Seven years ago, the UK was rated the most LGBTQ+ friendly country in Europe. When the 2022 rankings were released this month, we had fallen to 14th place. In that same period, the number of recorded hate crimes against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity doubled in England and Wales. We simply cannot assume that our schools are safe from this rising swell of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia: it is coming to our classrooms, and it is coming for our staff and our students. It’s already here.
To mark the 50th anniversary of the first London Pride in June this year, the government was due to host ‘Safe To Be Me: A Global Equality Conference’. Instead, the event (meant to showcase and promote “positive international action on LGBT+ rights”) was cancelled in March after a disgraceful week in which the government’s pledge to ban conversion therapy was abandoned, only to be partially reinstated a day later with transgender Britons excluded.
