Yesterday, 3 February, we made LGB history.
We had a stand at the regular Living Well community event in the Waterfront Museum in Swansea. Organised by Swansea Council, each month has an extra ‘theme’ with relevant community groups invited to take part. This is ‘LGBTQ+’ History Month, so we went along. So far so ordinary – except that this is the very first time an Alliance group has been at a public event alongside the many organisations that claim to represent a grand alphabet of people combining sexual orientation with gender identity.
In Wales, we are the only group which is exclusively focused on the interests of people who are same-sex attracted, just as the LGB Alliance UK is the only charity doing that across the UK. We strongly believe that it is not hateful to have a focus, to set boundaries which support that focus and talk about the issues specific to the group we prioritise. After all, we do not say to cancer groups that they should also talk about diseases of neurological deterioration such as Parkinson’s.
We had our cards and flyers, some material from LGBA UK, and our brand new pop-up banner for the LGBA Friends group for South Wales. (That email is friendsoflgbasouthwales@gmail.com for more social events.)
We had a lovely morning. Lots of people were interested in our work and we talked about policing, safeguarding, sons and daughters, philosophy and art, women in Afghanistan and much more besides. Many of the Living Well groups talked to us about their work. We don’t do individual casework but it’s great to know people who can help. In return, we gave out information about our more social events, such as those organised by the LGBA Friends. One of us has a great track record putting up and down those standing banners so helped out some of the neighbouring stall holders whose kit threatened to do them an injury.
The only hostility we encountered sadly came from those of our own so-called ‘community’. One youngish person was a bit peeved when we explained that, no – we do not support injecting wrong-sex hormones into young people (minors). We had a little plate of sweets on our stand, which this person tossed across the floor. A very literal demonstration of ‘toys out of the pram’ peevishness.
Someone else – we don’t know who – chose to complain to the organisers that we are a hate group based, apparently, on our social media. No specific posts were cited of course as a vague, hand-waving generalisation should be enough to censor us. Now, we mostly use X, where you can find us as @LGBAllies_Cymru. (We have growing reservations about it, but we are hanging on in there for the moment as we have over 4k followers, all of whom we love!) There’s more than one of us tweeting there. Sometimes, we are irreverent and funny. Taking the piss is one of our favourite occupations. Sometimes we do talk about policy issues. We try not to rise to some of the grosser stupidities and insults and avoid personal insults; our objective is always positive betterment for LGB people. So we believe none of our social media is hate-speech.
Towards the end of the event, three or four people came to our stand. Two women of pensionable age, under 5’3” (1.6m) were encircled by taller, younger, louder people. Those so-called allies wanted to have a jolly good shout at us. We’re sure they’re proud of themselves.
The other three of us (also all over 60, female and not tall) came back to the stand, along with the organisers. We are grateful to those Council officers who sent the new arrivals back to their own stands. They, the organisers, were concerned for our safety but we were not going to be chased away in such a fashion. It really comes to something when five middle-aged women are unsafe at a friendly, community event.
(Before anyone comments, we are a volunteer organisation. None of us are career-queers, paid to turn up. 1100 on a Monday restricts attendance to those who retired and/or self employed, so that’s who we had present. By the time of this incident, only the lesbians were still there.)
We learnt lots from yesterday. Not least, most community groups are interested in us, why we exist and what we do. There is loads of help out there – from heating to business support – for people who need it. Sadly, we also think there always needs to be at least three people on our stand for our own safety. Most of all – we will be doing it again.
We are grateful to Swansea Council for not bottling it and protecting our right to be there and express our views. We’re grateful to the Waterfront Museum for hosting the event. And we are very thankful to all the lovely people on community stands who made us welcome. We made a little bit of history, we’re proud of ourselves and we are looking forward to the next time.