- Conference
- 2024 National LGBT+ Conference
- Date
- 17 July 2024
- Decision
- Carried
Conference will recall that on Trans Day of Remembrance in 2017 we launched our model trans equality policy. This was designed to challenge transphobia in our workplaces. In 2022, we launched our successful trans equality campaign which featured heavily in our Year of the LGBT+ Workers campaign. Despite attacks from the media and politicians, our trans equality campaign has gone from strength to strength. Every goal we have set has been exceeded. We aimed to have 10 trans ally trainers – we have 55. We aimed to have 1000 trans allies trained – we have over 5000. We aimed to grow our trans, non-binary and gender diverse network from 123 members in 2022, we are now over 530!
At this year’s national delegates conference, our proposed rule amendment to change the regional ‘male’ to ‘general’ seats on our national executive council (NEC) was carried, allowing our non-binary and gender diverse members to stand for election for regional NEC seats. This is a huge step for non-binary and gender diverse inclusion in our union.
However, this conference notes that greater advocacy is needed for our non-binary and gender diverse members. The United Kingdom (UK) does not officially recognise non-binary identities in law, falling behind other countries like Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Iceland and India, who do officially recognise non-binary identities. This means people with non-binary identities in the UK must choose to be ‘male’ or ‘female’ on official documents, therefore erasing their gender identity.
Conference believes that we must protect all our trans, non-binary and gender diverse members from further attack and fight for their rights. We must continue the work achieved in the Year of LGBT+ Workers. We need to promote the rights of trans, non-binary and gender diverse members, every year, not just in the year of LGBT+ workers.
Conference calls upon national LGBT+ committee to work with other parts of the union as appropriate:
1)To lobby the Labour government to protect trans rights, reform and simplify the gender recognition process, fully ban conversion therapy practices and officially recognise non-binary and gender diverse people in law;
2)Create a non-binary and gender diverse model policy for branches to use in workplaces to promote non-binary and gender diverse inclusion;
3)Continue to work with regional LGBT+ self-organised groups to run trans ally training in regions and branches;
4)Continue to advocate branches negotiate the trans equality model policy in workplaces;
5)Identify barriers to the recruitment of trans, non-binary and gender diverse members and activists to help branches create action plans on how to reduce these barriers.