Michael shares the importance of Pride month

This year, the pride campaign slogan is ‘You! Me! Us! We!’ What does that mean to you?

Pride is all about inclusivity and so is the forum. We welcome all those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender non-conforming, queer or allies. No one should be subjected to hate or aggression and this year’s theme is important to remind us all that we’re in it together and should all be celebrated.

COVID-19 has meant many Pride events have been cancelled. How has this impacted the forum?

This year, we were planning to take part in the Pride parade with Mayor Damien Egan walking with us. We had secured funding from HR and planned to have t-shirts made for this. Obviously we’re a little disappointed that the parade and other events have been cancelled but understand the priority is keeping people safe during COVID. It just means that we will be pushing this year’s plans back to 2021 and we’ll be celebrating Pride online instead of in person.

Are there any Pride online events that you’re looking forward to?

Kaleidoscope International Trust is holding a Pride for All virtual event with celebrities, influencers and politicians which should be really interesting. The events are free and are being held between 4 -7 June. You also have the opportunity to donate to the Kaleidoscope International Trust to help them in their work to uphold the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT+) people in countries around the world where they are discriminated against or marginalised due to their sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression.

Does the forum meet at other times throughout the year?

We mostly communicate online as we wanted to make the forum as inclusive as possible – most of this is conducted over Yammer.

We hold annual events in February (during history month) such as film screenings, discussion evenings and fund raising events. These events are open to all staff and their partners. Over the past three years we have raised money for charities who have a large percentage of LGBTQ+ members, this includes TAG swimming club in Lewisham (a swimming club for trans and gender non-conforming swimming) , Albert Kennedy Trust (a LGBTQ+ youth homeless charity) and Lewisham and Greenwich MIND (a mental health charity based in Lewisham).

Michael, you’ve been co-chair of the forum for over three years now. What made you want to get involved with the forum?

I started working at Lewisham Council over seven years ago now and saw something on the intranet about an LGBT forum so I emailed the chair for more information. I went to one of the meetings and I knew straight away that this was something that I wanted to get involved with. When the chair announced that he was stepping down in 2016, myself and Rachel (co-chair) volunteered to run the forum together. We wanted to make the forum more inclusive and diverse.

What does the average day of a LGBTQ+ forum co-chair look like?

Myself and Rachel do our regular Council job during the day and split the forum workload between ourselves.
As co-chairs, we are the primary points of contact for the forum. We answer questions, respond to emails, monitor the Yammer page, and also work with services across the Council on matters relating to the LGBTQ+ community.