- Conference
- 2025 National LGBT+ Conference
- Date
- 23 July 2025
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference notes that planned United Kingdom (UK) immigration changes mean individuals with criminal records face heightened scrutiny and risk of detention/ deportation. Black LGBT+ migrant workers are increasingly vulnerable in the context of recent changes in anti-LGBT+ legislation in the global south. Globally, 65 countries have legislation criminalising same sex consensual relationships; many countries are former British colonies still retaining anti-LGBT+ legislation, remnants of British colonial law.
Black LGBT+ migrants with minor criminal records face barriers getting into and remaining in the UK, due to discriminatory racialised immigration policies. Coming from countries where LGBT+ people are criminalised compounds the challenge. In ‘Deporting Black Britons’ Luke de Noronha describes racialised patterns of enforced deportation of Black Jamaican men, ‘[UK] immigration and citizenship policies work to nationalise and racialise the population and its ‘culture’, defining the nation as a ‘community of value’ through the exclusion of what it is not’.
In 2023, Uganda passed the anti-homosexuality act, including the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” and life imprisonment for same-sex relationships. The 2024 Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Act in Ghana criminalises LGBT+ people and anyone who advocates for / protects them and makes LGBT+ migrants fugitive criminals; it is an extraditable crime to be LGBT+.
In Kenya, The Family Protection Bill proposes strict restrictions on same-sex relationships, gender identity expression and LGBT+ advocacy, criminalising same-sex marriage. It will restrict property rights, prohibit landlords renting to LGBT+ organisations, stop funding, outlaw LGBT+ groups, ban gender inclusive pronouns, gender reassignment and sex education.
Conference believes the context for this is the rising prominence of far right-inflected views throughout the West. Typified by the Trump administration in the United States, Western governments lead on the rejection of liberal gender policies, hardening of gender definitions and the proliferation of anti-LGBT+ policies. Direct right-wing Western impact on LGBT+ rights on the African continent can be measured. The independent international media platform Open Democracy found that US-based Christian organisations spent in excess of $54 million from 2007 to 2018 promoting anti-LGBT+ and anti-abortion agendas in sub-Saharan Africa.
Many Black LGBT+ migrants will carry criminal records simply due to their sexuality or gender identity. They enter the UK, where, following the recent Supreme Court judgment, their gender identity can be further questioned by the state.
We call on the National LGBT+ committee to:
1)Seek to raise awareness of the nuanced challenges facing Black LGBT+ migrant workers by working with UNISON’s Migrant Workers network.
2)Work with UNISON Migrant Workers network to develop guidance on rights for Black LGBT+ migrant members.
3)Seek to raise awareness of the impact of right-wing Western religious organisations and Non-Government Organisations across the global south on LGBT+ rights.