Rob Goodyear tells us more about pride and having an important safe space for LGBTQ+ colleagues

Hello, my name is Rob Goodyear I am the Associate Director for Strategic Operations in the Clinical and Professional Directorate, working for James Thomas, the ICB’s Medical Director, and Beverley Geary the ICBs Director of Nursing.

More personally, I’m a gay man and this blog has been prompted by Pride month, June.

I wanted to take the opportunity to speak about two things. Firstly, I am a member of the West Yorkshire ICB LGBTQ+ Staff Network. The Network was established in 2022, but it’s the first time in my 19 year career in the NHS that I have had the opportunity to part of such a staff network. It’s open to any member of staff who identifies as LGBTQ+ or is an Ally.

There’s a small group of us in the network. We don’t always have formal agenda’s when we meet, but it’s an important space to be able to meet with colleagues and talk about anything LGBTQ+, both the positives and the negatives and how we can influence change and be our true selves at work.

We are a peer support group. We’ve heard from Sophie Bracewell, Gender Outreach Worker, supported development of the ICB Gender Identity Policy and have recently been discussing the outcomes data for lesbian, gay and bisexual staff in the Staff Survey, such as comparatively fewer LGB staff feel the ICB acts fairly with regard to career progression / promotion, regardless of ethnic background, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability or age, L and G staff feel less confident the ICB takes positive action on health and wellbeing.

We have also produced a leaflet which explains the purpose and aims of the LGBTQ+ Staff Network and gives detail of the Rainbow Badge Scheme, which we hope to launch soon.

We are proud to have Beverley Geary as our Executive Sponsor who supports our agenda, attends meetings, and champions the importance and value of our staff network. She’s also very willing to celebrate Pride with us.

The second thing I’d like to highlight to celebrate Pride is an article recently published by The King’s Fund – “What can be learnt from the past 75 years of LGBTQ+ health care?”. The article gives a timeline of LGBTQ+ health care and legal reform, it’s a good read and illustrates how the NHS has supported our LGBTQ+ community. It makes me proud as a member of the LGBTQ+ community and proud to work for the NHS.

I think it’s important to read this and see what you remember and the impact it had. We know battles are still ahead, while huge progress has been made for LGBTQ+ people, there are more threats emerging.

Timeline of LGBTQ+ health care and legal reform

• 1948 - The NHS has been established. Homosexuality is still illegal in the UK and men can be prosecuted, imprisoned and made to perform hard labour if found guilty.  There was no equivalent law for women.
• 1951 - Michael Dillon, the first person in the UK documented to have undergone gender-affirming care, operates on Roberta Cowell. She undergoes the first documented vaginoplasty in Britain and transitions from male to female
• 1966 - First gender identity clinic opens
• 1967 - Sexual Offences Act decriminalises sexual acts between two men over the age of 21
• 1968 - Homosexuality is classified as a mental disorder by the World Health Organization (WHO)
• 1969 - The Stonewall riots in New York mobilise the LGBTQ+ community around the world
• 1970-71 - Corbett vs Corbett determines that legal gender is the sex individuals are assigned at birth
• In the UK around 50,000 people received electroshock treatment in the 1970s, sometimes used to ‘treat’ or ‘cure’ LGBTQ individuals.
• 1972 - 2,000 people marched in the UK’s first Pride march, London
• 1981 - First documented case of AIDS in the UK
• 1987 - AZT, medication used to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, becomes available on prescription
• 1988 - Section 28 makes it illegal for local authorities to ‘promote homosexuality’ or ‘pretended family relationships’. It bans councils from funding educational materials. It remains enforceable until 2003.
• 1992 - Homosexuality is officially removed from the International Classification of Diseases by the WHO. Many LGBTQ+ people in the UK were (and are) subjected to conversion therapy because of the classification
• 1994 - Age of consent for sex between two men is lowered to 18
• 1998 - The London Women's Clinic's treats first lesbian couple by donor insemination
• 1999 - The UK sees the first same-sex couple to father a child through surrogacy
• 2001 - Age of consent for same-sex male intimacy is lowered to 16
• 2002 -The Adoption and Children Act allows same-sex couples to adopt and foster a child
• 2003 - Employment Equality Regulations make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexuality in the workplace
• 2004 - Civil Partnership Act allows same-sex couples to enter a marriage-like contract. The Gender Recognition Act allows trans people full legal recognition of their gender (with birth certificates only allowing male / female options)
• 2008 – 2009 - Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, same-sex couples are recognised as the legal parents of children conceived through donated sperm, eggs or embryos.
• 2009 - 17% of mental health professionals have offered conversion therapy. 35% were referred by a GP and 40% of those were reportedly treated within the NHS
• 2010 - Equality Act is introduced, sexual orientation and gender reassignment are protected characteristics under the act.
• 2014 - Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act comes into effect
• 2016 - NHS England fund a large-scale PrEP trial in England, PrEP medication reduces the risk of getting HIV
• 2017 - National LGBT Survey 5% of respondents said they had been offered conversion therapy to ‘cure’ them. Trans respondents reported 8%.
• 2018 - Consultation on the Gender Recognition Act
• 2019 - 2,435 IVF cycles (4% of all cycles, and 2,514 donor insemination treatments (44%), involve a female partner – accounting for the largest proportion of DI treatments. A British lesbian couple become the first in the world to participate in ‘shared motherhood’ where the egg is incubated in one womb and then transferred into the other. WHO announces declassification of transness as a ‘mental disorder’ with the publication of ICD-11 
• 2020 - PrEP now available on the NHS for over 16s at high risk of HIV infection
• 2021 - A legal case against NHS Frimley CCG for discrimination of access to funding for fertility treatment for a same-sex couple. The ban preventing men who have had sex with other men from donating blood is lifted
• 2022-2023 - Government announces that it is committed to removing barriers to IVF for same-sex female couple. ICD-11 published, officially declassifying trans as a mental disorder

Thank you for reading and don’t forget to celebrate Pride!

Check out these West Yorkshire-based Pride events:

• 15 July - Kirklees Pride 
• 21 July - Leeds Pride
• 29 July - Ilkley Pride
• 22 - 28 July - Hebden Bridge – Happy Valley Pride
• 11 August - Wakefield Pride
• 17 August - Calderdale Pride 

The ICB is promoting mental health and LGBTQ+ through an extension to the existing ‘Check-in’ campaign. The Check-in with Pride campaign aims to highlight the challenges LGBTQ+ people face.

A 2022 YouGov survey found LGBTQ+ Britons were more likely to suffer with mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and insomnia. Half of LGBT+ Britons (51%) said they experienced or were diagnosed with a mental health condition, compared to a third of the general population (32%). The campaign hopes supporting LGBTQ+ mental health reduces stigma by encouraging conversations about mental wellbeing and increasing access to support services available.