A guide to the 2026 Senedd Election

Founder of In Progress

Benjamin Raisanen

As a gay man, I feel hurt every time the LGBTQIA+ community is used as political football. Even more depressingly, I’ve felt that my rights, my future, and my life are on the line during elections. That isn’t fair – and we shouldn’t be used like this, because we are here, and every person on this planet should be protected, equal, and championed for who they are.

But a future without this worry is not possible without supporting political parties that share those liberal values of equality, diversity, and choice. I’ve gone through the manifestos of each party standing in the Senedd election this year and summarised their policies on LGBTQIA+ people to try and help everyone make an informed choice.

I’d like to declare that I’m a member of the Green Party, but I’m writing this work in an objective, professional capacity, based on the manifestos of each political party.

Plaid Cymru

Plaid Cymru have the most comprehensive set of policies to protect and advance the rights of LGBTQIA+ people in Wales. The party commit to:

Review and, where necessary, strengthen, the LGBTQ+ Action Plan, holding public services accountable, and measuring and reporting on progress against it.

Ensure that education – including on sex and healthy relationships – is LGBTQ+ inclusive, and embed anti-bullying measures in schools.

Press the UK Government on a full, trans-inclusive ban on so-called ‘conversion therapy’, maximising Welsh Government action to tackle these harmful practices and support survivors.

Support the development of the Welsh Gender Service in line with best international practice, ensuring that people – including young people – can access appropriate and timely care in Wales without needing to travel to England.

Work towards a simpler and non-medicalised process for gender recognition, including by pursuing the devolution of relevant powers.

Provide ongoing support to Pride organisations, and back Wales hosting EuroPride in 2029.

Strengthen hate crime reporting and victim support, ensuring incidents are addressed promptly and effectively.

Green Party

Differently to Plaid Cymru, the Greens do not list all LGBTQIA+ proposals in one section. Instead, they are scattered throughout the manifesto. Despite that, commitments are reasonably comprehensive. The party commit to:

For Children’s Care: We will improve placement stability, particularly for LGBTQIA children, tackle racial inequalities, ensure children can maintain their language and identity, and campaign for care experience to become a protected characteristic under equality law.

For Mental Health: We will guarantee faster access to support and introduce a no wrong door approach for children and young people. We will create a transparent national system to track and reduce inequalities by deprivation, gender, ethnicity, LGBTQIA, disability, age, language and rurality

For Education: The curriculum should prepare young people for the world they will inherit. We will ensure it combines play and fun with eco-literacy, health and wellbeing education, food literacy and relationships education inclusive of LGBTQIA relationships, alongside civic education that prepares students for democratic participation.

For Equality: We will ensure that Wales moves towards a safe, thriving enriching environment for people of all sexualities and gender identities. We will increase representation of these communities in the curriculum and include diverse family units. Healthcare will be revisited to ensure equitable access to treatment. Employers will be encouraged to create inclusive work environments for members of the LGBTQIA community, as staff or customers.

Welsh Labour

Labour has fewer LGBTQIA+ policies than Plaid Cymru and the Greens. Despite this, policies remain broadly supportive of the community.

Refresh the LGBTQ+ Action Plan to make Wales the best place in Europe to be an LGBTQ+ person, including considering the evidence on the LGBTQ+ pay gap

Use every tool to tackle hate crimes, including continuing support for our Hate Hurts Wales campaign.

Welsh Liberal Democrats

The Welsh Liberal Democrats only have a few specific references to LGBTIQA+ people in the manifesto. These are:

Respect and defend the rights of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including access to lifesaving medical care.

Work across nations to establish a consensus for reforming equalities and gender recognition laws to protect trans people’s rights.

Improving data on hate crime prevalence to inform services, funding, and strategies to prevent crimes.

Welsh Conservatives

There are few direct references to the LGBTQIA+ community in the Welsh Conservatives’ manifesto; instead, policies are vague and minimal.

Discrimination and hate crimes have cast a shadow over our communities,
threatening the safety and dignity of minority groups and others.

Work with faith communities and other stakeholders to antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred and other hate crime.

Adopt a zero-tolerance culture across Welsh Government to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex, age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, religion or disability.

Re-establish the right for parents to withdraw their children from sex education and religious education lessons.

Reform Wales

The language used in the Reform Wales manifesto directly undermines trans people and hurts LGBTQIA+ individuals by implying that our experiences are an ‘ideology’. The manifesto is quoted below:

Reform will end public funding for NGOs and charities that operate as political campaigning organisations under the guise of promoting civil society. Public money should be used to deliver services that benefit the public, not to promote political agendas or activism.

Reform will restore common sense and make government policy based on biological sex, including ending gender self-ID in women’s sports and stopping gender ideology being taught in schools.

Reform will remove ideological and political bias from classrooms. Curriculum materials will be accessible to parents as a matter of course, restoring trust between schools and families. Reform will raise the minimum age at which explicit sexual content can be taught in Welsh schools. Sex education must be age-appropriate, factual, and focused on safeguarding.

Reform will reverse the ideological capture of the Welsh NHS by ensuring that women are not erased through the use of terminology such as ‘birthing persons’ and ending the use of self-ID for access to single-sex wards.

A note from In Progress

If you need someone to talk to, you can reach out to Switchboard LGBT+ Helpline. Whether your concerns feel big or small, there’s always someone there to listen.

If you feel like someone is trying to change how you feel or pressure you into being someone you’re not, you can also contact Galop, which runs the National Conversion Therapy Helpline.

You should never feel that who you are is wrong.