A warm welcome to the October edition of our Newsletter!
Read on for news from the Sector, our Members and the Consortium Team.
Sector News
A Statement from the LGBT+ Sector's Leadership
Trans and Intersex people and communities are being let down by a Government that wants to deny their existence and their safety. We cannot allow our communities to be attacked in such inhumane and degrading ways as we have seen during the Conservative Party Conference over the last week.
We call upon LGBT+ people, friends, allies, family members, businesses, and voluntary sector organisations to stand up and say enough. We encourage everyone to share this statement far and wide, speak up in support of Trans and Intersex communities and stand together in solidarity.
Our CEO, Paul Roberts has written a blog about the events over the last 10 days which you can read here
Suella Braverman tells LGBTQ+ Refugees that fear of persecution is "insufficient" for UK Asylum
On Tuesday 26th September, Braverman gave a talk at the American Enterprise in Washington about cracking down on asylum seekers and migration. In the speech, she claimed that being discriminated against for being LGBTQ+ or a woman is not enough of a reason to qualify for asylum in the UK. She also accused asylum seekers of lying about being LGBTQ+ in order to gain asylum status in the UK.
Anopen letter published (4th October) by Stonewall along with 246 other organisations across the human rights, refugee, LGBTQ+ and women's sectors has been sent to the prime minister over the comments made by Braverman.
Ban Conversion Therapy Bill Reportedly "scrapped" by UK Government
According to a report by The Times (published 24th September), the UK Government will announce that legislation banning conversion therapy will be scrapped, as ministers expressed such protections were "problematic or ineffective in other countries".
The Government will be putting together draft guidance that would refer to existing laws that officials claim already cover "several aspects of conversion therapy.
It has been five years since Theresa May first promised to bring forward legislation banning conversion therapy.
Health Secretary plans to ban trans women from NHS Wards
On Tuesday 3rd October, Health Secretary Steve Barclay gave a speech at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester about plans to ban trans women from female NHS wards. The announcement is the latest in a series of anti-trans proposals by members of the Conservative Party.
A recent investigation by Translucent (published 29th December 2022) found that out of 102 NHS Trusts contacted, that no complaints had been made about trans women in NHS Women's wards.
Consortium News
We wanted to welcome all of our new members who have joined Consortium this month!
To get the most out of your membership, why not book in a welcome meeting to find out about all of the membership benefits and how to access support.
On Saturday 30th September, Consortium held our annual Conference/AGM at Toynbee Hall in London. Our conference theme was ‘History in the Making’ and we had an exciting line up of workshops and discussions.
The workshops and discussions were delivered across a broad range of topics all linked to Consortium’s strategic plan. We wanted to say a big thank you to our members who delivered, facilitated, attended, and spoke at the event.
It was also great to hear from Kaveed Ali, CEO of UK Community Foundations who was our keynote speaker!
Although our outgoing Chair of Trustees, Chris French, was not able to attend, it was still lovely hearing his speech that he had sent in advance. We also enjoyed hearing from Yatin Mistry, our newly ratified Chair and we look forward to continuing our work alongside him.
Despite the train strikes we had a great turn out and a HUGE thank you to our Consortium team for all of their hard work in making this event happen! We also wanted to say a massive thank you to the tech team who made it possible for the AGM/Conference to be a hybrid event and we will be continuing this in the future so our events are as accessible as possible.
Unfortunately a few of our team members had to leave the event early to travel home due to the train strikes. This year we implemented a ‘media space’ which we hope to implement for future AGM/Conference’s and sadly due to lack of time, we were unable to conduct interviews.
We'd warmly encourage our member organisations who attended to get in touch with Leo, our Communications Officer, if they’d like to have a short, recorded interview over Teams/Zoom to talk about their experience at the event and about the important work they do.
On Friday the 29th of September, we had a showcase event for the Equity Fund grantees at Rich Mix, London, with those unable to join in person tuning in remotely to watch our performances and films.
The day was packed with grantee stalls to browse, displays, basketball skills, weightlifting, and board games to try out. We had incredible performances from Queer Stage Revolution and a cooking demo by the Black Boy Joy Club. A compilation of reels from grantees about their work and a series of short films from Last Frame Film Club's Queer Film Fest were also shown. Guests were able to join in with whatever they liked, with downtime and networking options too.
