{"id":3037,"date":"2018-08-28T16:16:18","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T16:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/?p=3037"},"modified":"2023-03-22T12:40:28","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T12:40:28","slug":"bradleys-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/2018\/08\/28\/bradleys-pride\/","title":{"rendered":"Bradley’s Pride"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bradley Birkholz <\/em>(BA 2017) <\/em>is an LGBT+\u00a0creator, activist, and performer\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and as Pride\u00a0Cymru\u00a0comes to Cardiff (24-26 August),\u00a0he tells us of his\u00a0personal journey.<\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=y0KiT9TTGMo&t=<\/p>\n

My name is Bradley and I grew up in a small town near the coast of California.<\/p>\n

In early life, I was deeply closeted.\u00a0In\u00a0a rural\u00a0community quite\u00a0opposed to any identity\u00a0other than the\u00a0heteronormative\u00a0(man and wife, making a family one)\u00a0my experience of being LGBT+\u00a0was rather negative;\u00a0embroiled in internalised homophobia and\u00a0attempts at\u00a0convincing myself that I might\u00a0somehow be\u00a0or become\u00a0straight.<\/p>\n

Cardiff has been a safe place for me. Before choosing it as a place to study, I hadn\u2019t heard much about the city \u2013 but I have Welsh heritage and had visited Wales before, so I was excited to choose it as the locale for my academic life.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so glad it\u2019s where I ended up, and not at all surprised to find I loved it enough to stay.<\/p>\n

As I explain in a recent\u00a0BBC\u00a0Sesh\u00a0video<\/a>,\u00a0I didn\u2019t\u00a0feel\u00a0I had any\u00a0choice about\u00a0how\u00a0to come out. I thought\u00a0that my family would react poorly, and they did. Having time and\u00a0distance\u00a0was really helpful\u00a0in\u00a0that\u00a0painful period, and\u00a0I\u2019m immensely\u00a0grateful to\u00a0the local community\u00a0and especially the LGBT+ society at Cardiff\u00a0(CU\u00a0Pride)\u00a0for\u00a0their support.<\/p>\n

Cardiff has also seen me\u00a0follow my passions.\u00a0I\u2019ve always loved to write,\u00a0hence why I\u00a0studied\u00a0English Literature.\u00a0Starting a blog\u00a0seemed like a natural extension of my creative tendencies, and it was also where I first came out to friends and family.\u00a0Eventually I started watching other LGBT+ creators online and was inspired to start sharing my story more publicly\u00a0on YouTube as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I tend to\u00a0call myself a creator and performer\u00a0(I have a drag queen alter ego named Bella Tempus, which means good time)\u00a0but\u00a0I\u2019m an activist\u00a0first. My ambition\u00a0is\u00a0to\u00a0facilitate\u00a0change\u00a0and connect with people whilst\u00a0doing it\u00a0and I want people to know that\u00a0there\u2019s a community out there to support you\u00a0in living as your most authentic self.<\/p>\n

Coming out, and even attending a Pride event, can be enormously intimidating to those in the closet, questioning, or to those who are out but aren\u2019t sure if or where they belong.\u00a0If anyone reading this is wondering whether it\u2019s for them, I want to assure you that Pride is a place for everyone regardless of background or identity.<\/p>\n

For me, an event like this is about celebrating our shared identity – but even more importantly, it’s about the roots of our movement: fighting for holistic equality for every member of our broad and diverse community.<\/p>\n

Pride Cymru was my first ever pride. I\u2019m thrilled to be attending for the 3rd time this year and I hope to see you there. Let\u2019s spread the love, celebrate fiercely, and keep on fighting. Pride Cymru Hapus!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bradley Birkholz (BA 2017) is an LGBT+\u00a0creator, activist, and performer\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and as Pride\u00a0Cymru\u00a0comes to Cardiff (24-26 August),\u00a0he tells us of his\u00a0personal journey.","protected":false},"author":1106,"featured_media":3046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardiff-connect","category-news"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3037"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3045,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037\/revisions\/3045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}