{"id":17561,"date":"2023-06-05T15:30:53","date_gmt":"2023-06-05T14:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/?post_type=blog&amp;p=17561"},"modified":"2023-06-05T15:30:53","modified_gmt":"2023-06-05T14:30:53","slug":"17561","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/news\/2023\/17561\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Pride month!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-17596 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Ross-headshot-600x600.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"309\" height=\"309\" \/>Happy Pride month!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I see it as a three-pronged opportunity to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion in its widest sense<\/li>\n<li>take stock of what the LGBTQ+ community has achieved<\/li>\n<li>pledge ourselves anew to campaign for positive change, recognising that for too many LGBTQ+ people the world-over, equality is yet to be achieved<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Every now and again, I hear people intimate \u201c\u2026you\u2019ve got your rights, what\u2019s the need for Pride?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ah! Well \u2013 there has been progress in some rights, for some people, in some places\u2026 but for others, little to no progress, or even a backward slide. It is impossible to ignore that Pride 2023 comes at a time of increased polarisation of social attitudes, no less for the trans community which has faced a barrage of hate and anti-trans sentiment in recent months.<\/p>\n<p>And therein lies the risk: complacency. It can happen in all walks of life, especially for those with protected characteristics and more so again when you take into account intersectionality. History tells us that rights are rarely easily won. In fact, in many cases, aside from dogged determination and political pressure, the battle to have rights introduced and respected can be ugly.<\/p>\n<p>And so it is true that rights can easily be watered down, stripped back or scrapped entirely. <strong>It\u2019s why Pride is so important. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You need only look to the near continent to witness how rights can change depending on the attitudes of those in power; the new government in Italy, for example, <em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-europe-64967517\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">rowing back on parental rights for same-sex parents<\/a><\/strong><\/em> or the increase in <em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/anti-lgbtq-violence-europe-highest-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hate-speech<\/a><\/strong><\/em> across Europe and Central Asia, fuelled by prominent, right-wing politicians. If and when \u2018normalised\u2019 into every-day language, it only serves to embolden those who hold views of prejudice. Only last year, there were two fatal attacks on the streets of European capital cities \u2013 one outside a gay venue in Oslo, killing two people, and another in Bratislava, also killing two people.<\/p>\n<p>Just a couple of weeks back, on International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, ILGA Europe published its 2023 <a href=\"https:\/\/ilga-europe.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><em>\u2018Rainbow Map\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, benchmarking 49 European countries on legal and policy stances for LGBT+ people. Its findings weren\u2019t necessarily much of a surprise \u2013 broadly, Northern and Western Europe ranks highly.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, Malta takes the top spot scoring 89%, followed by Belgium, Denmark and Spain. The UK holds a middle-ranking spot at 53% &#8211; we know there is work to do!<\/p>\n<p>At the bottom of the scale, considered to be \u2018gross violation of human rights and discrimination\u2019 Azerbaijan (2%), Turkey (4%), Russia and Armenia (=8%).<\/p>\n<p>In Wales, we have a devolved government committed to ensuring we are \u201c\u2026<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.wales\/wales-sets-out-ambitious-plan-hope-its-heart-reach-goal-becoming-most-lgbtq-friendly-nation-europe#:~:text=Home-,Wales%20sets%20out%20ambitious%20plan%20%E2%80%9Cwith%20hope%20at%20its%20heart,fear%2C%20discrimination%20and%20hate.%E2%80%9D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong><em>Europe\u2019s most LGBT+ friendly nation<\/em><\/strong>\u201d<\/a>. That\u2019s a pledge backed by an Action Plan, helpfully shaped by stakeholders from across the spectrum. But plans only come to life with sustained commitment \u2013 and in this case, powered by a sense of social justice and equality. It\u2019s with that in mind that we look not just to safeguard progress to date, but to enhance it.<\/p>\n<p>So this Pride month, take a chance to think about how you or your organisation can help contribute to that sense of inclusivity in order that we can continue making strides towards equality for all.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Ross Thomas is Head of Policy &amp; Public Affairs at Tai Pawb<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy Pride month! I see it as a three-pronged opportunity to: celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion in its widest sense take stock of what the LGBTQ+ community has achieved pledge ourselves anew to campaign for positive change, recognising that for too many LGBTQ+ people the world-over, equality is yet to be achieved Every now and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"temporary-categorisation-from-im":[115],"class_list":["post-17561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","temporary-categorisation-from-im-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17561"},{"taxonomy":"temporary-categorisation-from-im","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taipawb.org\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/temporary-categorisation-from-im?post=17561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}