Globally, it is officially Pride month, but Londonders do it a little differently. London Pride usually takes place in July, to commemorate the date of the first official UK Gay Pride Rally, which took place in London on July 1 1972. This year though, London Pride will take place on Saturday, June 29, and it will be preceded by a host of events up and down the country. Shetland Pride takes place on the 15th, followed by Essex Pride on the 22nd, for example. Pride events also carry on into July, with Bristol celebrating that month.
With such a proliferation of pride events happening across the UK, it’s clear that the work has been done, LGBTQIA+ folk are accepted, and everything is hunky-dory, right? Not so fast. Pride still matters as much as it ever did. While LGBTQIA+ people have more visibility and acceptance, according to recent figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), hate crime statistics show that England and Wales are increasingly less safe places for lesbian, gay, bi and trans people. Additionally, there has been a 186% increase in hate crimes against trans people between 2018 to 2022.
Stonewall says that this ‘comes against a backdrop of the UK Government drawing back its support for trans people and the growth of divisive and demonising rhetoric about trans people in society’. According to Kieran Aldred, head of policy at Stonewall, ‘the official statistics are just the tip of the iceberg – the vast majority of LGBTQ+ people who experience hatred and violence in the UK do not report this. The Government’s own National LGBT Survey showed fewer than one in 10 LGBTQ+ people report hate crimes or incidents’.
In the workplace, these issues persist. New figures from Randstad shed more light on how LGBTQIA+ people fare in the workplace. Its Workmonitor Pulse Survey has found that just under half of LGBTQIA+ employees feel comfortable discussing their sexuality or gender identity at work, with 28% avoiding it altogether.
Deloitte’s Global 2023 LGBT+ Inclusion @ Work report has similar findings. It discovered that while 60% of respondents believe it is important to be able to be out at work about their sexual orientation, only 43% feel comfortable being ‘out’ with all of their colleagues.
Isolation and loneliness are workplace issues for LGBTQIA+ workers too. Randstad’s report found that while 41% said they’ve faced less discrimination than they did five years ago, almost a third said it had worsened over the past five years, with another third also feeling more isolated at work than they did five years ago. That’s worrying for both LGBTQIA+ employees and businesses alike, which will lose talent if they don’t develop inclusive policies.
One piece of positive news for UK workers though, is the fact that 62% of UK workers believe that their employer has taken meaningful action to create an inclusive workplace, compared to 51% globally.
Pride still matters, because visibility does not mean equality. Plus, it gives young LGBTQIA+ people the chance to feel the support of the wider community and attend events where they can meet people who are like them. When you consider that in 2022, footballer Jake Daniels, who plays for Blackpool FC, announced that he was gay, he was the first player to do so since Justin Fashanu in 1990, it becomes even more clear that more work is needed.
LGBTQIA+ hate is rampant in international sport too, with 80% of participants having witnessed homophobia. A significant number believe an ‘openly gay’ person would not be ‘very safe’ at a sporting event.
The most recent Qatar World Cup in 2022 was another red flag, showing how these attitudes are fostered and become entrenched. The country’s anti-LGBTQIA+ policies include up to three years in prison for being gay, and it famously prevented national teams from wearing rainbow One Love armbands, plus told international fans they couldn’t wear rainbow shirts.
Qatar is far from the only country with a poor record on LGBTQIA+ rights. In 2022, Serbian authorities banned the Euro Pride walk in Belgrade, and Amnesty says that Turkish authorities routinely discriminate and use violence against LGBTQIA+ people.
And when it comes to the arena of movies and TV, for every Ncuti Gatwa and Bella Ramsey, there are many more who fear that coming out will affect their careers.
Find a job at an inclusive employer on the Metro Jobs Board this June.
