FTL at the 30th Anniversary of FFLAG

Last Saturday Jackie and I attend the 30th Anniversary of FFLAG (Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).  Following a really early start to the day, we trained up to Birmingham to meet with the FFLAG trustees and co-ordinators for a day of talks, workshops and brainstorming.  Sarah Furley, their current chair kicked the event off with a warm welcome, and shared a congratulatory video message from Peter Tatchell.  This was followed by talk given by one of their patrons, Bobbi Pickard, who is CEO of Trans in the City, and was the first openly transgender woman in BP.  She spoke about love: love of self, and love to let others be themselves too.  She so eloquently illuminated us on the concepts of gender of the body, gender of the mind, sexual orientation and gender expression (Rishi Sunak could learn a thing or two from her! Common sense - harrumph!), and spoke about looking in the mirror and not recognising who she saw, apart from her eyes.  Her story telling was powerful and visibly touched everyone in the room.

After a quick break we went into the workshops, the first one being on HIV awareness.  We learnt about U=U (undetectable = untransmittable) and PrEP, the medication that is highly effective in preventing HIV, and that there is still a lack of education, even within the medical community, around living with HIV.  Interesting fact is that HIV positive people have a 10% longer lifespan on average due the medication and medical care available to them.  We also learnt that there is a rise in recent cases coming from heterosexual men and women due to divorce, death, and new relationships.    Our second workshop on Religion and Culture was hosted by Matt from the Naz and Matt Foundation.  He shared with us that LGBTQ+ children from a religious or culturally conservative background are twice as likely to take their own life due to the negative response to coming out to parents, and that transgender youth, if supported by their parents, are 93% less likely to attempt suicide.  His guidance is to “create hope in the moment” which give us time and space to research, plan generally try figure things out.  Lord Michael Cashman, another patron of FFLAG, delivered a passionate talk on standing up for love, tolerance and acceptance, and spoke about the last time a group of demonstrators “invaded Downing Street” in protest of Section 28.  He encouraged us to continue to be vocal and challenge others to walk in the shoes of those they are against, after all, what does anyone have to lose by extending equality to all.

Our final workshop on Conversion Therapy by Dr Adam Jowett, who headed up the research for the government for the ban conversion therapy bill, took the form of case studies around real case of attempted conversions.  A staggering 7% of respondents to the national LGBT survey conducted in 2017 had been offered conversion therapy.  My aha moment was the parallels between domestic abusers and those in the practice of attempting to convert LGBTQ+ adults to lead a straight, cis- life.  Unfortunately the ban conversion therapy bill did not make it into the King’s speech, so clearly we need to continue to be determined and vocal, and not retreat quietly.  The surprise of the day was a video message from Sir Ian McKellan, who, with a twinkle in his eye, urged us on to continue to be outspoken and visible active in support of our children.

Sarah ended the event with a discussion around campaigning, with the themes being a call to action to continue to stand against discrimination, to educate through our experiences, and to amplify the positive voices thus drowning those who refuse to recognise our children for who they are.  My take away is that our support of our loved ones and our stories around that are incredibly powerful in the education of the broader community, we need to find better ways of staying informed and having facts at our fingertips to more effectively counteract the negative politics and media, and that we need to be more visible, whether that means wearing badges, reposting positive stories, or just liking the positive messages on social media.