We were joined by grantees, Consortium trustees and staff, EF Community Panel Members/ Collaborators and other guests to spend the day reflecting on the incredible work that’s been done through the Equity Fund.
We’ll be keeping the celebration joining through an online showcase that we’ll be sharing soon!
Monthly Support Sessions
This autumn, we'll be offering monthly online support sessions covering a range of topics:
Financial Wellbeing for LGBT+ Organisations: Wednesday 18th October 12:30-13:30
Governance:
Wednesday 22nd November 12:30-13:30
Our October session will focus on Financial Wellbeing. Our guest speakers from True Self Wealth Ltd will cover:
1. How to save for retirement, and how much
2. Staff benefits, e.g. private medical insurance, sick pay, etc - whether to provide them, what to provide and how
3. What you can pay through your organisation
4. Contingency Planning: maintaining your income, maintaining the organisation's income and whether to use insurance for key people
Digital self-care workshop with Glitch
Our friends at Glitch has kindly offered to host a workshop on digital self-care and digital self-defence with us on Tuesday 17th October from 5.00-6.30pm, and we are very excited! This is what you can expect:
At Glitch, we think it's just as important that people are able to take care of themselves online as offline, and create and maintain joyful online spaces.
Join us to help take care of yourself online in a 1.5 hour online workshop.
This workshop will support you to:
Learn more about online abuse and its many forms
Think about what makes an online space joyful for you
Think about your own boundaries when it comes to sharing online, and what private information might be available about you
Take practical steps with advice and tips to introducing balance and confidence to your online spaces, and keep your private information, private!
Each workshop has only 30 spaces so book your space to avoid disappointment! Register here
Events
Three Camden Stories
Cultural researcher Shaun Wallace delves into local Black and LGBTQ+ history, by exploring the lives of three Social Activist Pioneers: Patrick Nelson, Ivor Cummings and Cecil Belfield Clarke. This event is in conversation with Historian of Black Britain Stephen Bourne.
Thursday 26th October
6pm - 9pm
Swiss Cottage Library
88 Avenue Road
London
NW3 3HA
Here is a summary of news from our Members over the last month.
Goodbye Twitter, hello TikTok
As of today (Thursday 5th October 2023), Mermaids have taken the decision to stop engaging with their X (formerly Twitter) account.
Read their full statement below.
At Mermaids, we are committed to using our social media platforms to support our charitable aims to embrace and empower trans young people and their families, and educate the wider public on the issues they face. We believe that as a platform, X, formerly known as Twitter, no longer supports these aims.
For some time now, it has been clear that our values as an organisation are at odds with X, as the platform’s guidelines and company ethics do not encourage a safe, healthy or inclusive environment for our community to engage with us in.
For these reasons, we have made the decision to step back from the platform, and from today will no longer be posting content on X.
However, there remain many ways to interact with us online, and we’re excited to announce that today, we begin our journey on TikTok, where we hope you will follow us.
On this new channel, we’ll be sharing content produced by and for trans young people, and we hope you’ll like what we have in store.
We’ll also continue to engage with our community as usual on platforms including Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, so make sure you’re following us there, if you’re not already, and sign up to receive emails from us for actions you can take to build a better world for trans children and young people.
To our Twitter community: thank you for your fantastic support over the years. We can’t wait to see you on TikTok.
#MoreThanSimplyGay
In light of the outwardly prejudicial, ignorant and harmful sentiments expressed by the British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC on Tuesday 26th September 2023 – African Rainbow Family has launched this new campaign.
I am #MoreThanSimplyGay is a direct response to Braverman’s assertions that being gay (as well as being a woman), is not good enough of a reason to be granted protection and safety by the United Kingdom. In Braverman’s statement in Washington, she made it clear that, in her perception, the discrimination, oppression and criminalisation of LGBTIQ+ people is not a worthwhile justification for seeking asylum.
We love to hear from our Members about the great work they are doing and we can help get the word out by sharing it via our Newsletter and social media.
If you are a Member and you have a press release or announcement you'd like to share with us, then please get in touch by clicking on the button below.
