3^rd LBi Coalition Meeting

Tuesday 29 July, Star & Shadow Theatre, Newcastle

Around 25 members gathered in Newcastle on a sunny Tuesday evening, to take part in the third meeting of the Coalition.

The Agenda was given a good start with an excellent, if somewhat harrowing, presentation raising awareness of issues faced by lesbian women seeking asylum in this country.  Facing the threat of violence due to your sexuality appears not to be considered a good reason for leaving your home country, in spite of considerable evidence provided from various parts of the world, including Iran and Kurdistan.  We were all happy to take the opportunity to add our names to a number of petitions on this issue being prepared for Gordon Brown, Jacquie Smith and others.

This was followed by presentation on a piece of research into focuses on the views and aspirations of existing groups that support lesbian and bisexual women and which also sought to identify opportunities for LBi women to become active in influencing policy.  Key issues and potential solutions arising from the research were:

·         Services are not able to make links with the LBi community

·         Homophobic and transphobic abuse

·         Localised social provision

Presentation of the research was then supported by a ‘Brick Wall’ exercise, in which we identified some key problem issues and then pooled our ideas to put forward possible solutions.  This worked very effectively, and was fun at the same time!

The whole was fuelled, literally, by some excellent nosh laid on by organisers:  Heather, Jud and Liz.  Thanks to them all.

Annie