This was an exceptional event for two reasons: (a) the numbers – 220 delegates, the largest LGBT+ conference I’ve been too outside of Stonewall’s annual Workplace Conference (b) the speakers and presenters were human beings! At some conferences the speakers seem a bit too shiny, a bit too remote from everyday work and lives. At Lincoln, the focus was on people’s stories, and those people were excellent speakers. The stand out for me were the pupils of the nearby William Farr school; excellent and brave presentations; outstanding discussions with the delegates. For details of the programme, see this link. I’d highly recommend the conference to anyone, not just to those in health care and support services. It fills up early, so contact them by November.
I delivered a workshop on LGBT+ issues in the workplace; do contact me for my slides. My starting point was ‘we have protection under the law, what’s the problem?’ I covered some research which shows how LGBT+ people:
- are still wary of coming out at work
- benefit from being out at work
- have added pressure if they are juggling multiple identities at home, work, socially
- still suffer from stigma from families and communities
- manage ‘minority stress’ and ‘intersectionality’
I covered the work I’ve done with university students and how coming out at university is a great opportunity, but still complex, and how coming out at work is very, very different.