As we advance through the year, each month will be dedicated to a colour of the Pride Flag.  This month the Pride Alliance invites you to celebrate healing, the orange stripe.  At the moment we may be focusing on physical healing, or our mental well-being, but there are other aspects to healing.  Visit our notice board in the foyer to see this month’s LGBTQ+ Icons.

Healing and action are important across all aspects of society.  Consider the Black Lives Matter movement, the democracy protests in Hong Kong and Myanmar, and the push for LGBTQ+ equality around the world.  In five countries and in parts of two others, being LGBTQ+ is still punishable with the death penalty, while a further 70 countries imprison citizens because of their sexual orientation.

In the UK conversion therapy is still permitted.  Conversion therapy includes medical, psychiatric, psychological, religious, cultural or any other interventions that seek to erase, repress or change the sexual orientation and/or gender identity of a person.  Stonewall’s “LGBT in Britain Health Report” found that one in twenty LGBTQ+ people (five per cent) have been pressured to access services to question or change their sexual orientation when accessing healthcare services.

This comes at a time when Alan Turing is about to be feature on the new £50 note.  Turing is seen as the father of modern computing and a hero of WWII.  He ended his life after his forced conversion therapy.  Many are questioning how the UK government can continue to allow conversion therapy while expressing regret at the treatment of LGBTQ+ people in the past.

If you wish to find out more about how you can help to end conversion therapy you can check on the following link:

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/our-work/campaigns/ban-conversion-therapy