IDAHO

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia - otherwise known as IDAHO or IDAHOT.

The date of 17th May was chosen because it was on this day in 1990 that the World Health Organisation (WHO) removed homosexuality from the International Classification of Diseases. Yes folks, that's 1990. Until only 24 years ago, homosexuality was considered, internationally, to be a mental health disorder and psychiatrists were at liberty to prescribe electric shock 'treatment', amongst other things, to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans) patients exhibiting mental distress as a result not of any disorder but of the societal homophobia or transphobia which prevented them from living their lives openly and happily.

Of course, whilst things have improved markedly in the UK and elsewhere during my lifetime (homosexuality was still illegal here when I was born...) there are many countries in the world where the situation remains dire and many where hard-won rights and freedoms are being eroded. It takes all of us, regardless of sexuality or gender, to speak out against human rights violations and to stand up for equality.

And so, today in Liverpool a couple of hundred people, of all genders and sexual orientations, got together to celebrate. We had speeches, drama pieces, a great performance from Liverpool's LGBT Choir (whose rendition of There is Nothing Like a Dame brought the house down!), information stalls, the launch of Liverpool's LGBT Manifesto, news of The Museum of Liverpool's new LGBT archive, a very tasty buffet and a minute's silence to remember all those who have been victims of violence because of who they are.

As part of my work I'm currently involved in some consultation on loneliness/isolation amongst LGBT people and during today's event people had the opportunity to give anonymous answers to a few questions about this which will feed into the work. We'd hired some software which allowed people to answer questions on mini tablet devices and to vote and create 'crowd sourced word clouds' about various issues. When we projected the word clouds onto the wall they created quite a bit of debate which was really interesting. Thanks to Martin for helping out with the technology and to Adam, pictured above, for providing funding through Unison for allowing us to hire the equipment!

Adam is a local trade union official and works for Merseyside Police. He's a great activist and gave a fascinating presentation today about the findings of Unison research into the impact of austerity on LGBT people - giving the lie to any concept of the Pink Pound!

Special thanks to Gail for all her work in getting today organised!