Stonewall try and fail to be inclusive

Today Stonewall launch their campaign to tackle homophobia in work. There are four poster designs, though by looking at their website you would think that there are only three. Two are all male with the headline "One is Gay". There is a lesbian version but this morning it took many LGBT activists some time to locate it.


There is one woman that Stonewall are happy to promote on their posters about this campaign. She is a police officer who appears with a male colleague under the title "One is bisexual". So the women may actually be the straight one on that poster, after all we are assuming that the other one is, unless she is a lesbian and her male colleague is the bisexual.

However, what many campaigners including myself picked up on the bisexual poster is that apart from the title you would not know that Britain's "self-proclaimed" leader in the LGB rights

The text underneath all four designs is the same.

At Stonewall we've campaigned for 25 years for equality. We've had major successes with legaslising same-sex marriage, repealing section 28 and lifting the ban on gay people serving in the military. But 99% of young gay people still regularly hear homophobic language in school, 100 homophobic hate crimes are reported to the police every week and 2.4 million people have witnessed homophobic bullying at work in the past 5 years.

Lots done. Lots to do.

Yes even when  Stonewall try and be inclusive in their poster campaign they fail within the text. They focus only on the G, hide away the L, fail to recognise the different problems faced by the B, and as for the T as usual with Stonewall they don't get a look in.

They are also taking credit for same-sex marriage, which they were opposed to in 2010 even as the Liberal Democrats passed as Federal Policy in support of it.

There are many harping away about how fantastic this campaign is. Sadly it is more fan'as'ic and fails from its outset to be a diversity inclusive at it appears on a quick scan of the posters.

While we do need to end homophobic bullying, and biphobic, we also need to address transphobic. The Stonewall riots saw the transexuals stand alongside the Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals in countering the police brutality. But Stonewall UK (itself a misnomer due its lack of action on Northern Ireland) fail to live up to the name it bears by constantly getting the full range of those who made at stand at the Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village.

Looks like those of us who get the full spectrum of sexuality and identity will once again had to pick up the pieces that the UK most high profile organisation that many few as standing for LGBT rights fails to pick up and run with.

First Minister takes his seat...

...at the GAA Dr McKenna Cup Final.

Now those of you outside Northern Ireland may be saying this is no biggy it is only a game. This is the first time a Unionist First Minister (or Prime Minister) has attended a game of the Gaelic Athletic Association, ever! Tom Elliot, his opposite number as leader of the UUP, said in his bid for the leadership in September 2010 that he would not attend GAA or gay events.

One wonders if the Pride organisers in Northern Ireland are sending off their invites to Peter Robinson to attend one of their events this summer after his has shown his is inclusive on one of the things that the other main Unionist Party in Northern Ireland's leader has shown reticence over. After all my predictions for this year did include the suggestion that a DUP politician would take part in Pride events this year.

Either way the attendance at a GAA event is big news. It shows that the First Minister is serious about inclusiveness. It is not a first for the DUP, Edwin Poots, while Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure did attend the same event 4 years ago. He may have arrived in his seat after the Irish National Anthem was sung, but then the current Minister for CAL, Carál Ní Chuilín, arrived at her first Northern Ireland football international after Good Save the Queen. But that he was there is none the less a significant step.

The First Minister said:

"It's good to be here. I have had several meetings with the GAA, at a meeting-to-meeting level and when the invitation came I was glad to take it up. 

"I'm not sure if I have caught all the finer points of the game, but I'm on the side of the referee on this one!"

As for the finer points of the game that can only come with attending more of them. It may also be too early to start kitting out the Castlereagh man with all the An Dún regalia, jersey, hoody, ball etc as a Down man should start to have. But when he feels confortable about getting one so he can wear it with the gay Gaelic players in Belfast Pride he could always purchase in in the O'Neills' Store in Enniskillen.