Growing up during the era of Cool Cymru, I felt the upbeat revival of Welsh language and culture from the outside. At the time, my experience of being a queer child did not fit the celebratory narratives that suddenly surrounded Wales. The feeling that queerness, Welshness and I were separate parts of myself made belonging difficult. Over time I began to see that identity can be layered: one can adopt a place as home in the way many people form a chosen family. That realization—of the chosen homeland as a space we can claim—became important to reconnecting with my roots.
Key to that shift were projects and people who dug into the parts of Welsh history that had been overlooked. Activists such as Lisa Power and researchers like Noreena Shopland worked on museum initiatives and archival recoveries that revealed stories previously erased from public memory. The act of learning about those lives felt like uncovering a network of kin. Understanding the past as inclusive rather than exclusionary helped me bridge the gap between my sexuality and my national identity; the more I learned, the more I could visualise a Wales that had always contained diverse sexualities and gender expressions.
Recovering invisible stories
Writing a book that gathered these lives—Rainbow Wales: Queer Icons Past And Present—made the connection explicit. The research process highlighted how institutions and popular narratives had sidelined queer lives, leaving many people without a reflected history to lean on. The deliberate work of cataloguing and presenting these stories is itself a form of cultural repair: it creates resources for future generations and offers alternative role models. The term hidden histories came to mean not only neglected archives but also the emotional work of recognising oneself in those records.
Notable figures reshaping the narrative
There are many examples that show queerness has long been part of Welsh cultural life. Artists such as Gwen John, poets like Cranogwen, the famous Ladies of Llangollen, and activists including suffragette Margaret Haig Thomas serve as touchstones. Each of these lives offers a different angle on how intimacy, creativity and resistance intersect with national belonging. Highlighting such names disrupts the notion that queerness is a new import to Wales; instead it becomes clear that queer presence has been present across centuries, even when public acknowledgement was absent.
Modern role models: sport, visibility and youth
Contemporary figures can make historical discoveries feel immediate. The footballer Jess Fishlock stands out as a public, proudly queer Welsh athlete whose visibility changes what is imaginable for young people. Fishlock has spoken about knowing her sexuality from an early age and having a difficult school experience, describing those years as like “hell on earth.” That candidness, paired with sporting excellence, presents an image of a successful Welsh person who is openly queer—an image that can alter how young queer people see both sports and national pride together. Wearing a Welsh shirt and a rainbow emblem need not be contradictory; they can coexist as parts of a whole identity.
The ripple effects of representation
When youth see role models who reflect multiple parts of their identity, it often expands the sense of what is possible. I sometimes imagine whether exposure to figures like Fishlock would have changed my adolescence—perhaps I would have felt more comfortable expressing myself, or I might have engaged differently with activities like sport. For my generation, the realignment of identity came piecemeal: archival recoveries, supportive activists, and new public icons created a mosaic that allowed people to assemble a fuller sense of belonging. The phrase queer icon here means someone whose life offers both visibility and a pathway to belonging.
Becoming a personal and collective icon
Ultimately, the journey I describe is both personal and communal. Discovering Wales’s queer past and observing contemporary figures helped me imagine being a proud Welsh queer person who does not have to prioritize one identity over another. Publishing Rainbow Wales by Calon made that process tangible; the book is part of a wider cultural movement to foreground LGBTQIA+ stories in Welsh life, and it is noted as published and out on 7 May 2026. Organisations and media outlets such as DIVA, which now operates as the DIVA Charitable Trust, continue to support platforms made by and for LGBTQIA+ women and gender diverse people. Such infrastructures help ensure the next generation finds both historical anchors and contemporary champions.