REAL LIVES LGBT/Brexit
BY RYAN FLETCHER
STANDING TOGETHER
Protecting LGBT rights after Brexit
Jenny Douglas was a young university graduate when she attended her first T&G conference, as a fledgling trade union rep from Dundee’s library services. Now the 59-year-old sits on Unite’s executive council representing LGBT members, but back then Jenny hadn’t even come out to her union colleagues because the subject seemed off limits.
“There was a vague motion (at the conference) about gay and lesbian rights and someone from the Michelin tyre factory in Dundee said ‘I’m going to get up and speak about this, not because I’m gay but because somebody has to’,” Jenny explained.
“I remember thinking ‘wow, maybe I’m in a good place to speak to my colleagues’. I did so and I was very well supported – and when I came back to Dundee I stopped hiding who I was.”
Library worker Jenny has seen, and been involved with, an incredible amount of positive change for LGBT people over the 30 years she has spent as a Unite member – from within the trade union movement and in society.
During LGBT history month (February) Jenny, who was instrumental in helping to set up the union’s first LGBT committees, believes it is important to remember the solidarity used during the struggles and successes of the past to prepare for the challenges of the future.
The most pressing of these challenges is
Brexit, said Jenny, which has the potential to weaken LGBT rights provided under EU legislation. Brexit means that the UK will be cut off from the EU regulations and laws that underpin the 2010 Equality Act, which guarantees equal treatment in the workplace as well as in public and private services.
In fact, apart from civil partnerships and same sex marriage, all of Britain’s LGBT rights legislation comes from Europe. Changes affecting decriminalisation, the equal age of consent, gross indecency laws and access to the armed services are all due to the decisions of EU courts.
Mammoth task Exiting the EU means that these laws, and many others, will have to be adopted into British legislation – a mammoth task that leaves the potential for them to be watered down or scrapped altogether as they pass through the Great Repeal Bill.
Unite is campaigning for a People’s Brexit that includes adequate funding for the EHRC, action over the increase in hate crimes and the retention and protection of vital employment and equality rights underpinned by EU law.
It’s a matter of great concern. “Some of the rights we’ve fought so hard for over 40 years will without a doubt disappear under the present government,” she says.
“While some of the long established ones won’t get touched, I believe ones such as protection from discrimination arising
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from religious beliefs are likely to go,” said Jenny, who is also concerned that much of the EU funding for LGBT services in the UK will not be replaced.
Nor is it just the LGBT community that faces negative repercussions if Brexit is not handled properly. Ethnic minorities, the disabled, women and working people in general could also be hit if EU laws that protect them are left by the wayside or weakened.
Jenny explained. “It’s things like paid holidays and family friendly rights, that affect LGBT people in the same way they do everyone else. It’s a hard time for all of us and as a union we need to ensure that workers’ rights are fully protected. We need that guarantee (from government and employers) to protect all the rights that are currently there.”
Jenny pointed out that faulty or denigrated legislation can also have broader effects on the way minority groups are treated. She remembers how the 1988 Section 28 clause, which hobbled vital LGBT support and education services through the threat of prosecution for
“promoting
homosexuality”, marginalised LGBT communities across the UK and allowed homophobia and ignorance to fester.
While acknowledging that such blatantly discriminatory legislation is unlikely to be reintroduced, Jenny is concerned that the divisive, and previously unacceptable, rhetoric unleashed by political and media figures during the referendum has given
Mark Harvey
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