Last week Paul Davies was crowned Mr. Gay Wales, the first disabled delegate in the history of the competition.

Hailing from the Rhondda Valleys in southern Wales, Davies, 32, is an attractive and outgoing journalist who refuses to be embarrassed or TK by his disabled hand—or as he calls it, his "stump."

"That’s what you can call it," he tells Attitude. "It is a stump and if I can make people relax with humor then I will do that. My nickname is 'Stumpy!.'"

Davies says he sees too much "fracturing" in the LGBT community. "We’re all fighting against each other," he warns. "There’s so many minority groups there that need to all club together. I see people being oppressed within our own community who are disabled or racially different... [and] we’re making ourselves even more of a minority."

Or as he and Latrice Royale put it...

Davies hopes to bring that message of acceptance and inclusion to disabled people and the LGBT community at large when he competes in Mr. Gay Europe next month.

"I want to give some inspiration to people with visible disabilities and say, ‘Look, you can do it. You can do this, you can make a difference. Don’t hide away, don’t put your hand in your pocket because you feel somebody’s gonna judge you. Show it. Be proud of who you are.'"

"That’s the same thing with sexuality," he adds. "For me, I’m a man who happens to like men and I also have one hand [laughs]."

Davies grew up on a council estate—the UK version of public housing. It was a close-knit community, but not one exactly welcoming to gay people.

"Generally the rule of thumb back in the day was that if you were gay, you moved away," he says. One friend committed suicide as a result of nonstop bullying, but Davies says his extroverted nature allowed him to deflect most negative attention.

"I was very lucky, because proving people wrong about my stump was the challenge... When I came out as gay the community was very accepting. Unfortunately I saw the people get bullied and that was horrible."

There was one teacher, though, who really had it in for him.

"She was very against me and my hand. In fact, she even told me I should stop bothering with work because I’m never going to get anywhere in life. I was about 13 or 14, a really impressionable age," he says.

"If I wasn’t as headstrong as I was, that could have really got to me. Instead I knew that was a motivation to get me through and just think, ‘You cow, how dare you say that.’"

Mr Gay Europe will be held on July 30. Voting begins July 1.