LGBT Equalities

We've seen a whole range of legislation to support the equality of LGBT people going through Parliament over the past few years - Civil Partnerships, Gender Recognition, legislation supporting the right of same-sex couples to adopt and so on. Those of us who are (sadly) old enough to remember the horrors of the Tory section 28 drew an anxious breath when the ConDem Alliance got in, but when it comes to supporting the rights of lesbians and gay men, they have come out quite well. What does this strange new world mean? It's great, of course that we have got citizenship rights, but when we look a little more closely, we see that some LGBT people are indeed more equal than others. Sometimes the inequalities are to do with other sorts of inequalities, including global ones - for example if you are a LGBT person living in a repressive regime, trying to get asylum here, its not going to be a walk in the park - especially if you are bisexual, and therefore unrecognised as facing persecution by the Home Office. Sometimes there are 'in-house' inequalities, those of lookism, agism, racism, hatred of bisexuals or gender-diverse people, oh and even sexism amongst certain sections of the gay community. We need to be vigilent to understand when we are privileged citizens, now and not imagine that the battle has been won.
This often happens when social movements are (partly) successful - everyone parties endlessly or settles down with their cats, and forgets about the people who don't feel safe, happy and able to be themselves. The equalities territory has shifted, and we are into a new chapter now, where those of us who feel solid in our citizenship rights need to help push the movement forwards for the others who are still marginalised and excluded.