While we’re all currently losing our minds over the backstabbing and iconic knitwear on this season of The Traitors, one player is making waves for a much more personal reason. It turns out that Matthew Hyndman isn’t just a creative director, he’s actually a major activist who co-founded a national campaign to end conversion practices in the UK.
Back in 2015, while working as a 24-year-old missionary, Matthew’s life was turned upside down when private online conversations about his sexuality were accidentally leaked in an email to his entire congregation in Northern Ireland.
The email reached 100 people, including his family, friends, and pastor. Matthew was pressured to undergo conversion “therapy” in front of 400 fellow missionaries.
Writing for The Independent previously, Matthew described the impossible pressure he faced, saying: “For many, refusing conversion therapy means losing your family, faith, community, career, friends, your entire life. You do not have free will with a loaded gun to your head.”
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Despite the “mental toll”, Matthew stood his ground and refused the “cure”, leading his former church to formally cancel his membership because of his “lifestyle choices”.
Matthew travelled to London, where he found people to help him build a new life and a new community. Now, nothing remains of his old life, except his family, whom he reconciled with after two years of silence.
Fast forward five years, and Matthew turned that trauma into power. Alongside his friend Harry Hitchens, he launched Ban Conversion Practices, a massive coalition supported by legends like Stonewall. They’ve been relentlessly lobbying the UK government to finally outlaw these “degrading and discriminatory” treatments, which have been stuck in legislative limbo since 2018.
When he’s not fighting for LGBTQ+ rights or dodging murder at the hands of the Traitors, Matthew is all about the outdoors. He runs The Wee Gay Hike Club, which organizes nature-led events for “gays, theys, and friends”.
He also takes photographs of himself in the great outdoors, doing headstands completely naked.
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There is a deep and meaningful reason why Matthew is usually naked in his art. He explained on Instagram: “I have been playing with self portraiture since I came out and I found clothes always added a layer of identity or time. I don’t want them to be about me. I want you to see through that and see deeper.”
It’s safe to say Matthew has been one of the more low-key players in the castle so far, and we didn’t expect him to be hiding such a powerful and inspiring backstory.
Now that he’s finally finding his voice, I’m absolutely dying to see in tomorrow’s episode if the Traitors decide to recruit him.
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Featured image credit: BBC, Instagram/@yermatty
