May 17th: International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia

Today is the international day against homophobia, transphobia and biphobia. An international day of solidarity with LGBT+ people around the world.

It is an important day because we are so bloody far away from where we should be in terms of safety, equity, visibility and representation for the L, the G, the B, the T and the plus plus pluses.

To put just how far away in context, I am a white cis gay man with enormous privilege. I live in London, one of the most liberal cities in the UK, one of the most liberal countries in the world. But I am not safe to walk down most streets in London holding hands with my husband. We are conscious of not looking too intimate in public spaces or on public transport. When I leave our local - or any other - gay bar I am hyper vigilant.

Every day I see a scar on my chest, an ugly reminder of being attacked leaving a gay bar because of who I am (or who they thought I was). Yes, that attack took place about 20 years ago but we must be under no illusion that things have changed anywhere near enough. We hear firsthand and read too many stories to believe otherwise. And the statistics bear it out. Hate crime in the UK is rising. LGBT+ people of colour and trans people are disproportionately discriminated against and hurt.

Around the world LGBT+ people face prejudice and discrimination; they are silenced and erased; they are beaten, tortured and hurt. Over a third of the world still criminalises LGBT+ people. In some countries they face the death penalty.

We all have the right to live and love freely.

That is why silence is not an option, and why I am standing in solidarity with all LGBT+ people today on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.





 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I am binning the concept of healthy conflict

I have been in a lot of team building days and training over the past 20 years teaching me – and those I work with  - to ‘value and be better at conflict’ and to ‘recognise the value of healthy conflict and healthy challenge’. We have often been offered frameworks that help us have ‘courageous conversations’. Last week I was on an excellent team day with my Exec. We looked at Leonici’s five dysfunctions of a high performing team https://www.tablegroup.com/books/dysfunctions . Like most models of high performing teams, Leonici’s model sets out the need for healthy conflict. If you google conflict as a noun you will find that ‘conflict is a serious disagreement or argument, typically a protracted one.’ I am not sure there is much about that which sounds healthy for the workplace. So I have a provocation: We need a shift of mindset which leans away from high performing teams require healthy conflict, towards a mindset that says high performing teams must have, express and e...
Read more

Excellence not Empire #renamehonours

A few weeks ago I was in a race equity peer training session led by the very brilliant Tessy Ojo. As we talked and listened I was reminded of the dilemma I faced when invited to accept an OBE. I want NOTHING at all to do with the Empire, yet I DO want the work of my organisation and the people who worked tirelessly for young people's sexual rights to be recognised.  Poppy Jaman and Polly Neate both honoured by the system were in the same session. We talked afterwards. All three of us had decided to accept an honour despite our absolute rejection of our colonial past. We want a clean break from the past. We want all links between the British Honours System and colonialism to be broken because we really value the high level recognition of the social justice work of our organisations and ourselves. The letter reproduced below was published in the Times on 30th July 2020. We are now inviting anyone who works in the civil society and public sector who has received an honour to a...
Read more

Cheers to my darling Mum!

 My darling Mum died peacefully at home yesterday (New Years Eve) at about 6am.  It wasn't quite how I had imagined it. Dad and I were asleep, Dad in the same room as Mum, me less than 3 metres away and I heard a gentle knock on the door. Alison from Marie Curie had been with us a few nights before and I knew she only knocked if there was something wrong.  I also knew from the gentleness of this knock that she was going to tell me Mum had died. Those dreaded words we knew were coming but never wanted to hear. Alison had woken me so I could tell Dad. Dad's first reaction through howls of pain was exactly the same as my quiet thought had been. 'I wasn't there. I wanted to be there, I should have been there'. He was there. He was in bed right next to her but we weren't awake and holding her hand.  Truth is we had started the day time vigil but we didn't think she was going to die that quickly. And we were both knackered. We had been awake for over 48 hours beca...
Read more