When less than half of us feel safe holding our partner’s hand in public, true equality is still out of reach

You can’t move for representations of LGBTQ+ people now, apparently. There are many of us in parliament, for instance – 69 out of 650 MPs – and you only need to stumble into A&E to be surrounded by rainbow lanyards. We can be seen everywhere on TV, film and runways, and we can be heard all across the music industry. It could be assumed that if we regularly manifest the first half of that popular Pride slogan, “we’re queer, we’re here …”, those outside our delightful social bubbles will do their bit and “get used to it”.

However, for all of LGBTQ+ people’s increased visibility, not everyone has got used to us. Recent research from Stonewall showed that only 44% of LGBTQ+ couples in the UK feel safe holding their partner’s hand in public.

Sophie Wilkinson is a freelance journalist who specialises in entertainment, celebrity, gender and sexuality