I spent most of Sunday and Monday in Wales because my colleague, Berkeley, and I were speaking at a conference on trans issues organized by Youth Cymru. It was being held in Port Talbot, which as all Welsh people know is famous primarily for the steel works. However, that’s not all there is to the town. Nearby is Margam Park, formerly a Cistercian Abbey and, following Henry VIII knocking it about a bit, a stately home. It is now a fabulous resource for local people. We took over The Orangery, pictured above. It was very splendid, and just the sort of place to educate various government and voluntary sector people about trans issues.

We got to spend the night in Twelve Knights, a lovely old pub with guest rooms and super-friendly staff. I think my room was bigger than the place where I live. Good food too.

The weather on Monday morning was quite wild. It was just as well that it was cold because I bet the surf was up at Porthcawl.

The conference had a whole bunch of high profile speakers, including my friend Debs from Mermaids; the fabulous Bernard & Terry from GIRES (who were in Twelve Knights with us); Sally Holland, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales; and topping the bill Fox and Lewis from Lucky Tooth Films. Those guys are super-awesome. Fox had flown home from Prague on Sunday night, but he and Lewis were up at 6:00am to drive from Brighton to give a talk.

We were all given headsets so we could listen to live translations of the parts of the programme that were given in Welsh.

Then there was the amazing Fran O’Hara who created illustrations for the talks live as they were happening. Here’s part of her illustration for Fox & Lewis.

The day ended with a live performance of Humanequin, a theatre piece by four young trans men and created with the aid of theatre company, Mess Up The Mess. I understand that other local trans kids were involved in creating it, and have performed in it elsewhere, but only the four lads were able to get time off to be at the conference,

It was all very positive, and I’m very proud to have been a part of it. And especially proud because it was in Wales.

Special thanks go to Rachel Benson who organized the whole thing. Diolch am bopeth, Rachel.