Welsh City Elects Worlds First Non Binary Mayor

[San Lumen]

https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... nary-mayor

Bangor, the oldest city in Wales, is now believed to be the world's first city to elect a non-binary mayor.

Owen Hurcum, 22, is also the youngest mayor in Welsh history. They had been a city councillor for four years prior to their election.

What a amazing achievement. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner. They may be the first but will not be the last.

Your thoughts NSG?

[Stellar Colonies]

I like how Hurcum is also the youngest mayor in the oldest Welsh city, as you mentioned.

[Cetacea]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is Non-Binary and how does it differ from Transgender

I understand there have been a number of trans Mayors

[North Sonovia]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is Non-Binary and how does it differ from Transgender

I understand there have been a number of trans Mayors

Non-binary means you still have a male or female sex, but you don't identify with a masculine or feminine pronoun. You'd typically identify with a neutral pronoun, "they" (singular) in this case.

Transgender means you've changed genders (as well as your sex, in most cases) and identify as the opposite gender identity. A transgender man is one who was born a biological female. A transgender woman is one who was born a biological male.

Hope this helped.

[Arisyan]

https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/553187-welsh-city-elects-worlds-first-non-binary-mayor

Bangor, the oldest city in Wales, is now believed to be the world's first city to elect a non-binary mayor.

Owen Hurcum, 22, is also the youngest mayor in Welsh history. They had been a city councillor for four years prior to their election.

What a amazing achievement. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner. They may be the first but will not be the last.

Your thoughts NSG?

I know im cordoning myself into tribes and all that, but do we know if they're a member of a party, and if so which one?

[North Sonovia]

https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/553187-welsh-city-elects-worlds-first-non-binary-mayor

Bangor, the oldest city in Wales, is now believed to be the world's first city to elect a non-binary mayor.

Owen Hurcum, 22, is also the youngest mayor in Welsh history. They had been a city councillor for four years prior to their election.

What a amazing achievement. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner. They may be the first but will not be the last.

Your thoughts NSG?

I know im cordoning myself into tribes and all that, but do we know if they're a member of a party, and if so which one?

Most members of the LGBTQIA+ typically lean left out of the belief that the left wing cares more about them, although there are many exceptions (homosexual, transgender, and non-binary people who lean right, although usually only economically if they do).

Right-leaning members of the LGBTQIA+ community are usually more rare, so I think it's safe to assume Owen Hurcum's political party leans left (if they have a party).

[The Huskar Social Union]

https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/553187-welsh-city-elects-worlds-first-non-binary-mayor

Bangor, the oldest city in Wales, is now believed to be the world's first city to elect a non-binary mayor.

Owen Hurcum, 22, is also the youngest mayor in Welsh history. They had been a city councillor for four years prior to their election.

What a amazing achievement. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner. They may be the first but will not be the last.

Your thoughts NSG?

I know im cordoning myself into tribes and all that, but do we know if they're a member of a party, and if so which one?

They are independent but used to be a member of Plaid Cymru, a centre-left Welsh Nationalist party. They quit the party over a transgender rights row.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57087627

[Kandorith]

Sorry but...... they are still male or female... but revoke being called such... I am very confused.

Excuse my ignorance, but huh? (I am being serious not in any derogatory way, I seriously do not get it)

But good for this person! The Oldest city in Wales having the youngest major is ironic in a good way.

[North Sonovia]

Sorry but...... they are still male or female... but revoke being called such... I am very confused.

Excuse my ignorance, but huh? (I am being serious not in any derogatory way, I seriously do not get it)

But good for this person! The Oldest city in Wales having the youngest major is ironic in a good way.

Well both sides can agree that Mr. Hurcum's sex is male. But non-binary just means you don't want to called male or female, and the right, usually, (although common sense suggests that there are leftists and DINOs who do this as well) don't follow and the right is usually the side that tries to refute the fluidity of gender (although there are rightists who are social progressives, such as myself).

Gender can and usually does correspond with your sex but it's not in every case that it does. Again, hope this helped...

[Blue Nagia]

Sorry but...... they are still male or female... but revoke being called such... I am very confused.

Excuse my ignorance, but huh? (I am being serious not in any derogatory way, I seriously do not get it)

But good for this person! The Oldest city in Wales having the youngest major is ironic in a good way.

It's no different from saying that a trans woman has a "male" sex at birth, but does not in any way see herself as male. Non-binary people don't see themselves as male or female: they might feel like a mix of the two, or like there's an empty space in in their identity where "gender" would be in others, or conceive of their gender in a different way.

And yeah, I'm super happy for them! We need more young politicians to help move this world forward.

[Tyrassueb]

Hood on them! Hope they lead the city well going forward.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Marvelous! I wish them the best in leading the town.

[Arisyan]

I know im cordoning myself into tribes and all that, but do we know if they're a member of a party, and if so which one?

They are independent but used to be a member of Plaid Cymru, a centre-left Welsh Nationalist party. They quit the party over a transgender rights row.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-57087627

Thanks! It makes sense after all, Plaid Cymru isn't really known for being too socially progressive, or at least to the level that Labour or the Greens are.

[523]

I wish them well, and hope their policies can benefit their town's people.

[The Archregimancy]

Bangor, the oldest city in Wales, is now believed to be the world's first city to elect a non-binary mayor.

Tangential (and pedantic) but potentially of interest...

