Divina de Campo spoke out against the graffiti on Instagram. (Instagram)
Divina De Campo explained exactly why we still need Pride after a mural of them in Manchester’s Gay Village was vandalised with the word “dirty”.
Manchester’s LGBT+ community was left in shock over the weekend when murals of Alan Turing, Divina De Campo and Foo Foo Lamar were graffitied with homophobic messages.
Divina De Campo went live on Instagram from Manchester’s Gay Village on Sunday (27 June) and shared their frustration and disappointment about the graffiti.
“So this happened yesterday,” Divina said, showing viewers the vandalised murals behind them.
“While myself, Misty [Chance], Coco, Belinda [Scandal] and various other people were abseiling to raise money for Manchester Royal Children’s Hospital, this is what was happening in the village in Manchester.
Divina De Campo hit out at ‘gross’ homophobic graffiti in Manchester
They continued: “People are still now going, ‘Oh why do you need Pride?’ It’s stuff like this – this is the reason we have Pride, because there’s still a lot of homophobia out there.
“And unless you are completely living under a rock, unless you’re totally unconnected to what’s going on, then you can see there’s a huge swathe of transphobia in the press as well,” they explained, referencing The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian and the Daily Mail.
“It’s also Alan Turing’s birthday this week – it would have been his birthday this week – and this is the week you choose to do that? Gross.”
De Campo then walked over to their own mural, showing viewers that the word “dirty” and the numbers “666” had been scrawled over their image in spray paint.
“And then this is me,” de Campo said. They went on to suggest that Manchester City Council is working on fixing the murals.
“Even though Manchester is a really inclusive, amazing, brilliant, brilliant place to live as an LGBTQ+ person, I still didn’t expect that the council would even talk about it,” de Campo added.
“But they are, so… that’s really positive, and people’s reactions to it have been really positive as well.”
Manchester City councillor Jon-Connor Lyons told the Manchester Evening News that they are already working on getting the murals covered and repaired.
“We’re just shocked that this could happen in such a tolerant city like Manchester,” Coun Lyons said.
Connor Lyons added: “We’re getting it covered and the artwork will be restored… This isn’t the city we know, this isn’t representative of Manchester at all.”
PinkNews has contacted Manchester City Council for comment.