Gay aristocrat
My Writing on Medium
I’m in the line of unfeasible dreams. Sometimes, on my wildest days, I dream I’ll make a living from writing. These last few months, for investigate, I’ve had my chief stuck in a series of early 20th century novels, immersing myself in the world of vivid young people. Even when I was a kid, watching cross-dressing, monocle wearing Sissy in the BBC’s comedy You Rang My Lord, I knew there was something a bit queer about the 1920s. People, some people, probably mostly rich people with not much to miss, pushed boundaries around culture and sexuality and dress. The idea of the gay 1920s aristocrat is extremely iconic for me. It offers the possibility of a particular caring of maleness which, as a not especially macho trans man, is very attractive to me. It’s exemplified in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.
I write a lot of gay characters, so I tend to have possibly more than the average quantity of male characters in my books. And I ponder a lot about the way I want to represent those male characters. I feel that sometimes modern conceptions of what maleness means are attractive narrow. Marketing profiling and no doubt all behavior of other social factors hav
13 LGBTQ royals you didn’t learn about in history class
The Dutch monarchy made international news last week after announcing that royals can marry a queer partner without giving up their right to the throne. But while the Netherlands, which in 2001 became the first country to legalize gay marriage, has paved the wave for a queer royal to officially wear the crown, LGBTQ people have prolonged been doing so unofficially.
While it’s complex to assign up-to-date labels to figures from the past, there were notable leaders from centuries — even millennia — ago, who crossed sexual and gender boundaries. Some were celebrated by their subjects, others vilified.
In illumination of the Dutch monarchy’s recent announcement and in honor of LGBTQ History Month, which is celebrated in October, here are 13 queer royals you didn’t learn about in school.
Emperor Ai of Han (27 - 1 B.C.)
Made emperor of the Han Dynasty at age 20, Ai was initially well received by his subjects but eventually became paired with corruption and incompetence. He was also widely established to have been romantically involved with one of his ministers, Dong Xian, though both men were married to women.
In the “Hanshu,” or
Is the British royal family ready for a gay royal? Etiquette expert weighs in
Red, White & Royal Bluefollows the love story between the fictional Prince Henry, fourth in line to the British throne, and his boyfriend Alex Claremont-Diaz, the son of the President of the United States. Based on the bestselling 2019 publication by Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue posits the question, is the world ready for LGBTQ+ public figures in monarchy and politics?
There has never been a queer President of the United States, and only seven openly gay members of the federal government in its 246 years. Pete Buttigieg is President Joe Biden's Secretary of Transportation and the first First openly gay Cabinet Secretary while Randy W. Berry is the country's First Merged States Special Agent for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons.
Globally, Manvendra Singh Gohil, the probable heir of the honorary Maharaja of Rajpipla, is considered the first openly queer prince in the world while in the UK, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a third cousin once removed of the then-reigning Queen Elizabeth II, became the first member of the British aristocracy to come out as
If we were to grab a walk through the long halls of history, most people we meet would appear a product of their time, seamlessly at one with the earth around them.
A few, however, would stand out enjoy a splash of colour against a black and white background.
That was the kind of Raymond Browne Lecky, a legendary figure in Fintona folklore.
Strutting his stuff from 1881-1961, Lecky, an openly gay aristocrat who lived in Ecclesville House, was something of a peacock.
Born with a love of the arts and an instinct for altruism, Lecky became famous around Fintona for his peculiar combination of kindness and flamboyance.
Usually garbed in the finest of mauve and pink – the same colours that dominated the interior decor at Ecclesville Home, apparently – Lecky rolled around town, elegant and absurd, in his chauffeur-driven two-toned lush Austin 16.
A distant family member once wrote of an encounter with Lecky, “Nell and I went to church yesterday, it was dull enough. New Raymond (Lecky) was there, his hands covered with large diamond rings, big button hole specs with gold chain, gold chain to hold his tyrolean hat on with, altogether a terrible sight, I think it’s a pity of
The Gay Aristocracy of Victorian Wales
The Victorian era was not an easy moment to be gay. Until 1861, you could be executed for the ‘crime’ of sodomy (though the last men to obtain that punishment were killed in 1835).
Even after the death penalty was no longer a risk, male lover men could receive sentences of 10 years to life in harsh Victorian prisons, where they would endure solitary confinement and hard labour.
But not every gay man faced the same risks. As has so often been the case throughout history, those with wealth and status were better protected from the law than their less well-off contemporaries. Some of Wales’ listed buildings have strong associations with men born into privilege, who were able to express their sexual identities with a freedom that the average person would not enjoy until far later.
George Powell (1842-1882)
George Powell spent his promptly childhood in Nanteos mansion near Aberystwyth, which he later inherited along with estates including a number of silver and steer mines in Cardiganshire. He travelled very widely in Europe, Russia and North Africa, acquiring a big collection of artworks and curiosities from around the world which he eventually l