sy'n dylanwadu ar fy ngwaith.

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Happy LGBT+ History Month 2024! Today is the last day of the month, but I'm celebrating late with my favourite books that have influenced my work.

Y llyfr heddiw yw 'Understanding Trans Health' gan Ruth Pearce, a gyhoeddwyd yn 2018

Mae'r llyfr hwn yn hollbwysig i unrhyw un sy'n astudio pobl draws yn y DU yn yr 21ain Ganrif. Yn llawn hanes traws a meddygaeth draws, mae'r llyfr hwn yn disgrifio'r dirwedd feddygol y mae pobl draws a meddygon CHR yn ei hwynebu yn y presennol. Roedd y llyfr yn ddefnyddiol iawn ar gyfer fy ngwaith israddedig y llynedd.

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Today's book is 'Understanding Trans Health by Ruth Pearce', published 2018.

This book is essential for anyone studying trans people in the UK in the 21st Century. Full of trans history and trans medicine, this book describes the medical landscape that trans people and GIC doctors face presently. The book was very useful for my undergraduate work last year.

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Ydych chi wedi darllen y llyfr hwn? / Have you read this book?

Petitions - UK Government and Parliament

Petition: Legally enshrine the right of adults to physically transition using NHS services

Introduce a law to legally protect the right of those aged 18 and over to transition using NHS services. This should specifically cover phys

Uk peeps!! Let’s get this going! 🏳️‍⚧️🇬🇧

New stock is finally here and I'm expanding international shipping!

I have 2 new print designs out today, based on my artworks for the Tir Cwiar exhibition! One is based on "Yr Haul" - a piece which celebrates the queerness of the land through the interblending of the mountains of Wales with the chevron on the progress pride flag. And the other is based on sketches I did for "Y Daith" - featuring the earliest reference to intersex people in Welsh as the ring on the intersex flag (the reference comes from the Laws of Hywel Dda and dates to around the 14th Century).

I have also restocked some of my most popular prints, such as the bilingual Gilbert Baker flag print (pictured) and the bilingual LGBT+ terminology print. You can find my prints here.

I am also expanding international shipping! I can now ship to any places covered by Royal Mail - including the US, Canada, EU, New Zealand/Aotearoa, Australia and elsewhere in the world. International shipping prices have gone up so you will be charged a flat rate of £2.70 for shipping if you are located outside of the UK. Existing international orders will also be posted tomorrow (all things going well).

For those of you in the UK - I will be selling badges soon as well. If you've bought from me in-person you will have had a sneak-peek at some of them already, but soon I will have pronoun badges, collage badges and original art badges up for sale on my online shop. Shipping of badges will be UK only due to costs for now.

I'm still completely reliant on proceeds from my online shop in order to pay bills, pay rent and buy food - so I am hugely appreciative of every order. Diolch o galon i chi!

Plîs help me not lose my teeth

I never thought I'd have to make one of these, but I'm genuinely really struggling financially right now and will swallow my pride about asking for help.

As some of you may know, the NHS has been slowly gutted by the Tories, meaning that medical interventions which were formerly free/low cost and readily available are no longer available. As a result I'm having to pay £250 out of pocket for a mouth guard to protect my teeth from tooth grinding. I fell out of the NHS system a while ago when I became estranged, so have to go private.

I suffer from a tight tempomandibular joint (the muscles in my jaw) which causes teeth grinding (bruxism) at night. Stress and anxiety also worsen this. It's gotten to the point where it can hurt to talk or eat and the tooth grinding triggers my migraines due to the pressure caused by my jaw. My gums are also very sensitive and thin due to another medical condition and the grinding is making my teeth loose and gums bleed. I have no other option other than getting a mouth guard fitted - the cheapest option of which is £250.

So I'm creating a $1 Patreon tier for anyone who can spare it to help me cover the cost of my mouth guard. If you do donate, I really, really cannot thank you enough - losing my teeth is one of my biggest fears and I need to prevent that from happening, so thank you again if you can spare anything! If you would prefer, I also have tumblr tips enabled. If you cannot donate, please consider reblogging!

Diolch mawr for reading and thank you so much to everyone who has supported me - now or in the past.

Patreon

Get more from Prosiect Llyfr Enfys on Patreon

Croeso! Welcome!

Announcement on Prosiect Llyfr Enfys!

