“Queerness, Welshness, and I seemed like three separate things that would never come together”
BY DR EMILY GARSIDE, IMAGE BY MPFOTO71
In the 90s, “Cool Cymru” swept through Wales, bringing a new sense of pride in being Welsh and a revival of our language and culture. But as a queer Welsh kid back then, I didn’t really feel connected to my suddenly ‘cool’ homeland. Queerness, Welshness, and I seemed like three separate things that would never come together.
Quietly, some Welsh pride and queerness started to come together. As someone who became Welsh by choice, much like how queer people choose their families, I realised we can also choose the place we call home. Lisa Power, a Cardiff-based activist, made me realise you don’t have to think your homeland, whether chosen or given, is perfect to embrace it. Lisa also helped with a museum project to uncover Wales’s hidden histories. She and another person I looked up to, Noreena Shopland, finally showed me the connections I’d been missing: the queer people left out of my history. After all, how can any of us connect with a nationality that once denied our existence?
There were people like the artist Gwen John, the poet Cranogwen, the Ladies of Llangollen, and suffragette Margaret Haig Thomas. These are just a few examples, but they remind us that queerness and Welshness have always existed together.
Writing a book about queer Welsh people (Rainbow Wales, Queer Icons Past And Present) brought me closer to home and made me think about queerness as a missed connection. I always hated football as a kid – actually, I disliked all sports. Being a nerdy queer kid didn’t help me fit in with the sporty crowd. But now, kids have Jess Fishlock, the greatest Welsh footballer of any gender, who is openly queer, proud, and Welsh. She knew she was a lesbian at twelve and called her school years “hell on earth.” We might not have shared a love of football, but we did share the same school. I went to school with a future queer Welsh icon who, even though she’s younger than me and plays a sport I don’t follow, showed me how my Welshness and queerness could come together. There’s pride in wearing a Welsh football shirt and pride in flying a rainbow flag – being both at once, without apology.
Would I have been more into football, or more openly queer, if I’d had Jess Fishlock to look up to as a kid? Maybe. But for my generation, maybe it took piecing things together – the history that Lisa Power and Noreena Shopland uncovered, my own experiences, and the bold pride shown by the cool sporty girls – to realise I could be my own queer Welsh icon, proud of both sides of my story.
Rainbow Wales Queer Icons Past And Future is published by Calon and out on 7 May 2026.
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