LGBTQ Breaking News Service

Safe To Be Me: A Global Equality Conference will be the government’s first LGBT conference of its kind held in the UK. The conference, which take place in June 2022, will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first official London Pride marches. It aims to “tackle inequality around the world, and urge countries to take action.”

The event will see policymakers, elected officials, activists, and experts come together to “protect and promote the rights of LGBT people around the world,” according to the government site.

Speaking about Safe To Be Me, the chair of the event, Nick Herbert (Lord Herbert of South Downs) said: “Across the world, 69 countries still criminalise consensual same-sex acts. The UK is considered a leader on LGBT equality, having legalised same-sex marriage and introduced one of the world’s most comprehensive legislative frameworks for protecting LGBT people from discrimination.”

The conference comes after Liz Truss, Minister for Women and Equalities, disbanded the previous LGBT Advisory Panel, which was set up by former Prime minister Theresa May in 2018. Its closing left many concerned the government were not taking the rights of LGBTQ+ people seriously. However, Truss commented on Safe To Be Me: “I want everyone to be able to live their life free from prejudice, malice, or violence, regardless of their background or who they choose to love.”

Already, campaigners and activists have criticised the UK government for not doing enough for the LGBTQ+ community. Journalist and author of LGBTQ+ rights book, We Can Do Better Than This, Amelia Abraham said to the Guardian: “The prime minister should deal with some of the huge issues facing LGBTQ+ people here before holding the UK up as a bastion of progress.”

On May 20, the government rejected a petition calling to make non-binary a legally recognised gender. In response to the petition, the government stated: “Following a considerable amount of consultation with the public and representative organisations, the Government decided that the current provisions within the GRA allow for those that wish to legally change their sex to do so fairly. The 2018 GRA consultation did not bring forward any proposals to extend the GRA to provide legal recognition to a third, or non-binary, gender.”

Countries that legally recognise non-binary or third gender classifications include Germany, Malta, New Zealand, Nepal, Pakistan, Argentina and India.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that transphobic hate crime has quadrupled over the past five years in the UK. Just this week, the head of media at LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall UK, Jeffrey Ingold, has stepped back from the role due to the “tsunami of transphobia” he said he has experienced.

In addition to this, so-called “gay conversion” practices are technically still legal in the UK, as the Guardian reports. The government has said these practices will be banned, but haven’t confirmed when this will be. Liz Truss said: “As soon as parliamentary time allows, and following a consultation, the ban will be introduced in parliamentary legislation.”

Ahead of the Safe To Be Me conference, there will be a series of virtual events. Meanwhile, the UK and Argentina are currently co-charing the Equal Rights Coalition (ERC), and will be launching their strategy and five-year plan for LGBT rights at a meeting in July 2021.

Democratic lawmakers in Pennsylvania are livid that Republicans voted down an attempt to remove homosexuality from the state’s obscenity statute.

The law bans “the distribution to minors of materials such as books, pictures, and videos which depict ‘acts of homosexuality,’” according to the memo attached to H.B. 1279, which would remove homosexuality from the state’s obscenity law.

Related: Unhinged Trump-supporter wants Brian Sims to ‘prove’ he’s gay

The bill, sponsored by Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Zabel (D), was voted down yesterday in the state House. Democrats in the Republican-controlled chamber are speaking out, denouncing their Republicans who voted to keep homosexuality on the obscenity law.

“Put simply the PA GOP is fine with homosexuality being considered a crime,” tweeted out Pennsylvania Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D).

“This shouldn’t have been remotely controversial,” said Zabel. “I’m sorry we didn’t get it through, but we won’t stop trying.”

Out state Rep. Brian Sims (D) called out his Republican colleagues for using procedural means to kill the bill and blamed their “rampant homophobia” for keeping homosexuality in the state’s obscenity law.

“May you never have to see your colleagues vote to keep the ways you love a ‘crime,’” he tweeted.

“This is an issue of basic equality. We won’t give up this fight,” said Pennsylvania Sen. Tim Kearney (D).

Zabel said that he was inspired to repeal the anti-gay law when a town in his district did the same.

“Recently, one of the municipalities I represent, Upper Darby Township, repealed a similar decades-old ordinance and, upon further review, it was discovered that Pennsylvania has such a statue still on the books,” he said. Twenty-three of his colleagues co-sponsored the bill.