Bore da! I am delighted to announce that I have started a patreon for Prosiect Llyfr Enfys. I've created the patreon as a way for you to be able to support the project and have a say in blog posts, video content and much more! Becoming a patron will help support me in my research for the dictionary and help me make it the best dictionary it can be.

Patrons will have early access to blogs, video content, physical media and will be able to vote on what they would like to see next.

Tiers start at £3.20 a month and LGBTQIA+ Welsh speaking patrons can request access to the patrons only channel in the Enfys Draig discord (links available for the server upon request!)

I would like to thank each and every person who supports my work and the project- your support genuinely means a lot and the excitement for the project is really heartening to see!

If you join today, there is a poll to vote in, two blogs ready to view and an early access post for patrons, with more content planned for the end of March. Diolch o galon am ddarllen / thank you very much for reading!

Luke (he/him), LGBTQIA+ writer and creator of Prosiect Llyfr Enfys

(Please share this post so it can reach other LGBTQIA+ Welsh people or people interested in the Welsh language. Diolch!)

Sooner or later I've gotta make a better post regarding the appropriation of indigenous terminology by proponents of (certain kinds of) Welsh nationalism. But for now here's a very whistle-stop version of that post. I have a degree in Celtic Studies so these topics are very near and dear to my heart.

[Note: I wrote this post originally during a migraine. I'm revisiting the draft while I'm ill but hopefully can fix this up into something somewhat understandable. As always, this is only a very brief description of the history and I strongly reccomend reading about these topics in your own time to develop a deeper understanding of them. These are topics not even well known in Britain, but if you can spend a short time just to read this, you can help to combat misinformation about British (particularly Welsh) history - and that could aid in preventing the misappropriation of history in the long run. Diolch eto for reading!]

Very often, (certain) Welsh nationalists use terminology that positions the Welsh as if they are an 'indigenous' population who have been 'colonised'. They use language (which in this climate) heavily draws upon the language typically used for peoples who are the victims of British colonialism (of which Wales was an active participant). There's multiple issues with this and many of them lie in whether its appropriate to use this language (regardless of its accuracy or not) as a country which was actively involved in the colonisation of much of the world. What I mean in short is that additional language is needed which doesn't step on the toes of endangered cultures and groups directly affected by British colonialism.

Wales not only participated in British colonialism as a whole (alongside Scotland, Ireland* and England) but itself colonised parts of patagonia in Argentina.

I can't think of any similar terminology to 'indigenous' or 'colonised' which would also get the idea which is meant across. 'Native' in certain contexts is permissible, e.g. 'native speaker' in the context of a Welsh speaker. But in other contexts other than langauge, things get tricky when you argue 'nativeness' (this is a topic I will come back to - especially re. Celtic as a language descriptor vs Celtic as a so-called ethnicity). When (certain) Welsh nationalists talk about being 'indigenous' , being 'native' or 'colonised' what is meant by that?

(Map of the expansion of the Bronze Age Bell Beaker culture circa 2400 BC in Britain and Ireland) - from this map

What makes a Welsh person 'indigenous' to this island that doesn't immediately disqualify other peoples who also have a deep history here? Historically, the island of Britain has been lived on by many, many peoples.

In the Bronze Age you had the arrival of the Bell Beaker people. Then in the Iron-Age, you had tribes speaking (mostly) Brittonic. I say mostly, because we have direct evidence that in the Iron Age Gaulish speaking tribes also moved to parts of Britain but later became integrated with the rest of the population (which, I will add, were not a united peoples but a scattering of different groups who often went to war against each other). Then the Romans invaded Britain (and much of Western Europe) and over time integrated into the local population. So now Britain is Romano-British. Eventually the Western Roman Empire collapses and Britain enters into the sub-Roman Britain phase of its existence. Kingdoms begin to form, with the population speaking Brittonic and British-Latin. So you have different kingdoms in (what would become Wales) and in (what would become Northern England and Southern Scotland) you have more Brittonic-speaking kingdoms.

These kingdoms were also not a united peoples. They shared a language - but it's like claiming that Ancient Greeks were a united people simply because they all spoke Greek. Sparta, Athens, Cornith etc. were independent of each other and the same is true of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd (the Old North) and the kingdoms of Wales. They all had a common language but also went to war with each other sometimes. Eventually, the Brittonic language began to diverge into different languages. Namely, Old Welsh and Cumbric (the language spoken in what is today Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland and Southern Scotland). The two languages were still very closely related but had diverged by a certain point.