It's a mischaracterisation of sorts to call Bangor the 'oldest city in Wales'. The claim is based on a 1927 UK Home Office list of English and Welsh cities that had held the title 'by ancient prescriptive right' since 'time immemorial'; in other words they had been considered cities for as long as records existed, and needed no royal charter to confirm that status. Bangor was the only Welsh city on the list.

The problem with this in Wales is the status of St Davids, whose founder (St David, appropriately enough) was contemporaneous with St Deiniol, the founder of Bangor. Both Bangor and St Davids were initially founded as 6th-century monastic communities at the sites of the cathedrals that now form the core of both modern cities.

St Davids had also held city status since 'time immemorial', and was also the seat of the senior bishop in Wales, but its formal status was temporarily withdrawn in 1886 following reforms that abolished the automatic link between the presence of a cathedral and the right of a community to call itself a city - which is why St Davids doesn't appear on the 1927 list that forms the basis of Bangor's claim - until that status was formally restored at the personal request of the Queen in 1994 "in recognition of their [with Armagh, NI] important Christian heritage and their status as cities in the last century'.

Even in Bangor's case, a formal city charter was issued in 1974, just to remove any ambiguity or doubt over its 'time immemorial' status.

So Bangor can claim to be the Welsh community to have held the title of city for the longest continuous period, but both Bangor and St Davids have a claim on being the oldest Welsh city if we consider date of foundation (and with only c.1600 residents, St Davids is certainly the smallest city in Wales - and the entire UK).


More relevant to the topic, for total clarity Owen Hurcum was not elected as mayor by the residents of Bangor in a city-wide election. Bangor doesn't have a popularly elected mayor. Instead the mayor is elected by the city council from among the sitting councillors. Hurcum was elected as a Plaid Cymru city councillor for Glyder Ward, resigned from PC in March of this year over allegations of transphobia in the party, and has since sat as an independent. Bangor city council consists of 8 PC councillors, 7 independents (including Hurcum), 4 Labour, and 1 Liberal Democrat. My assumption is that the independent and opposition party councillors elected Hurcum in part to make a statement, and in part to embarrass his former party (those being mutually compatible goals). He's otherwise an unusual choice of mayor for Bangor - not because of his non-binary status or his youth, but because he's not Welsh, and Bangor is located in one of the most heavily Welsh-speaking parts of the country. Despite being called 'Owen', he's actually from Harrow, London, and only moved to Bangor in 2015 to study at the university. He's since settled in Bangor (can't blame him; the natural setting is lovely) and taken up the cause of Welsh independence.

The presence of nearly 10,000 University of Bangor students in a city with a population of only 17,000 people does also help to explain why Bangor is a bit more socially liberal than the rest of northwest Wales.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

It's rather silly that a place with a population smaller than Brixham gets called a city and has a mayor.

[Austreylia]

It's very sad that it's come to this.

[Roegerland]

More relevant to the topic, for total clarity Owen Hurcum was not elected as mayor by the residents of Bangor in a city-wide election. Bangor doesn't have a popularly elected mayor. Instead the mayor is elected by the city council from among the sitting councillors. Hurcum was elected as a Plaid Cymru city councillor for Glyder Ward, resigned from PC in March of this year over allegations of transphobia in the party, and has since sat as an independent. Bangor city council consists of 8 PC councillors, 7 independents (including Hurcum), 4 Labour, and 1 Liberal Democrat. My assumption is that the independent and opposition party councillors elected Hurcum in part to make a statement, and in part to embarrass his former party (those being mutually compatible goals). He's otherwise an unusual choice of mayor for Bangor - not because of his non-binary status or his youth, but because he's not Welsh, and Bangor is located in one of the most heavily Welsh-speaking parts of the country. Despite being called 'Owen', he's actually from Harrow, London, and only moved to Bangor in 2015 to study at the university. He's since settled in Bangor (can't blame him; the natural setting is lovely) and taken up the cause of Welsh independence.

The presence of nearly 10,000 University of Bangor students in a city with a population of only 17,000 people does also help to explain why Bangor is a bit more socially liberal than the rest of northwest Wales.

So not only was he not elected in the interests of the local community but rather for performative politics, he wasn't actually elected by the local community...

[Infected Mushroom]

Did Ostroeuropa get to vote in this?

[Odreria]

Sorry but...... they are still male or female... but revoke being called such... I am very confused.

Excuse my ignorance, but huh? (I am being serious not in any derogatory way, I seriously do not get it)

But good for this person! The Oldest city in Wales having the youngest major is ironic in a good way.

Well both sides can agree that Mr. Hurcum's sex is male. But non-binary just means you don't want to called male or female, and the right, usually, (although common sense suggests that there are leftists and DINOs who do this as well) don't follow and the right is usually the side that tries to refute the fluidity of gender (although there are rightists who are social progressives, such as myself).

Gender can and usually does correspond with your sex but it's not in every case that it does. Again, hope this helped...

What do “democrats in name only” have to do with wales?

[-Ocelot-]

Pretty cool.

[Kyria]

“World’s first this”
“World’s first that”
Bah, it’s all bollocks to me, I couldn’t give two shits tbh

[Heloin]

Good for them.

[Ostroeuropa]

Did Ostroeuropa get to vote in this?

No, I don't live in Bangor. I did vote in the elections for my area though, and we won our stuff.

[Vassenor]

It's very sad that it's come to this.

Why?