LGBT UniversityBoard

It is my pleasure to announce the opening of the LGBT University! There is a vibrant community of players on NationStates who belong to or identify with the LGBT community as well as those who are allies or have an interest in the welfare of the community. This region is dedicated to discussion and debate about about all things to do with being LGBT+. We will collect the best and most informative in the region's archives, so that all players can benefit from the collected wisdom of the region.

Things are somewhat informally organised at the moment, until more players get involved. However, perhaps a good set of questions to start off our discussions with are the following:

1. What proportion of the population are LGBT?

2. Why is the rainbow flag used to represent the LGBT community?

3. Is sexual orientation genetically determined?

4. Why do some religions consider it immoral to be LGBT?

5. What is 'Stonewall'?

6. Why do LGBT people celebrate 'Pride'?
   

I extend an invitation to everyone in NationStates to participate. We only ask that you interact with region members in a civil and respectful manner, whether you agree or disagree with their views.

Regional business will be conducted according to the draft Charter of LGBT University linked in the World Factbook Entry above. This will be revisited when we have more members.

And finally: Free speech is important here, but disruptive behaviour/trolling will not be tolerated.

Once again, welcome!

Ventus imperatoris has offered to help us set up as a region, for example, with setting up Discord, writing and formatting dispatches, guidance on recruitment and more. Happy to discuss this further with new joiners :)

Discoveria here. I am (as is probably obvious) the power behind LGBT University Founder. I'll be working on the first question as an example of what kind of end result I would like to see for Q&A dispatches.

I partly answered this question many years ago in Gay when Gay used to talk more on the RMB about LGBT issues. The RMB post from that time is here: page=rmb/postid=1786890

Since then, additional data has become available, e.g. from the UK census.

It is a bit lonely here, so I hope more people will join! I used to post weekly webcomics and short films in Gay, and might start doing that here too :)

Hello, hello. You know me under other names in Gay Equality and Nudist Dreamland - indeed Philosophy 115

Mustn't let NationStates take over my life. But I am pleased to be in this fascinating new region, and am here in my own right.

No Discord for me, but otherwise I look forward to taking part.

Heterosexual couple win right to civil partnership
A heterosexual couple have won their legal bid for the right to have a civil partnership instead of a marriage. ... The judgement does not oblige government to change the law, although it does make it more likely that the government will now act...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44627990

Good for them and for equality as well.

The six questions posted above are crucial ones for people delving into the subject for the first time, but some of us have been following the subject closely for years. I have not been a teenager now for some time.

The six questions, yes, absolutely. Gay drug and alcohol problems interest me (the subject got nowhere in Gay Equality). With the move towards authoritarianism in many nominally democratic countries, should we consider the possibility of a backlash against LGBT rights?

These are suggestions. I will not be offended if people do not want to take them up. :)

Hi everyone!

I have been meaning to join this region for a while now! While I will not be around all that much over the summer, I just wanted to create a puppet now and just be in the background for a while. This is the newest, smallest region that I have ever been part of on NationStates.

My personal hope is that there will be many interesting conversations to read, learn from, and contribute to on here. We're in good hands with Discoveria. :-)

This will be an amazing region.

Edit: And I didn't even introduce myself! I'm Ruinenlust, from Forest. It has been an honor to have been informed about the region by Discoveria. :-)

Costamar wrote:

The six questions posted above are crucial ones for people delving into the subject for the first time, but some of us have been following the subject closely for years. I have not been a teenager now for some time.

The six questions, yes, absolutely. Gay drug and alcohol problems interest me (the subject got nowhere in Gay Equality). With the move towards authoritarianism in many nominally democratic countries, should we consider the possibility of a backlash against LGBT rights?

These are suggestions. I will not be offended if people do not want to take them up. :)

Absolutely, these are important areas to talk about. I didn't want to scare newbies! There are many many topics we could cover - I imagine a sort of grand hierarchy of topics once we have some material to work with.

Numquam gravior wrote:

Hi everyone!

I have been meaning to join this region for a while now! While I will not be around all that much over the summer, I just wanted to create a puppet now and just be in the background for a while. This is the newest, smallest region that I have ever been part of on NationStates.

My personal hope is that there will be many interesting conversations to read, learn from, and contribute to on here. We're in good hands with Discoveria. :-)

This will be an amazing region.

Edit: And I didn't even introduce myself! I'm Ruinenlust, from Forest. It has been an honor to have been informed about the region by Discoveria. :-)

Welcome! :)

Welcome to the region, Fluffy sheep and Upper lincolnistan!

Thank you Discoveria!

The U.K. government is to ban so-called gay conversion therapies, says today's Guardian.

If anyone feels like a spot of region-building be my guest. We have a to do list dispatch here:

The UK's National LGBT Survey was published recently. It's "the largest national survey of LGBT people in the world to date" with 108,100 valid responses. It makes interesting (if somewhat depressing) reading.

