NHS Services for Everyone?

Originally published on www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Recently I received a survey through the post; apparently out of all the people who live in my area I was selected at random despite the fact my partner also received one, what a coincidence. However this isn't what I'm getting at, the survey was about health and wellbeing for 2013 from the NHS, I know it just sounds like so much fun to fill in doesn't it?

Anyway after flicking through the questions there was the usual; do you smoke? Yes, do you drink? Yes, how much fruit and veg do you consume a week? As you can see it was a pretty standard set of questions. Now this is all well and good and maybe just maybe the survey will help with something, I don't know what it'll help with besides helping to waste some more precious NHS money. But as I got to the end of the survey there was the typical 'about you' section, gender, age, ethnicity you get the picture. I assume this is to help them narrow down which age groups, genders and social groups are suffering the most and which ones are experiencing a happier life, but the one question that was missing was that of sexuality.

Now before you start making assumptions that I'm someone who wants to shout from the rooftops that gay people are being ignored again, I'm not, but you can't help but wonder why this option isn't there. I mean study's have found that LGBT people are more likely to suffer from mental health issues or drink and drug abuse, and by asking this question on a more localised survey by the NHS they could find a way of tackling this, instead of leaving it to certain organisations such as Stonewall and the LGF.

Not every area in the country has somewhere that gay people can turn to for help, and some may send this survey back and be found to be severally depressed or unhappy with life who may be gay, yet this will go unnoticed. I filled out an online health and wellbeing survey a while ago specifically for LGBT people, which was put together by an LGBT organisation, just so I could help out with these statistics that so many organisations such as the NHS are missing.

However it isn't just this NHS wellbeing survey that fails to ask this question. When I was at University I applied for a job at a supermarket so I could make some extra money. Me and my friend (who happens to be a lesbian) went to get the application forms and both said there's no point applying, as we wouldn't get the job. However after noticing the equal opportunities section I made a quick joke that this was our way in, however there was once again no section asking about sexuality. I didn't get the job, because I had no experience working in a supermarket and neither would I want to be given a job simply because I am gay. But it makes me wonder how a company can call themselves an equal opportunities employer and only mention disability, race and ethnicity on an application form as if they're the only reasons why people would be discriminated against when applying for a job.

Now I may have digressed into something completely different there but the principal is still the same, does the NHS not care about the well being of LGBT people? Of course they care, but how will they know the full extent of the health and wellbeing of a social group that does suffer abuse in the areas in which they live (do you feel safe in your area was a question on the survey), and are known for having higher abuse rates if they fail to include a small section in a survey?

Maybe they just forgot, maybe they ran out of space on the paper or maybe because there are LGBT groups out there who've conducted these kinds of studies in the past they felt they didn't need to. The thing is we will never know why it wasn't on there, but the other fact is; if they continue to miss this off surveys in the future then the health and wellbeing of a vast amount of LGBT people will continue to go unknown, which could be a big problem for many.

Opinion: Gay TV Takeover?

Originally posted on ww.lgf.org.uk

Last week Brian Sewell hit the headlines after his attack on Coronation Street for its apparent unrealistic portrayal of homosexual characters within the soap, believing that there were too many. 

In his article Sewell wrote, “Is it true that the lives of heterosexual Mancunians are haplessly intertwined with transvestites, transsexuals, teenage lesbians and a horde of homosexuals across the age range? Is Manchester now the Sodom of the North?”

Well the answer to this is yes, and it’s not just up North where the lives of people from the LGB&T community have mixed with people of the heterosexual community, it’s happening all over Britain, as believe it or not in the 21st century people are out and proud and it is ok to be gay.

Sewell Mentioned in his column that there were far too many people from the LGB&T community in Coronation Street considering that only 6 percent of the population are gay.

How does he know this? How does anybody know this? That 6 percent is an estimation of how many gay people there are in the UK, as there is no official way of finding out the sexual orientation of many people, and with news items like this still being written in 2011 we may never know.

Think about it, in today’s day and age how much do we really know about the people living on our streets? 

