Back In The Closet – In Health and Care provision

National research shows that when Gay and Trans people go into care or receive care at home, they are going back in the closet. This is because they fear discrimination and abuse. OLGA wants to see health and social care providers welcoming LGB&T people, with staff encouraging us to be ourselves. OLGA has been working with Care Quality Commission to improve inclusivity of LGB&T clients. CQC tell us that they are now asking service providers about safety and personalised care issues.

CQC inspectors are receiving up to date training to enable them to have the confidence to quiz health and social care providers. How successful this latest initiative is will be shared with OLGA and you in summer 2018.

Homophobic and Transphobic Hate Crime

OLGA attends regular meetings with the North Yorkshire police. Shockingly, they have refused to provide us with hate crime data for several years! We believe they are bound by the equality law, and to prove this they should share the data about homophobic and transphobic hate incidents and crimes. If they continue to refuse to share this, we may request it under the freedom of information act.

Teaching Relationships and Sex Education in North Yorkshire Schools 

At long last, the Government announced in March 2017 that Relationships and Sex Education will become statutory in September 2019. This education will be in primary and secondary schools. North Yorkshire will be using a highly experienced trainer from the Sex Education Forum and Stonewall.

What will parent’s reactions be? What will children’s reactions be? How many parents will use their right to withdraw their child from sex education within the subject called relationships and sex education. They cannot withdraw them from sex education in the National Curriculum as part of Science. Pleasingly there can be no withdrawal from Relationship Education in Primary School. This will deal with different relationships such as Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Trans and work on “Different Families”. Primary Schools must introduce the topic of “Different Families – Same Love”.

It is also important when teaching Relationship and Sex Education at all age groups not to just refer to the two genders of boys and girls but to take the time to explore the spectrum of gender identity for example include trans and gender neutral identities as well as challenging gender stereotypes.