Campaigner comments LGBT rights in Chesham

For the first time ever, citizens were asked about their sexual orientation and gender identity as part of the 2021 census collected by the Office for National Statistics.

Almost 10,000 people in Buckinghamshire identify with an LGB+ sexual orientation, the figures showed. 

The historic inclusion in the census was a “good step towards normalisation”, an LGBT+ rights campaigner from Chesham said.

But he called Bucks Council for better support for the LGBT+ community and young people. 

The campaigner, who works as a teacher in Bucks, asked not to be named because of his work.

He said: “I think it’s an interesting thing to collect. It’s a good step towards normalisation.

“Census is collected once in every ten years, so they could have considered doing it at the previous one.

“I think a lot has changed in ten years in terms of visibility and I think there’s been a lot of progress on one side and it’s even more normal to have discourse around LGBT+ and it also seems there are more people who associate being LGBT+, but at the same time that has made the negative voices a bit louder.

“For majority of people there’s a normalisation. I think there are some institutions that find the topics more tricky from institutional sense because they are worried about upsetting people or losing base with people.

“I’ve been to a pub in Chesham, where there was kind of an incident of homophobia and the landlady and the staff refused to do anything about it because the perpetrators were their regular customers, so they didn’t want to upset their regulars because they didn’t want to lose the business.”

However, most of the community was supportive and he felt safe in his hometown as an LGBT+ male.

What the data says 

Of Buckinghamshire residents aged 16 and over, 9,683 out of 433,711 identified as a sexual orientation other than heterosexual, meaning 2.2 percent of respondents.

The most common LGB+ sexualities were gay or lesbian (45.9 percent of those who did not identify as straight), bisexual (41.9 percent of those who did not identify as straight) and pansexual (8.7 percent of those who did not identify as straight). 

See the full breakdown below. 

While most residents said they were heterosexual (90.7 percent), 31,400 people in Bucks didn’t answer the question.

Of Bucks residents, 1,719 (0.4 percent) said their gender identity was different from sex registered at birth.

This included trans (678 people), non-binary (203) and those whose gender identity was different to sex registered at birth but who didn't specify their identity (713). 

The data showed 2,670 people in Buckinghamshire aged 16 to 24 identified with sexuality other than straight, alongside 2,795 of 25 to 34-year-olds in the county.

Around 4.8 percent of under-35s in Bucks identified with an LGB+ sexuality. 

See the breakdown by age using the drop-down menu below. 

A total of 783 people aged under 35 said their gender identity was different from registered at birth. 

Use the drop-down menu and select a gender identity to see the breakdown. 

'Young LGBT+ people could miss out in Bucks'

Buckinghamshire is missing “an LGBT+ infrastructure", including societies, LGBT+ sports clubs and groups affiliated with the Council, especially for younger people, the Chesham campaigner warned. 

“It would seem that there are people in the county that would use those," he added. 

Young LGBT+ people in Bucks might be missing out “if you compare to places where they have activities like that,” he claimed. 

Seeing a Buckinghamshire Pride event led by the council with smaller events at different places during 'Buckinghamshire Pride week' or a big party with a different location every year would be a "dream," he said. 

A Pride flag (Image: Newsquest)

It wasn’t “unrealistic” to have a council-led Pride event, and local businesses were likely to get on board, he added. 

The Chiltern LGBTQ+ group is known organising events in Chesham throughout the year, including family-friendly picnics and pub crawls around the town.

Before pub crawls, the group checks with the venue that they are a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community.

He continued: “What we tend to do is to go speak to them in advance asking ‘is this okay’, which sounds really bizarre – if you had a local knitting club you wouldn’t necessarily approach a place in advance to ask are you happy for us to come!”

Buckinghamshire Council’s cabinet member for communities Steve Bowles said the Council recognised “the diversity of our community and that events recognising this, such as Pride, are important to our residents and colleagues around the county.”

He continued: “There are a number of Pride events which we understand are being organised this summer by Buckinghamshire based community groups and charities, including Wycombe Pride which has been running for a number of years.

"Meanwhile, we thank our residents and colleagues for supporting and valuing the LGBT+ community within the county."