Pride 2020 🏳️‍🌈

I was really busy in June and didn’t manage to upload my Pride post as planned. As there’s still a few days of the year left, I thought why not post it now.

This year marked the 50th year of Pride marches since the Stonewall Riots on 28th June 1969.

Whilst Pride across the world was mainly celebrated at home, it was nonetheless still an important celebration.

I was asked for the first time what Pride means to me and I had to take a moment to collect my thoughts. I’d never been asked this before and I wanted to give a really meaningful answer. To put it simply, Pride to me is the acceptance of love in all of its forms, regardless of gender, sexuality, race or ethnicity. It’s the ability to be who you are without prejudice and discrimination. It’s the ability to be free and to live your life how you choose.

To the people who feel that LGBTQ+ rights are no longer an issue I’m glad that you’ve never been subjected to harassment, torment or hatred because of you’re sexuality. Sadly not everyone is that lucky.

The fact that you still have to ‘come out’ and may be disowned, shunned or physically/verbally attacked is still very much a pressing issue within the LGBTQ+ community. People spend their whole lives hiding their true identity, lying to those closest to them and never experiencing love because they’re too scared or ashamed. I have felt scared to hold my partner’s hand walking down the street, to tell a new friend that I have a girlfriend and to tell a colleague that my partner is in fact a woman.

I sincerely hope that within my lifetime I get to see a generation who do not feel ashamed, who are not scared and who are not attacked because of who they love. I hope that you no longer have to ‘come out’, as people will not automatically assume that you are straight. I also hope that there will no longer be hushed conversations where people are trying to establish whether someone is gay or not.

Why is this even a conversation? I’ve never heard a discussion about whether someone is straight or not, because that’s viewed as ‘normal’. Well why isn’t it ‘normal’ for someone to be gay?

People take the view that the LGBTQ+ community has been viewed as equal for a long time, well I can tell you that they have not and are still not viewed as equal.

Here’s just a few facts to show how recent it is that the LGBTQ+ community have been given rights:

• It was only 53 years ago in 1967 that England and Wales decriminalised homosexual acts between two men over 22 years of age in private. Homosexual acts between two men was still illegal in hotel rooms. You could still be arrested for it!
• 19 years ago in 2001 the age of consent for homosexual acts between men is lowered to 16, finally in line with heterosexual acts.
• 18 years ago in 2002 same-sex couples are granted equal rights to adopt
• 16 years ago the Civil Partnership Act 2004 is passed
• 12 years ago in 2008 it became illegal to encourage homophobic hatred. Last year, more than 7,000 hate crimes were reported against gay men and women in the UK
• 6 years ago same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales on 29 March under the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013
• 3 years ago in 2017 the government agreed to officially pardon men with criminal records for being gay or bisexual. They will no longer have this “crime” on their record.
• 1 year ago in 2019, following a landmark ruling, secondary schools will now educate students on sexual orientation, gender identity and relationships, while primarily schools will teach children about LGBTQ+ families.
• This year in 2020 same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland became legal following the enactment of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019.
• This year in 2020 it was announced that Scotland will become the first country in the world to add LGBTQ+ history to their school curriculum, starting in 2021.

As you can see the UK has progressed profusely in regards to LGBTQ+ rights in the last 20 years, but there is still a long road ahead. Parents still protest the teaching of LGBTQ+ relationships, history and rights. The transgender members of our community are treated horrifically and are not fully accepted into society. Men still believe that lesbians and bisexuals exist for their amusement. Until the entire LGBTQ+ community are treated and viewed as equal to the rest of society, the Government still have work to do.

Countries like America have gone backwards over the past few years and it is heartbreaking. Luckily Joe Biden and Kamala Harris appear to have LGBTQ+ rights on their agenda and I have every faith that they will fight to bring support, love, acceptance and equal rights to the LGBTQ+ community.