Making YOUR Mind Up
Use your right to vote PLEASE!
Of course many of us in the LGBT community are as confused
and divided as the rest of the country
when it comes to deciding who to vote for in this year’s general election on May 7th.
However the choice not to vote at all really
isn’t one that we should let ourselves fall into the trap of making .
Are we really so disillusioned by politics that we can’t
hope for anything better or do we just not care at all and are fatalistic about
the future to let whatever could happen, happen?
I’m not going to tell you who to vote for but I am pleading
with you to vote. Then you can hold your elected leaders to account. If you don’t
they just won’t hear our voices and will assume that everything is fine or that
we just don’t care, or worse still, don’t exist.
Many people will say that LGBT issues are not the most important
thing on their agenda but I have to ask why not? All issues affect us but we
are the ones who must prioritize the lives and future wellbeing of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and trans people in our communities.
We’ve asked the politicians to vote for us over the last few
years on issues such as the equal age of consent and equal marriage and now we
must judge them on their track record and more importantly what they are
pledging to do to support our communities over the next five years.
It has been warned by some that the biggest problem we face
is LGBT apathy now many of the equalities battles have appeared to have been
won but we often forget that these battles have took decades to win and some
people would still prefer our rights to be ignored.
Most LGBT people don’t need anyone else to tell them how
difficult life can be. Those of us who are young, old, unemployed,
living with a serious health condition, disabled, BME or trans are even more troubled
by the society we are living in and how it too often treats us.
The Equality Act 2010 made LGBT equality a priority for
healthcare service providers, but since then there have been cuts to HIV
prevention, sexual health work, mental health services, LGBT youth work, support
for LGBT older people, ignorance of trans people’s needs and contempt for LGBT
asylum seekers. We should all be demanding that whoever we vote for will
ensure that LGBT equality at home extends to fighting for and supporting LGBT
people in other countries too.
The plight of homelessness among LGBT youth is particularly
worrying with studies indicating that around 30% of homeless youth are LGBT.
Schools still remain frightening places for LGBT teachers
and pupils. Many politicians have talked the talk when it comes to Sex and
Relationship Education for primary and secondary school children but we need
more than just words when our young people are affected by homophobic,
biphobic, and transphobic bullying and all teachers in all schools need to support
LGBT youth.
LGBT Hate Crime should also be treated more seriously and
just as much as lesbians, gay men and bisexuals are right to expect equality we
should expect the same for all our trans brothers and sisters.
The party leaders are all doing the rounds at the moment,
even talking to the LGBT media because they really, really want our vote but
who deserves it most?
Who do you really trust to deliver on behalf of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and trans people?
We don’t have long to make our minds up and there’s no point
expecting the mainstream media to cover LGBT issues very much, if at all when
covering these elections so take a look for yourself, read Diva, Attitude, Gay
Times, Pink News, Gay Star News etc. and
come to your own conclusions… but please do make a decision, our futures depend
on all of us voting!
Here are some of the main
parties LGBT links to help us find out more:
