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As artist Paul Harfleet last week launched his The Pansy Project exhibition for Manchester Pride Fringe, a group of drag queens and their friends became the latest victims of hate in the city’s Gay Village.
Speaking on Facebook, drag queen Cheddar Gawjus explained that after a night out (in the early hours of the morning on Sunday 3 August), she and friends had an altercation with an ‘angry’ man who followed them and tried to break into her apartment. The group of drag queens and two trans women ably kept the man out by barricading themselves inside.
Cheddar spoke of the incident to say, ‘He seemed very angry. He’s probably angry a lot of the time I guess … Nobody was hurt and we shall continue to change the world everyday in the way we live, dress and love. But now thanks to Paul Harfleet‘s Pansy project I now have a flower outside my door too!’
The same night, fellow drag queen Liquorice Black also experienced abuse outside Napoleon’s. Writing on Facebook, she said, ‘We all need to look after each other to protect ourselves from verbal and physical abuse – especially in the Village. We should be a community for a reason.’
Paul Harfleet marked the incidents with a pansy on each site. Cheddar signed off her status with a few optimistic hashtags: #stilllovemanchester #onebadegg #heprobablyjustwantedahug.
Here’s Cheddar in typical upbeat style with Liquorice Black, Anna Phylactic and Violet Blonde:
