Thames Valley Gay Police Association are hosting an event to mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia 2011.

Click here for a flyer (PDF)

Includes: Keynote speech, ‘In or out’ does it really matter? With guest speaker, Brian Paddick.

A cinema style showing of the film ‘Milk’, about the Stonewall Riots starring Sean Penn.

Social Networking.

When: May 17th 2011, 7pm- 11pm.

This is a free event but you must RSVP to get entry, email the Police Social Club, tvgpa {at} thamevalley.pnn.police(.)uk with your full name.

25 or under?
Would you like your voice to be heard?
Would you be prepared to talk about the experiences you’ve had?

FILL IN AN ONLINE SURVEY FOR A CHANCE TO WIN £50!!!

Solutions are conducting some research in association with Q:alliance and could really do with your input. Results from this survey will help improve the services young LGBT people get from a variety of agencies and help us all to get a better understanding of what life is like for young LGBT people in the city.

Complete our short online survey to be entered into a prize draw for a chance to win £50 of CMK shopping vouchers.

http://www.survey.gabba.net/people_mk_survey
OR
http://tinyurl.com/YoungLGBT

PLEASE DOWNLOAD THIS POSTER AND DISPLAY IT IN APPROPRIATE PLACES TO HELP SPREAD THE WORD

Many organisations are interested in the LGBT community. Who is offering what? What is out there? How can you participate in what already exists?

The objective is to bring together all those who are interested in the LGBT community in the area and facilitate communication. If you are interested in the LGBT community or in finding out what there is; whether you are lesbian, gay, bi- or trans, or whether you are interested, concerned or related to someone who is, come and join us for the day.

The day will include presentations by over twenty organisations that are organising or offering services, events or activities to the LGBT community.

During the day, you will have the opportunity to circulate, listen to the presentations which you believe may be of interest to you, and meet people.

Of particular interest will be a debate with questions and answers between local parliamentary candidates from the three main national parties and a projection of Olivia Humphreys “Latecomers” about older people coming out.

For more information, please contact PeterJLeeson {at} hotmail(.)com

This meeting is provided free of charge to all participants, no financial assistance to the costs of the day can be provided to the groups making presentations. It is recommended that participants bring a packed lunch. Coffee and tea will be available on site; doughnuts will be on sale for £1.00 each. Contributions towards the cost of organising are welcome.

Public Transport:

Free Rainbow Bus to pickup participants from  The Point, CMK at 9:30am.

Public Transport: MK Metro bus 7A from City Centre to Dulverton Drive.

Do you have 4 hours a month to spare?

Q:alliance is looking for a representative for the LGBT community on the MK Anti-Hate Crime Policy Group…

Role: MK Anti Hate Crime Policy Group LGBT Rep.

The job: Attend the 6 weekly hate-crime policy group in MK, canvas the views of LGBT people in MK on Hate Crime Policy, contribute on the LGBT/homophobia/transphobia perspective at the meetings and then report back to LGBT communities in MK via Q:alliance’s website, Facebook, etc.

Time commitment: 4 hours a month.

Skills needed: Awareness of and ability to take a collaborative approach to tackling racist, homophobic, disablist and transphobic incidents. Confident, good communicator. Strategic thinker.

Other info: Representatives from police, community safety, housing, probation and MK Equalities Council commenting on policy and ways to increase reports of hate-crime. Daytime meetings – usually 2 – 4pm in Acorn House, Midsummer Blvd CMK. Q:alliance can provide background and training.

For  further details: email Gwil Roberts (a Q:alliance Trustee) at gwilym.roberts {at} relatemk(.)org  or visit SaferMK.

A date for your calendars. On Saturday January 30th, the LGBT General Assembly 2010 (North Buckinghamshire) will be held at the Ridgeway Community Centre in Milton Keynes (map link). The objective is to bring together all those who are interested in the LGBT community in the area.

Whether you organise events or activities, or are interested in attending them, this is the opportunity. The day will consist of:

• Brief presentations by the various organisations as to what they do and offer
• Discussion as to what people would like to see as events
• Discussion on what is the LGBT community itself
• Public viewing of Olivia Humphreys’ film “Late-Comers” about “older” people coming out.

Topics to be covered include support, healthcare, sports, social evenings and more.

Tell us what you do, tell us what you want.

To be kept informed or to mark your interest, please get in contact with Peter Leeson – PeterJLeeson {at} hotmail(.)com or 01908 501426.

• People at my sixth form are so opinionated about gays, they make me feel like an outsider

• Was once told…. By a guy who threatened me…. Apparently it’s different for a boy to hit a lesbian than it is for a boy to hit a straight girl

• Family Values – My stepdad finds its impossible to have a gay friend, also believes my sexuality is a phase. My mother accepts but he thinks it’s unnatural. Because of this I felt obligated to hide my sexuality and go out with boys when I was younger.

