Whilst social attitudes and the law has progressed a lot over recent decades, many young people still do not feel accepted for who they are in their own communities. Many people still face daily prejudice, abuse, harassment and hostility. How can we assure young people that they will be accepted when they come out when we cannot protect them from hate crimes? In the last year alone, there have been almost 4,000 recorded hate crimes in Wales on the grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and transgender. This is Wales’s highest figure yet, and it represents a near doubling of the figures over the last six years.

Black, Asian and minority ethnic LGBT people are hit by double discrimination. According to Stonewall, half of black, Asian and minority ethnic LGBT people have experienced discrimination or poor treatment because of their ethnicity from others in their own local LGBT community, and this number rises to three in five black LGBT people. And a third of lesbian, gay and bi people of faith aren’t open with anyone in their faith community about their sexual orientation.

Hate crimes don’t exist in a vacuum. Society has become more polarised and political discourse has become more toxic. And when the UK Prime Minister compares Muslim women who wear the burqa and calls them 'letterboxes', and when he can walk away free from any reprimand or consequence, then we have got work to do.

Wales is not immune to this or these latest statistics, and they show that our society is neither yet wholly accepting or fair. They show that prejudice is a problem, and they show that, despite the many gains that Wales has made in terms of LGBT equality, we are not there yet. Social attitudes may have changed a lot over recent decades, and although changes in law mean more schools and public services are taking notice of and tackling anti-LGBT discrimination, we must still push further.

Of the many equality hurdles we must overcome, present discourse around trans rights is of deep concern to me. Trans people in Wales and throughout the world face prejudice and discrimination on the basis of their gender identity. Fifty-nine percent of trans women and 56 of trans men say they avoid expressing their gender identity for fear of a negative reaction from others. For non-binary respondents, the figure was much higher, at 76 per cent. Trans people are also at higher risk of homelessness and suicide, and have had to travel to London to get basic healthcare. Trans people should have an inalienable right to live free from prejudice, discrimination and persecution. Why can’t we have an ambition for Wales to be a world leader in high-quality trans healthcare and access to services and facilities in accordance with their gender identity?

Real, long-term change can also come from a better justice system. The current England and Wales criminal justice system is failing our communities—it doesn’t work for people here. We need change and full power and responsibility over criminal justice to create a system that will benefit all of our communities, to properly tackle LGBT hate crime and protecting LGBT people. We could review hate crime laws so that hate crimes based on sexual orientation, gender identity or disability and neurodiversity are treated equally to those based on race and faith, by making them aggravated offences. We could better train all police and prosecutors on anti-LGBT hate crimes, on and offline. We could successfully track prosecutions to develop best practice, and provide targeted support to victims.

In a wider context, we must tackle the ingrained prejudice that sees imprisonment rates among BAME communities much more disproportionate, relative to the population, in Wales than in England. If you are a young person of colour in Wales, you are both more likely to be in imprisoned and to receive a longer sentence. That is not acceptable.

We are thankfully far from the days of section 28 and the anti-equal marriage lobby, but we still have so much more to do before LGBT people can feel safe and accepted without exception in Wales today, and for hate crimes to be a thing of the past.