At the same time this is happening, Anglo-Saxons begin to arrive in what is now Kent. They form kingdoms and the Britons living there are either displaced or become absorbed into the Anglo-Saxon populace. Then the Norse rock up and conduct viking raids around the coast before finally settling in parts of the country and forming their own territories.

So now Britain has several groups living on the island (keeping in mind even before settlement from the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse that the British kingdoms were already composed of different groups themselves). Northern Scotland was also having a time re: Picts, Gaels and Britons - but we'll gloss over that for brevity. Also, Ireland was also raiding the Welsh coast at this time too.

Then the Normans rock up and in 1066 William the Conqueror, well, conquers. More history happens after this point but I will try and keep this as brief and as non-messy as I can.

So, to recap:

One of the earliest cultures in Britain was the Bell Beaker people in the Bronze Age. They had their lands settled by the Iron Age Britons ('Celts'). Then the Romans came and the 'Celts' became Romano-Britons. After the Western Roman Empire collapses the remaining population forms kingdoms with distinct political identities. These kingdoms eventually find themselves fighting the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse. Then the Normans turn up and so on and so forth.

So- which group is the original native group to Britain? (Trick question - this question cannot be satisfactorily answered in favour of one group without leaning into claims of historicity which the other groups can also claim).

Which brings me to modern Welsh identity and those who came before.

Something I see in Welsh nationalist groups is a claim to the legacy (or even claims of direct descendance from) the Iron Age Britons (commonly called Celts for shorthand, but as I said before I'm gonna get back to that point). And this narrative is what the "Welsh people are native to Britain" argument is based off of.

It may seem like #praxis to argue the Welsh people are the true inhabitants of Britain and the English are evil invaders. But you have to make *several* logical leaps to get to that point if you're genuinely arguing that point.

For starters, many more people than just the Britons (read: Romano Britons/early Brittonic kingdoms) have called Britain home since the Early Middle Ages. For example, there's the settlement of Scotland by the Gaels, the Irish settlement of certain parts of costal Wales. You have (much later) Roma and traveller groups, Jewish diaspora and many more diverse cultures and peoples existing in Britain at this time. The Romano-British population, which developed into the Early Middle Ages kingdoms of Wales and the Hen Ogledd, was also multicultural. Many black Romans started families with white Britons. By the sub-Roman period, Britain was ethnically and culturally diverse.

But those who argue in favour of a such thing as 'Celtic ethnicity' in order to support the idea Britons (and only Britons) were native to these islands typically imagine that history as white. White Brits, white Romans, white Gaels. When we know this isn't true. Did you know that the Northernmost Ancient Egyptian temple in the world is in Yorkshire because Roman Egyptians in the military brought their religion with them? Mary Beard did a fantastic documentary about a Roman Soldier from modern day Syria who was stationed at Hadrian's Wall who started a family with a British woman. Point is, that some people like to imagine a purely white Britain that they can pine for. And I'm afraid it simply isn't true. The version of history many white supremacists look to simply didn't exist.

I'll quickly bring up one last point before I draw this to a close. And it's about Celtic as a linguistic term vs Celtic as a so-called ethnicity. You see, any first year Celtic Student would tell you that there is no such thing as 'Celts'. Crazy, I know from people studying *Celtic* studies. But hear me out - there is good reasoning why (beyond language groups) Celtic is not a good term for describing an ethnic group. Much of it relates to what I've already mentioned, but we categorise Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Mann, Cornwall and Brittany as Celtic not because of the ethnicity of the people living there (which I've mentioned is pretty diverse) but because they are all places where Celtic languages are spoken. It wasn't until Edward Llwyd (d. 1709) that the term Celtic was coined to describe these languages. Up until that point, nobody was thinking of Irish and Welsh as related because the languages do not sound like they have a common origin. By extension, people didn't think of the Welsh and Irish as being the same peoples (or Celtic) either. Its only in the modern day there is a sense of Celtic identity. The Iron Age Britons were not going around calling themselves Celts. There was no common Celtic identity. But very often people argue Celticness based on a pseudohistory which insists on a false and misleading interpretation of history. Whether or not Celticness exists now is a different matter entirely. But it sure does not rest upon race or ethnicity as a qualifier. This is quite foundational stuff to first year and above Celtic Scholars, but is not generally well known outside of academia because the misinformation is quite strong. So if you read is far, diolch mawr and please share this with anyone you think might be interested in it. Any amount of knowledge of these things would greatly improve understanding of what it means to be Welsh and what it means to speak a Celtic language.