“You’re so gay!” Over the years I’ve heard comments like this countless times. Because my gayness is obvious; it’s there in my humour, my taste in music, the way I walk and, in particular, the way I talk. I’ve never had what’s known as “passing privilege” – the ability to pass for straight.

When I was growing up, this prompted savage and relentless homophobic bullying, which shaped who I am and determined my life choices well into adulthood. It also politicised me. Having experienced prejudice first hand, I could hardly deny it existed. I didn’t have the choice of burying my head in the sand.

On the positive side, over the past 20 years my obvious gayness has tended to endear me to people. Often within minutes of meeting me, straight women will tell me they love gays, or all their best friends are gay, or they feel like a “gay man trapped in a woman’s body”. Usually what this means is they’re loud, have a bawdy sense of humour, like drinking or enjoy casual sex and then regaling everyone with stories about it.

Although I’ve always been happy to accept any positive response to my sexuality – sometimes even revelling in it – I’m also very aware that ideas like these can reinforce reductive and often damaging stereotypes. Stereotypes that often don’t apply to gay men with passing privilege.

For a long time, I envied these men. I used to think they had it easy. They could cruise through their school years, maybe snogging the occasional girl to obliterate any traces of suspicion, then come out of the closet when it suited them, usually once they’d bagged themselves a gorgeous boyfriend. (Because they always seemed to bag themselves a gorgeous boyfriend. Amongst gay men, their masculinity was highly prized. As “real men”, we considered them wildly attractive.)

Later in life, however, I’d hear many men with passing privilege complain about female acquaintances inviting them out for dancing or cocktails, or on a shopping or spa day – only to be disappointed by their lack of interest. “You’re not a proper gay,” the girls would tell them. “You might as well be straight.” I’d sometimes hear these men complain about not feeling represented by the gay men most visible in the mainstream media, such as Graham Norton and Alan Carr. If I ever heard them saying we no longer needed Pride or – heaven forbid – confess to voting Tory, I’d resent their lack of political awareness.

Then, when I was editor-in-chief of Attitude magazine, we ran a series of interviews in which gay celebrities with passing privilege discussed the challenges they’d faced. They discussed their struggle to understand who they were, their fear of coming out of the closet, and their battles with self-loathing, alcoholism and sex addiction. I found it difficult to empathise.

It was only when I started writing my new novel, The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle, that my empathy stirred. The novel’s lead character is a gay man in his sixties who’s shy, socially awkward and quite firmly in the closet. After a series of crises, he realises that he wants to be happy – and the only way to do this is to search for his lost love, a man he hasn’t seen for nearly 50 years. I won’t give away whether or not he finds him – or how the men were originally forced apart – but I will say that Albert’s journey encourages him to accept his true self and to be more open and honest with others. 

While writing the book, it struck me that it was only because Albert could pass for straight that he had the option of taking refuge from a hostile world in the closet. And who can blame him for taking it? But the longer he sheltered in there, the more daunting the idea of stepping out of it became.

I’ve spoken to many gay men who came out later in life who’ve told me about the lies they’d spun for decades, or the sham marriages they entered into, or the families they started in order to put people off the scent, or to try and “straighten themselves out”, to try and make themselves “normal”. But sexuality is like one of those inflatable unicorns you see on Instagram in the swimming pools of Palm Springs – yes, you can push it underwater but sooner or later it will come bursting to the surface, often causing a huge splash in the process. This can leave men with so-called passing privilege suffering from terrible guilt – guilt about being dishonest or exploiting other people in their desperation to protect themselves.

I started to wonder if the ability to pass for straight might not be a privilege after all. I started to wonder if it might even be a curse.

This doesn’t in any way invalidate my own feelings. It doesn’t invalidate the fear and self-loathing I suffered after years of being told I was dirty and disgusting. It doesn’t invalidate the terror I experienced when I came out – to friends at the age of 18 and then my parents at the age of 20. But, as any gay man will tell you, life can only get better once you have come out. No matter how difficult this may seem, you’ve just got to push through it. I’m now glad my lack of passing privilege hurried along the process.

Thankfully, British society has changed immeasurably since I was growing up. I never imagined that one day I’d live in a society in which gay men enjoy equal rights – and aren’t just accepted but often celebrated (even if this celebration can sometimes be clumsy). I could never have imagined a society in which, yes, certain stereotypes might persist, but there’s a much greater understanding that gay men come in all different shapes, sizes and colours of the rainbow – as do people from across the entire LGBT+ spectrum.