If you’re like me, and most people in the UK today, then the answer is not a lot, so no one knows how many homosexuals are in fact living in one area, the only reason we know this on soaps is because we are given a window into the characters lives.

What is even more infuriating is the notion that having a few gay characters living in Coronation Street is deemed far-fetched or unbelievable, yet the thought of having serial killers pop up every few years is deemed perfectly fine. Tell me how many serial killers have lived on your street over the last 10 years? I can assure you it wont be as many as Coronation Street or any other soap has had. Well lets hope not anyway.

Eastenders has also come under criticism recently and wasn’t spared when it came to this article last week. The show caused outrage for showing two men in bed together, who were apparently naked (the horror), with people saying it should be shown after the watershed, but why? This is just a normal portrayal of a gay relationship. I can assure you I have seen heterosexual couples in bed together that are seemingly naked on several occasions over the years and not once have I heard uproar over that.

Apparently these people who are complaining are just thinking of the children, but how can they be thinking about the children when they want a true portrayal of a gay relationship banned until after the watershed? Surely they are just enforcing homophobic prejudices upon their children and telling them that if they are gay and lie in bed naked together with someone of the same sex then it’s a sin, where as being naked in bed with someone of the opposite sex is fine.

The recent teenage lesbian storyline shown on Coronation Street has had a significant impact on young people across the UK who are struggling with coming to terms with their sexuality, and it has shown them that being gay is nothing to be ashamed of, and we haven’t seen a sudden rise in teenage lesbians because of it have we? No, so what’s the problem?

According to Sewell there’s a new book called Primetime Propaganda by Benjamin Shapio, which argues that an exclusively liberal TV establishment shapes taste, style, politics and family life and attitudes, and complains that gay writers, directors and actors admit to promoting their own gay rights agendas.

Fair enough, maybe the writers and directors are using elements of Coronation Street to show gay characters and by doing this they are helping to portray members of the LGB&T community in a positive light, but to suggest propaganda just makes it sound as though some people haven’t progressed very much in the last 50 years.

On a final note, surely by attacking the soap and saying there are too many gay characters and suggesting that certain scenes should be shown after the watershed, isn’t the whole article that started this debate working as a piece of homophobic propaganda?

LGBT Domestic Violence

Originally posted on www.lgf.org.uk

Domestic violence is a term we have all heard of and understand as a terrible ordeal for anyone to go through, but it is something that isn't as widely acknowledged as happening within relationships in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGB&T) community.

Much previous research on domestic violence has concentrated on heterosexual relationships, with men widely being considered the perpetrator of the violence and women as the victims, the ordeal suffered by men and women within the LGB&T community is often ignored.

Due to the failure to acknowledge LGB&T relationships in much of the previous research on this subject, it is thought that this has played down the severity of the experience of domestic violence in LGB&T communities, as LGB&T people have only recently become aware of the seriousness of this problem, as their heterosexual counterparts.

A new study aims to find out more about incidents of LGB&T domestic violence.

Manchester Metropolitan University Post-Grad student, Laura M.Chant is looking for volunteers to explore their experiences anonymously.

Laura is a graduate of the University of Bolton is currently working alongside Greater Manchester Police on a research project entitled 'Same Sex Violence, Another Closet: Exploring the Victimisation of Unreported Abuse, and Associated Risk Factors, using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis', which explores domestic abuse within a minority population, with the hope of helping people who are suffering.

The research being conducted will help explore domestic violence in LGB&T relationships through the eyes of the victims themselves, identifying the significant experiences for them, which according to the researcher, does not appear to be the primary focus in previous research carried out. The research will then focus on exploring the experiences in relation to the dynamics of abuse, associated risk factors and reasons for un-reporting, the report uses its pioneering approach to help form the general area for this research.

This work is ultimately setting up the ground work to help members of the LGB&T community and the final report will be used to help inform the police of the risk and prevalence of domestic violence, inform ways that the police can promote awareness and encourage victims to come forward.

The findings of this report will be compiled within a thesis that will be available at the Manchester Metropolitan University and within a review report for the Greater Manchester Police.

The research subjects have been given total anonymity within the research findings.