GLaD team member, Sean Mulcahy, recently participated in the Visiting Fellows Programme at the University of Warwick School of Law. The duration of his visit included meeting with Laura Thomas, Co-Lead of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority LGBTQ+ Advisory Panel to discuss LGBTIQA+ inclusion and human rights and share ideas across continents.
This stems from a project being led by ARCSHS Honours student Carla Lane on LGBTIQA+ inclusion in municipal public health and wellbeing plans and Sean’s work with the Victorian Pride Lobby’s Rainbow Local Government campaign to take research on LGBTIQA+ rights and apply it in practice in local government settings.
Greater Manchester Combined Authority LGBTQ+ Advisory Panel
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority consists of a directly elected Mayor and representatives of the ten local councils that operate in the Greater Manchester region. Whilst every area holds its own local pride event, Laura observed that it can be difficult to engage with areas other than Manchester City Council.
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority LGBTQ+ Advisory Panel was established in 2018 as the first Panel of its type in the United Kingdom. The Panel, which meets roughly once a month, consists of community representatives appointed through application who elect their chair yearly. It is one of several Equality Panels within the Combined Authority that also includes: the Youth Combined Authority; the Disabled People’s Equality Panel; the Race Equality Panel; the Women and Girls’ Equality Panel; the Faith and Belief Advisory Panel; and the Older People’s Equality Panel. The co-leads of the Equality Panels work together to discuss specific issues.
The Panel receives administrative support from the LGBT Foundation, which tendered to run it and manages relations with contacts at the Combined Authority and facilitates connections with community organisations. Community organisations can come and speak to the Panel and give policy input, but Laura observed that it can be difficult to engage with communities. The Panel considers itself a ‘critical friend’ of the Mayor of the Combined Authority, Andy Burnham, who is pro-LGBTIQA+. The Mayor visits the Panel once or twice a year and the Panel uses these visit productively to raise issues and has contributed to his policy manifesto.
In 2017, the LGBT Foundation and Mayor launched the Greater Manchester LGBT Action Plan, and the Panel is now in conversations with the Combined Authority about updating this inclusion strategy.
The Panel had three working groups on: (1) conversion therapy; (2) police and emergency services; and (3) safer spaces. The Panel is part of the Ban Conversion Therapy coalition and the Mayor has signed the Greater Manchester Pledge to End Conversion Therapy, as has the Leader of Manchester City Council, Bev Craig, who is openly gay, and the Mayor of Salford City Council, Paul Dennett. The Pledge expresses a commitment to support a ban on conversion therapy and a principle of not funding organisations that support, promote, or facilitate conversion therapy. The Panel is currently running a survey on hate crimes in Greater Manchester. The Panel are currently working on future working groups and aims for the future.
When discussing how culture wars are affecting LGBTIQA+ inclusion work in local government, Laura observed that it is difficult to scope out true allies due to the rise in transphobic rhetoric, and that you need to be focussed on the granular and across the detail if you want to get something across the line.