Manchester’s Gay Village rallies together to show it’s bigger than ‘some disgusting graffiti’ – Manchester Evening News
Manchester’s Gay Village has come together to show it won’t be defeated by vile homophobic graffiti that was daubed over artworks on two walls in Canal Street.
On Saturday evening, visitors to the area noticed the words “dirty b******s” and “666” had been written across two murals, with the swear word being misspelled.
One mural, featuring a host of LGBT+ icons such as Alan Turing, Emmeline Panhurst and Manchester drag queen Foo Foo Lammar was targeted while another featured RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Divina de Campo.
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Speaking to the M.E.N, the drag queen said she is refusing to take the vandalism to heart.
“Of course when I first heard it happened, I felt some kind of way but is it an attack on me personally? No, it’s not,” Divina said.
“It’s bigger and more important than that. They don’t know who I am so it’s not an attack on me personally, but it is an attack on LGBT+ people.”
(Image: Instagram: @divinadecampo)
Divina, who took part in an abseil down a 19-storey hotel building in Manchester on Saturday, says that the action highlights to her the significance of Pride.
“For me, it just re-energises that argument for why there is still a need for Pride,” she explains.
“People will often go on about how we don’t need Pride anymore or ask why isn’t there a straight Pride but, it’s actually things like this that highlight there’s still a need for it.
“In the eyes of the law, gay, bisexual and lesbian people have full equality but that’s not the case for trans people.
“I don’t know any straight people who have to get a doctor to confirm they are in fact who they say they are.
“Laws change much faster than society protections do – this is a big part of it.
“There’s still a lot of people out there who see being gay as being sinful which is why they’ve written 666 across the murals.
“They’re trying to make it out like being gay is akin to being the devil.
Nick Franklin, an artist who lives in Lymm, was visiting the Gay Village on Saturday with his fiance and friend.
He said it was the first time they’d been out to Canal Street in more than 17 months and had a great day until they spotted the graffiti.
“I had a walk around and just saw the graffiti on the large mural and thought it was a bit grim,” Nick says.
“It’s just the fact that someone has obviously felt the need to leave their house with a can of spray paint with the intention of going out to disrupt a community.
“You don’t expect to go out on Canal Street and have rainbow tinted glasses, there will be rubbish and there will be vandalism, but when you know it’s targeted, it just puts a bit of a rubbish tinge to the day.”
As an artist, Nick – who has previously created artwork out of tiles from the original Rovers Return to raise money for the We Love Manchester fund – says he also feels for the artists who have had their work damaged.
He added: “From an artist’s point of view, that’s someone’s time and effort and the mural was probably funded from the community itself.
“I just think that is just such a massive visual against the community – it really wasn’t nice.”
Thankfully, Manchester councillors have rallied together to quickly reverse the damage caused by the graffiti.
City centre councillor Jon-Connor Lyons, who represents the Piccadilly Ward, said the work was created by ‘cowards’ and said he would be speaking to police over the matter.
“We’re just shocked that this could happen in such a tolerant city like Manchester,” Coun Lyons said.
“Looking back at other similar incidents, such as what happened with the George Floyd mural, GMP were able to successfully apprehend those responsible so we’ll be working alongside them in the hope of receiving a similar outcome.
“We’re getting it covered and the artwork will be restored.
“We don’t want this to have a lasting income on the community and, actually, I’ve seen lots of people saying that this will make us stronger.
“This isn’t the city we know, this isn’t representative of Manchester at all.”
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Coun Pat Karney, the town hall’s city centre spokesman, added that it would be cleaned off as soon as possible.
Carl Austin-Behan, the LGBT+ advisor to Mayor Andy Burnham, said he had been working alongside local councillors and the original artists to rectify the graffiti.
“We’ve been in touch with the council and with the original artists from Nomad Clan who want to make sure this is put right straight away,” he said.
“It might need to be an initial touch up initially and maybe we need to look at what needs to be done to restore both pieces of artwork properly and correctly.”
(Image: Instagram: @divinadecampo)
Carl said the swift response from the council and from the village showcases Manchester’s spirit at its very best.
He explains: “It shows the fact that Manchester’s LGBT+ community and allies have come together to make sure we can’t tolerate this sort of behaviour.
“It’s not acceptable in our city to deface something like this that means so much to our community.”
Carl added that the ‘disgusting’ graffiti was also disrespectful to Alan Turing, who would have celebrated his 109th birthday this week.
He said: “Just 100 yards down from the mural, there’s hundreds of flowers in Sackville Gardens celebrating his life.
“He’s been recognised on the new £50 note yet we have these mindless idiots defacing and graffitiing his artwork.
“It’s just really embarrassing.”
Hayley Garner, one of the original artists who created the mural outside of the Molly House eight years ago, said the plan is to remove the artwork on Monday.
“It’s important for us to remove the hate,” Hayley said.
“I don’t think there’s any space for that, especially for somewhere like Canal Street which is so accepting of everyone.
“We will be covering up the hateful writing on the Molly House mural and hopefully maybe we can do something positive to the area to make a statement that such graffiti doesn’t work.
“Every cloud has a silver lining. The way to beat hate is turn it on its head and make sure something positive comes out of it.”