Summary report:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-lgbt-survey-summary-report/national-lgbt-survey-summary-report

Full report:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/721704/LGBT-survey-research-report.pdf

Some of the highlights:

Orientation and gender identity
* 61% of respondents identified as gay or lesbian, 26% identified as bisexual, 4% identified as pansexual, 2% as asexual, and 1% as queer.
* 13% were trans. 6.9% were non-binary, 3.5% were trans women, and 2.9% were trans men.
(Note that the survey sample was self-selecting and not representative of the entire LGBT population, so we cannot extrapolate from these numbers to estimate the actual numbers of each segment of the community.)

Experience of living in the UK
* 56% felt comfortable being LGBT in the UK.
* LGBT respondents are less satisfied with their life than the general UK population (6.5/10 vs 7.7/10). Trans respondents had particularly low scores (5.4/10).

Crime
* 68% of LGBT respondents said they had avoided holding hands with a same-sex partner for fear of a negative reaction from others.
* 40% had experienced an incident because they were LGBT, such as verbal harassment or physical violence, in the 12 months preceding the survey. However, more than 9 in 10 of the most serious incidents went unreported, often because respondents thought ‘it happens all the time’.

Other experiences
* 2% of respondents had undergone conversion or reparative therapy in an attempt to ‘cure’ them of being LGBT, and a further 5% had been offered it.
* 24% of respondents had accessed mental health services in the 12 months preceding the survey. This figure was higher for trans people (30% for trans women, 40% for trans men and 37% for non-binary people) and cisgender bisexual people (29%).
* 23% had experienced a negative or mixed reaction from others in the workplace due to being LGBT, or being thought to be LGBT.
* 77% said that neither sexual orientation nor gender identity were discussed at school (for 16-17 year olds the figure was 54%).

There was apparently a concerted attempt by far right trolls to disrupt this survey. This was apparent in comments on the Reddit site I've looked at today. The U.K. government thinks the genuine take up of the survey was strong enough to make the attempt at disruption statistically insignificant.

The UK has come a long way from Margaret Thatcher and her section 28 to ban the "promotion" of homosexuality in schools. Social attitudes have been transformed since that time.

Greetings from Pride in London!

Discoveria wrote:

Greetings from Pride in London!

Hope you had a good time. Friends of mine in London went and posted hundreds of photos on Facebook. The weather looked good!

We had ours here a month ago.

I have a nation called Orgullo Gay, who now helps out in a good friend's non-gay region. Orgullo Gay of course means Gay Pride in Spanish.

But it's Pride now. Orgullo. The gay has been dropped for some time.

Costamar wrote:

But it's Pride now. Orgullo. The gay has been dropped for some time.

Nice. There seems to be more internal politics with the LGBT community than usual in recent years. I just read that Pride in London had to apologise for a group of 8 lesbian activists called ‘Get the L out’ (of LGBT) who were protesting that trans people are asking for rights that conflict with the needs of lesbians. Basically they’re transphobic similar to ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminists. Separately, there was a UK Black Pride taking place today in London. There has been criticism about whether having a separate Black Pride is divisive. (I think it’s a good thing to shine a light on racism within the LGBT community.) There are new flags that have black and brown stripes in addition to the six rainbow colours we are familiar with. And Stonewall didn’t attend this year’s Pride over concerns about lack of diversity (which I feel have been adequately addressed by the Pride in London committee). Yet Stonewall have cut a fundraising deal with Primark to sell ‘Pride’ branded clothes made in countries that are hostile to LGBT rights, with none of the proceeds going to support Pride organisers. These bad decisions and the fracturing of the community’s efforts seems counterproductive. Similarly in NationStates, LGBT regions could be working together to set the terms of the discussion and help to educate NS players. This is the kind of vision I have for what we are doing here...

Also, with regard to the question about why we celebrate Pride, Peter Tatchell mentions in a recent Guardian article that it was a riposte to those who felt in the 1970s that LGBT people should be ashamed of themselves. That might be the core of the answer to that question.

The point of the rainbow flag is to bring people together. We don't want to get into splitting and fracturing of the Judean People's Front versus the People's Front of Judea variety. The group of ten women heading the Pride parade in London with anti-trans signs were allowed to hijack the spotlight for awhile.

Discoveria says that we have to guard against fracture, and at the same time not compromise basic principles.

My London friends were happy and smiling in the photos they put on Facebook, and the weather looked lovely.

Welcome to LGBT University, Envoy from pooh corner!

LGBT University Founder wrote:

Welcome to LGBT University, Envoy from pooh corner!

Thank you! Pleased to be here!

"Nicola Sturgeon leads Scotland's largest ever Pride event in Glasgow. Scotland's first minister, a big supporter of LGBT rights, is the event's honorary grand martial." (The Guardian)

Welcome, Skullkiss!

Between RL activities and the heat in the UK I am being a bit quiet on NS at the moment. Hope everyone is well.

I am thinking about changing the region’s flag to this new inclusive one called the Progress Pride flag by Daniel Quasar: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dezeen.com/2018/06/12/daniel-quasar-lgbt-rainbow-flag-inclusive/amp/?source=images

Thoughts? The current flag is of course a rainbow flag on a university shield. I’ve found though that the letters are hard to read. (I wouldn’t have any letters on the new flag.) Puppets like LGBT University Library would keep the current flag.