MANCHESTER’s first openly gay Lord Mayor Carl Austin-Behan says the Queen ‘genuinely cared’ about the LGBTQ+ community as he recalls her last visit to the city in the summer of 2021.
In his recollection, the Queen had asked an LGBTQ+ choir to sing, to commemorate Manchester Cathedral’s 600th anniversary.
The Lord-Lieutenant of the Queen approached him to ask whether an LGBTQ+ choir may play at the Cathedral.
Austin-Behan submitted the request to the Manchester Lesbian and Gay Chorus, which was recently renamed the Manchester Proud Chorus.
He said it conveyed a “strong message” about the significance of diversity and inclusion.
The proposal “made sense,” according to Dan McDwyer, director of the Manchester Proud Chorus, because the city has a vibrant LGBTQ+ culture. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the choir sang six songs for the Queen, including a medley of songs by the band Queen.
Throughout her 70-year reign, the Queen, who passed away on 8 September, never publicly expressed her opinions on LGBTQ+ rights.
Austin-Behan, who was expelled from the RAF in the 1990s for being gay, met the monarch in Manchester in 2021.
Up until 2000, homosexuality was prohibited in the British military.
He spoke about his “beautiful” memories of meeting Queen Elizabeth II after being appointed Lord Mayor in 2016.
According to Austin-Behan, the Queen was interested in his life story and the charities he supports.
He described how he discussed with the Queen “how far we have moved on” as a society.
“I think it was really poignant to ask for an LGBTQ+ choir as she’s head of the church and in Greater Manchester, we have a lot of multicultural faiths, and there we were with all the different faith leaders and people from different backgrounds there with an LGBTQ+ choir performing.
“We talked about the fact that I had been kicked out of the armed forces in ‘97 and that we’d moved on with the ban.
“The fact that we’ve now got equal marriage and the fact that same-sex parents can have children, and she accepted that, and we talked about the importance of diversity and inclusion.”
Carl Austin-Behan received an OBE in 2020 for his contributions to Greater Manchester’s community, LGBTQ+ equality, and charity.
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