As part of the Cardiff Pride: More Than A Month campaign, we attended Pride Cymru in Cardiff and spoke to young people about all things LGBTQ+ related. In this blog, we share their thoughts on whether Cardiff is an LGBTQ-friendly city.
Student Pride
Nova, 19 – As a uni student, we have both the Pride society which is one of, if not the largest at the [Cardiff] university with lots of welcoming people. And not just because I’m a committee member for it, but TANGGS which is sort of an offshoot for transgender people, non-binary, gender questioning, gender non-conforming and allies – that’s in the wrong order but still! It’s almost a bit rare to have one fully functioning of those societies but having two separate ones is just wonderful!
Echo, 20 – For Cardiff Uni, we have Student Pride and we have TANGGS and then a bunch of other societies that are not officially queer societies, but like the sci-fi and fantasy society – our logo has a trans flag on it because most people in it are queer. That’s the same as the CRITS society – it has a trans flag on it so it’s a very LGBTQ-friendly university. And because we have such a big student population here I think that helps the town be LGBTQ friendly.
Avery, 19 – As someone who identifies as being trans-fem, you come to Cardiff and just starting fresh was amazing. I couldn’t quite believe how accepting it was at first. I got to wear what I wanted and do whatever I wanted with no restrictions. It’s not like I’d see people staring and muttering, they’d be staring because they’d be like ‘hmm, that’s something I haven’t seen before’. I think that’s why I chose Cardiff, because it was a really accepting space and Cardiff Uni was one of the top-rated LGBT unis in the UK. So it was just a super good idea to come here and I can certainly recommend it to anyone who wants to travel to a safe place that is also a city – Cardiff would definitely be the go-to.
LGBTQ+ friendly shops
Echo, 20 – The Queer Emporium in Cardiff is the only place in the UK that sells binders in person. If you’re not going to the Queer Emporium, you have to buy it online and guess the prices and pay ridiculous shipping from America, so just that alone is like really amazing.
Playing it safe
Matthew, 23 – Yeah, for the most part it is [an LGBTQ+ friendly city]. But it’s also very well behaved with it, unlike Manchester and places which are very rock and roll.
Mixed feelings
Jess, 18 – Well, I think it could be up and down with like a lot of places but Cardiff most of the time is okay. But there’s definitely been attacks on like trans women and stuff which is horrible. So yeah, I think it’s a very mixed city.
Chloe, 21 – I’d like to say yes, but as a rule of thumb, it’s always better to be safe than sorry anywhere you go. But generally, I’d like to say yes. Obviously, there are always things that go wrong with people who have gone the wrong opinions about the wrong things.
Mal, 18 – There are areas where I can just be myself and maybe like the odd old granny will tell me off. But then there are also places that you should just hide because it’s just dangerous.
Anti-LGBT protests
Echo, 20 – I did have one [bad] experience when I went to counter a quite actually homophobic protest that ended up happening in the castle. Thankfully, there were not many people there and it was kind of a bit ridiculous and it’s a one-off thing that didn’t happen again. I feel like it was around Easter. The way that they were kind of excusing it was ‘oh but we’re just worried about the sexualisation of education in schools and also because they’re teaching LGBT healthcare’. That’s the problem they had with it. That was quite heavily counter-protested though.
Related Information
Want more from the Cardiff Pride: More Than A Month campaign? Visit the campaign introduction.
Check out TheSprout’s LGBTQ+ information page where you can find loads of useful info on local and national LGBTQ+ support services.
If you’re sharing our posts from the Cardiff Pride: More Than A Month campaign on social media, remember to use the #MoreThanAMonth hashtag and tag us.
