The First Minister was spotted attending Machynlleth’s second-ever LGBTQ+ Pride, as attendees describe it as a “vital” celebration of rural LGBTQ+ life, writes Debbie Luxon.
Eluned Morgan took time out of her Saturday on 17 May to visit, along with an estimated 400 attendees from across Wales.
The event was hosted at the ancient 1404 Welsh parliament, the Owain Glyndŵr Centre and was a whole-town affair.
The celebrations were completely self-funded through community donations, local business sponsorship and donations from free venues to extravagant raffle prizes.
A Balchder Machynlleth Pride spokesperson said: “Machynlleth Pride was an absolute joy this year — blessed with gorgeous weather, it was a fabulous celebration of community and inclusion.
“A huge thank you to all the incredible artists, performers, and stallholders who brought the day to life, and everyone who made the day possible, from providing marquees to the sound desk and lights.
“Also to the sponsors, raffle prize donors and community who generously made it possible.
“Thanks to everyone's energy and support in making it truly special.”
Machynlleth MP Steve Witherden, who represents Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, and his wife also attended the celebrations: “It was great to show my support and solidarity for the LGBT community.
“The celebrations were top-notch and I thank the Pride committee, who I met with earlier in the week, for putting on such a blockbuster event."
The lawn was packed with young and old who travelled from across Wales, some as far as London, to attend one of the few rural LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations in mid-Wales.
Workshops on politics, poetry and foraging took place inside whilst music and power-ballad yoga entertained the crowd on the picnic stage.
It was then standing-room only at the sold-out Cabaret at the Wynnstay Hotel, where drag kings and queens, a calibre of which the town has never seen before, took the humble Old Pizzeria stage by storm.
The Cabaret showcased the drag talent of Wales, with drag queen Kiki Babs from Aberaeron MCing, Machynlleth’s resident drag kings Gary Beaner, Jeff Meff and Bob Loon with their new ‘Anti-Patriarchal Mens Group’ skit, artist Kambambi from Cardiff, Sir Dom Jones from Pontypridd/Cardiff and Romeo De La Cruz closing from Derby.
Speaking on what attending the Pride means to them, volunteer Steph said: “To me, particularly in rural places, [Pride] is an opportunity for people who may think they are on their own, to come together and realise there’s a whole community of people around them and celebrate that.”
Sienna, a Pride committee member, said: “Pride walks this line between bringing people together - and creating spaces where we can be free and be ourselves - and showing that we will be free and we will be ourselves, in an act of defiance as much as it is an act of celebration.”
Aitch, who MC’d on the picnic stage and lived in Machynlleth for 12 years, said: “I can’t quite believe we have an LGBTQ+ Pride in Machynlleth - it would’ve been unheard of when we first moved here.
“Pride for me is a mixture of joyful celebration of all being together, and the politics of it.
“I’m a lesbian whose gender-queer - although my rights are in theory still enshrined in law, my trans friends’ are not.
“The fact that people think I look like a man means I’m already getting challenged in toilets.
“I know it's a cliche to talk about toilets, but it feels like we have to defend our right and the rights of all our community to be able to go about in public and just do our thing like everybody else.”
It comes a month after the Supreme Court ruling, which stated that trans people could be excluded from public single-sex spaces, including bathrooms.