A Little Gay History of Wales

* A Little Gay History of Wales is the first book-length historical examination of LGBT activism in Wales laying out the campaign for equality in the twentieth century, the campaigns against Section 28, student and community activism, and recent developments such as Stonewall Cymru. * It is an example of pioneering archival research, drawing on never-before studied records which charts the lives of ordinary LGBT men and women across Wales. * It also features wide-ranging historical analysis stretching from the medieval period through to the modern-day, providing guides to changing language, places where LGBT people met and socialised, and their day-to-day experiences of coming out, threats of persecution, and acceptance.

A Little Gay History of Wales examines the lives, cultures and politics of ordinary LGBT men and women from the medieval period to the present day. The book employs pioneering archival research to identify the people, the places and the languages used to describe an experience so often hidden from view.A Little Gay History of Wales tells the compelling story of Welsh LGBT life from the Middle Ages to the present day. Drawing on a rich array of archival sources from across Britain, together with oral testimony and material culture, this pioneering study is the first to examine the experiences of ordinary LGBT men and women, and how they embarked on coming out, coming together and changing the world. This is the story of poets who wrote about same-sex love and translators who worked to create a language to describe it; activists who campaigned for equality and politicians who created the legislation providing it; teenagers ringing advice lines for guidance on coming out, and revellers in the pioneering bars and clubs on a Friday and Saturday night. It is also a study of prejudice and of intolerance, of emigration and isolation, of HIV/AIDS and Section 28 – all features of the complex historical reality of LGBT life and same-sex desire. Engaging and accessible, absorbing and perceptive, this book is an important advance in our understanding of Welsh history.