• When walking through the city holding my ex’s hand I was jeered at and followed by a group of younger lads. They shouted names and were actually really intimidating despite being a lot younger.

• Lesbians and gays do get picked on. Homophobes exist (I used to be one I should know).

• I get really fed up and angry when people take the mick out of me for being gay and wearing makeup.

• When I was attacked at school the school took it seriously, but the police would only take it as an offence if there was a physical reason (not homophobia) to prosecute. I was 15 at the time. I suffered a broken rib and a fractured skull. Once I took it to court I received £150 compensation and the attacked received 6 months supervision order and a record of GBH.

Continue Reading

• We’re all human, we all deserve our rights
  We all want to be happy, feel safe, and live in harmony
  Homophobia does happen and it needs to stop
  No life should be let down for who they love
  Everyone needs to live together

• Like paper you can rip me apart
  With words from a cruel heart
  Now my patience has worn thin
  So noose be my friend?
  Don’t deny my escape
  (homophobia, it exists)

• My sister hasn’t spoken to me for 2 years because I am gay. All I wanted was to love you.

• Someone said it was disgusting to like someone of the same gender.

• Being called greedy all the time by people I don’t know. Called a slag for 4 years in school. I was 15 when I decided I was bisexual but didn’t come out until I was 16 because I was scared of being bullied or teased about it. Being judged by my sexuality. I tried to kill myself when I was 15 because of the bullying.

• When I was in year 8 my best friend started to bully me. I left the school due to that and I wasn’t in the catchment area. I started speaking to her again 4 years later. I told her I was gay and she was fine with it. However, a few days later she kept ringing me and shouting homophobic abuse down the phone. I told her to grow up and to never talk to me again and I haven’t heard anything since, almost a year later.

• Bein called a tramp for wearin ripped jeans and dressing different, which is what homosexuals are, it’s a different community that discriminated for being different.

• There was a group of ‘chavs’ in my street. I wouldn’t leave or enter the garden without them shouting abuse.

• Cyber bullying and threat phone calls – My experience is having abuse and prank phone calls and threats hurled at me. Trying to turn people against me by making up rumours. Intimidating glances.

• “I was fifteen years old, I was with my old best friend walking down a redway in Bradwell Common. Approximately twenty large females approached me. They started to shout at me for no apparent reason, I then said ‘sorry for anything I had done’ but they didn’t listen and told me that they were going to hit me and beat me up. I was very frightened and attempted to walk away but they wouldn’t let me. Eventually they told me to go away and I walked off with my best friend to her house. As soon as I entered the house I burst into tears as I didn’t understand why such a thing would happen. I wasn’t able to walk home after so I got a lift back and stayed away from Bradwell Common ever since. I sometimes have to walk through the estate but I make sure I am with people at all times to prevent the same from happening again.”

“I got a HIV related illness, although I didn’t know it at the time. I was incredibly ill for a year- stomach pains, diarrhoea, weight loss. I ended up in hospital. It wasn’t until I was in hospital that the doctor suggested an HIV test. As soon as the doctor came in, it dawned on me it was bad news. But to be honest by then it was almost a relief; it meant they could treat me. I wish I had been diagnosed earlier, I think I was partly in denial. If I’d had a test sooner I wouldn’t have been in hospital. Being that ill has taken a physical toll on my body. They caught it just in time, they told me I could have been blind by April and dead by June. If I could turn back the clock and have a test earlier I would.” – Gary

Next Tuesday (1st December) is World AIDS Day. The theme this year is HIV:reality. Some people with HIV suffer side-effects including nausea, diarrhoea and prolonged headaches. In some cases treatment causes changes in body shape, depression and mental health issues. Other people find they are able to lead a very healthy life with HIV and may not suffer the same side-effects.

To see a full range of  information, people’s HIV stories and HIV myths, visit the National AIDS Trust’s World AIDS Day Page. For details of sexual health services in Milton Keynes, including how to get a free, confidential HIV test, visit our information page. If you just want to talk to someone confidentially, you can get in contact with our counselling service by emailing counselling {at} qalliance.org(.)uk for a free initial appointment or visit the new NHS Choices Sexual Health Advice page to email in specific questions.

This week Richard Solly from Safer MK come to talk to HQMK, our weekly LGBT youth group, about their experiences of homophobia and transphobia. The discussion was productive and enlightening for all involved. The youth were really interested in what he had to say and shared their experiences of homophobia and transphobia in MK  (some of which we will publish on our site over the weekend).