This undoubtedly makes coming out a far less daunting prospect for the majority of people considering it today. And, if the same progress continues, it will hopefully mean that in the future, I won’t be able to write another character like Albert Entwistle. He couldn’t plausibly exist.

The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle is published by Headline

Two key local LGBT rights groups, the Tbilisi Pride and the Equality Movement reiterated their support for the protest against Namakhvani Hydropower Plant, now held in the capital city Tbilisi, but called on the protest leaders to explicitly denounce “acts of violence” against LGBT persons by far-right individuals in attendance at the May 23-24 rallies.

“We believe the demands of protest organizers are fair,” Tbilisi Pride said in a May 24 statement, highlighting that state contract on Namakhvani HPP is “exploitative” and allows the private investor to earn profits by utilizing land, water, and other natural resources, while the populace receives ecologic, social and economic damages.

“It is extremely important for us to have the opportunity to express our solidarity and support to this cause,” said Tbilisi Pride, adding that movements fighting for fairness should “disavow these extremist, violent groups and explicitly denounce the violent acts committed by them during the rallies.” 

Another rights group, Equality Movement, hailed yesterday the protest against the controversial powerplant project as “just,” adding that they believe the protests aim to achieve common well-being, instead of polarizing the society. “We find it necessary that the rally organizers openly and publicly denounce violence against activists, disavow far-right and radical groups, and support the peaceful expression of protesters.”   

The two rights groups’ statements referred to a May 24 incident, when some far-right protesters confronted two Tbilisi-based Shame Movement activists Zuka Berdzenishvili and Salome Barker, as the latter wore a rainbow armband, threatening and forcing them to leave the rally. In another reported incident, on May 23, hate group leaders Guram and Aleksandre Palavandishvilis, influential father and son in Georgia’s nativist and far-right movements tore apart a banner by LGBT activists at the Namakhvani protest.

“These groups can discredit the protests,” Tbilisi Pride highlighted and appealed to the Rioni Valley activists to support the LGBT rights groups in demanding an “adequate response” to the incidents from the authorities.

Equality Movement also called on the law enforcement agencies to take “effective” measures to ensure avoiding escalation at the protests and hold perpetrators of the “violent” acts responsible.

Following the incidents, protest leader Varlam Goletiani said yesterday the Namakhvani activists “disavow violence” at the rallies. But he appealed to supporters not to wear or bring emblems other than state symbols to the protests, “to prevent any similar confrontations from taking place.” Some LGBT groups and allies said Goletiani complained about symbols instead of condemning the violence.

Namakhvani protesters have announced plans to march from Republic Square throughout Tbilisi today afternoon and to block traffic in certain areas of the capital.

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LGBT‐friendly corporate policies enhance firm performance, according to new research from Aalto University School of Business and the University of Vaasa.

The research conducted by Jukka Sihvonen, Assistant Professor at Aalto University School of Business, and his co-authors from the University of Vaasa – Veda Fatmy, John Kihn, and Sami Vähämaa, examined the association between LGBT‐friendly corporate policies and firm performance using data on 657 publicly traded US firms over the period 2003–2016, and found that LGBT-friendly policies may create value for the firm.

More specifically, the researchers found strong evidence that more LGBT‐friendly firms have higher profitability and higher stock market valuations.

“Our empirical findings demonstrate that LGBT‐friendly corporate policies pay off, and the documented positive relationship between LGBT friendliness and firm performance can be considered economically significant” says Sihvonen.

However, the findings did indicate that the positive effect of progressive LGBT policies on profitability and market valuation was more pronounced for firms located in more liberal states, while being weaker or non‐existent for firms located in more conservative states.

Nevertheless, the researchers did find that even for firms located in more socially conservative states, the effect of LGBT friendliness on firm performance is at worst neutral, suggesting that the adoption of LBGT‐friendly policies does not generally have detrimental repercussions.

But why does LGBT friendliness influence firm performance? According to the researchers, there are various potential reasons why.

“Previous studies have documented that LGBT‐friendly firms are associated with greater employee commitment, improved job satisfaction, increased employee productivity, and more altruistic workplace behaviour” says Sihvonen.

Furthermore, the researchers also express that LGBT‐friendly policies may improve competitiveness in the job market by fostering the firm’s ability to attract, recruit and retain talented employees.

Ultimately, on a broader scale, these findings can be considered to support the view that socially progressive corporate policies and diversity management is worthwhile, and should be considered across the board.