UNISON’s 2013 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members’ conference this weekend marks 30 years since our first union lesbian and gay conference, held in a children’s nursery in 1983.
That itself was nearly 10 years after lesbian and gay members began to organise in our union.
The 1983 conference was attended by 70 delegates, but this weekend, several hundred delegates will meet to debate a packed agenda.
That agenda includes motions on:
- tackling workplace homophobia, biphobia and transphobia;
- recruiting and organising LGBT members;
- campaigning against the government’s attacks on public services, public service workers, welfare benefits and equality protections;
- the effect of austerity on LGBT people and services;
- the threat posed by UKIP;
- equal marriage;
- international solidarity.
Conference will be addressed by UNISON’s first out gay president, Maureen le Marinel, assistant general secretary Karen Jennings and Liverpool MP Stephen Twigg.
And delegates will also receive a video message from the chair of international day against homophobia and transphobia, Venezuelan human rights lawyer Tamara Adrian.
• If you’re attending conference this weekend and tweeting, please use the hashtag #ulgbt13.