As mentioned last week, Ask Jo is coming back! Our website advice column for LGBT, or questioning, people in MK is back after far too long an absence. If you have a problem or dilemma that you want advice on send an email to jo {at} qalliance.org(.)uk – In the past Jo has helped people with coming out, relationship issues, coping with bullies, how to date well, sex advice and a whole range of other issues. We’re also still looking for more of your coming out stories. Reading other people’s coming out stories is often an essential part of the coming out process; by sharing your experience – good, bad or boring – it can help people prepare to share themselves with the world as well as providing an interesting insight for yourself to see how far you’ve come.

This week was Domestic Abuse Awareness Week. 30% of LGBT people experience violence, abuse or harassment from a family member or someone close to them in their lifetimes. Domestic abuse is not always physical, and that means that the signs may not be obvious. It can involve controlling a person’s contact with their friends and family (isolating them), destroying property, verbal threats in private or public, etc.

Are you age 16 to 21 and want to do something against homophobic bullying? Then take part in Stonewall’s Film Clip Competition and get your message heard across the country! More info on their website.

Have you seen this boy?

Some other things we have linked to on our Facebook and Twitter accounts:

• Family appeals to gay community to find missing son
• Brussels says churches must lift ban on employing homosexuals
• Schoolboy thanks fellow pupils for pointing out his homosexuality
• Short video about new memorial for Freddy Mercury
• Marriage should move with the times
• Milton Keynes Laughter Club info
• Liverpool’s bishops defend gay rights

“Everything we fear in the world & want to change can be transformed through happiness, the simplest desire we have & also the most profound” – Deepak Chopra

Finally, don’t forget that Saturday (the 28th) is another of A Day in Hand’s wonderful Sshh! (Same Sex Hand Holding) days. More info at their site.

In response to this, and the rise in the number of homophobic attacks in the UK and previous hate attacks, a vigil has been organised in Trafalgar Square for this Friday 30th October 2009, 8pm. If you are unable to make it to London, Pink Punters in Milton Keynes will be hosting a candle-lit vigil from 8.45pm – 9.15pm, observing the two minute silence from 9pm with a live video link from Rainbow at Trafalgar Square.

The London event is being organised by 17-24-30. Their aim for the vigil is to show the world that this anti-sociable behaviour is unacceptable.

For further details about the London event, join the group on Facebook.

17-24-30 have said, “It’s important that you join in, because this wasn’t just a homophobic attack. It was an attack on everyone’s right to walk through their city without fear of attack. This is about everyone, straight and gay.”

Please also help to publicise the event within any social network sites and groups you belong to and amongst your friends. The organisers have produced a NO TO HATE CRIME poster which you should feel free to use and distribute to everyone you know.

Pink Punters, Rainbow, Rainbow Village and Rainbow Crew are playing a major supporting role at this event expected to host some 10,000 people.

All venues and groups accross the UK are being asked to observe the two minute silence.

Andie who is a Human Resources Manager at B&Q was at the till and her partner Amanda who works as a General Manager also at B&Q was packing the bags.

“Because we were shopping for a party we had some champagne” says Andie.

“The checkout operator gestured to my wife and asked repeatedly “Is the boy over 18?” to which I replied, “If you want to know my wife’s age why don’t you ask her and request ID?”

“Now my wife is almost 40, so it was a ridiculous situation really, as he continued to address me and not her and then dropped it. I told him he was offensive, he just smiled sarcastically and didn’t apologise!”

A few months later Andie returned to the store and heard one member of staff call out “Oi! Gay Boy!” to get another staff member’s attention.

Read the full article here, which includes a response from Tesco’s Chief Executive Sir Terry Leahy.

If you have experienced any homophobic incidents, and are looking for ideas on what to do about them, get in contact with us at info {at} qalliance.org(.)uk.

If you are an organisation looking at training your staff around LGBT issues, do look at the Q:alliance Training Service, we offer a variety of standard training modules and may also be able to work with you to develop tailored training sessions specific to your needs.

Milton Keynes College is working to provide a supportive and inclusive environment for all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender staff and students.

Q:alliance is conducting a survey on behalf of the college to find out about your experiences of studying or working at the college.

The survey will help to find out what’s working well and where improvements can be made.

You should only complete the survey if you are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and you work or study at MK College.

The information you give is in confidence.  No personal information will be given to the college that can be used to identify you.

Take the Student Survey Now • Take the Staff Survey Now

The survey will run between the 1st and 12th of June. Please tell your fellow LGBT students and staff about this survey – you can link to this page at http://www.qalliance.org.uk/2009/05/mkc or just use the buttons below to tell people via email, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Google, Live or del.icio.us.