Lastly,

all of that begs us to ask the question:

What does it mean to claim nativeness in a Western European context?

More under the cut

What does it mean to claim nativeness in a Western European context? Especially in a Western Europe post-colonialism.

It means, to me, to claim what isn't our right to claim. To argue and make our points with language that isn't ours and isn't designed to be ours. That this language of indigeneity may sound appealing, but is it improper to use this terminology when our country was directly responsible for the atrocities in which this very language became relevant?

What do we do in response to the misinterpretation of our culture instead of relying on language of indigeneity? These are the questions I want to leave you with and invite you to share your thoughts on. How do we build a Wales which advocates for itself without relying upon inaccurate language which betrays a reliance upon the ahistorical to make its point?

What kind of Wales do we want to live in?

Thank you so much for all of this! I think being tested to see if I have developed allergies is a good idea. I live in rural Wales so there aren't any dermatologists around, but I could try asking my GP - hopefully I'll luck out and they'll listen!

Hello there - I had a question which I think(?) you might be able to help with. Or at least point me in the direction of more information.

I have a few chronic illnesses and disabilities and as such there's many gremlins I deal with. One thing that crops up a lot are comorbidities between my conditions.

I'm trying to be more vigilant with regards to my health - as a child there were many, many missed opportunities to get my symptoms seen to by a doctor (all squandered due to my parents nor believing me about my symptoms).

Anyway, I wanted to ask about MCAS and if you know it's possible to have it but not realise it?

I've had a few incidents like this, but mostly forgot them or ignored them. But yesterday I ate some basil from my windowsill plant and I had what can only be described as an allergic reaction. I'm not allergic to any foods (as far as I know) but I've eaten from this exact plant before and been fine. I have mint growing next to it which I also ate and it caused the same reaction. Again, I've eaten from this exact plant before. It was like my mouth was burning or stinging and the leaves felt, spicy? In my mouth. I'm not sure how to describe it but I hope you know what I mean. Today I ate from the exact same plants and had no reaction whatsoever.

I've definitely had similar things happen before- but events like yesterday are few and far between. But utterly confounding when they do happen. I have urticaria (diagnosed since age 18) which I suspect is relevant, somehow.

I'm starting to wonder if a lot of my symptoms I've written off have actually been MCAS. But I'm not sure. Do you have any advice around talking to a doctor about this or if I have a leg to stand on so to speak?

Sending my best wishes!

Hey friend, sorry to hear you've been dealing with some neglect.

And considering MCAS was only really recognized as a condition in the last 15 years, it's absolutely possible to have it and not know until symptoms get worse. I was experiencing anaphylactoid reactions my whole childhood, but because I tested negative on IgE tests (I still do), it was dismissed as anxiety right up until I hit my 30s and I experienced my first episode of full-blown idiopathic anaphylaxis.

(Note: anaphylaxis is not a requirement for diagnosis, and not everyone experiences it.)

You should discuss your inconsistent allergies with your doctor or allergist. I would also advise pursuing allergen testing, as new allergens can develop at any time, even if you don't have mast cell instability.

If you suspect some form of mast cell instability may be the root cause of your issues, I'd suggest checking out The Mast Cell Disease Society. (Their website is in the process of being updated, still. But they have good resources there.)

Their signs and symptoms (and triggers) page has recently been updated and is fairly concise:

If any of that rings a bell, it might be worth bringing up with your allergist, but fair warning, not everyone is receptive to the idea of mast cell disorders outside of mastocytosis. (And even then some doctors gaslight their patients to hell and back.)

If you do find yourself in this situation, try joining a couple of support groups to see if there are any MCAS aware doctors in your area, or alternatively, try the TMS physician finder tool:

TMS - The Mast Cell Disease Society, Inc

Find a Physician - TMS - The Mast Cell Disease Society, Inc

Find a Physician Loading store locator from Stockist store locator…

Sorry if it seems like I'm just throwing a lot of links at you, but they are very useful links and I'm not at my best right now to explain things.

I hope this is helpful and if I missed something, please let me know.

I wish you luck in remedying your chronic health issues <3

Cymru Queers for Palestine disrupting and leading the Cardiff Pride Parade, Saturday 22nd June by Hannah Tottle

Pokémon Human Character Tournament: THE FINAL SHOWDOWN