Sheffield Pride 2019

Happy Sheffield Pride! This weekend it's our city's turn to wave the flag and celebrate pride weekend! It's a fantastic opportunity to get out there and celebrate equality and diversity. But, it is also an opportunity to raise awareness that discrimination still exists and there's still a lot more that we can do to support and empower our LGBTQ+ community.

Unfortunately, older members of the LGBTQ+ community do sometimes experience discrimination & face a range of barriers that affect their confidence and ability to express their identity. When you consider the fact that older members of our community may have grown up in a generation which was less accepting (both legally and socially) of LGBTQ+ rights, it's clear to see why their current experience may differ from that of younger people's.

We’ve included a link below with lots of info to help you enjoy and celebrate this weekend's Sheffield Pride events. Hopefully this article will also help those of you interested in raising awareness of the issues facing the older LGBTQ+ community as we’ve included some really helpful resources too.

Pride Sheffield
Firstly, there's a fantastic central page that you can visit to find out about everything that's going on in and around Sheffield this Pride weekend. Head over to the Pride Sheffield website to find out more.

Why do we need to Raise Awareness?
The three small quotes below demonstrate why changing attitudes and approaches to supporting the older LGBTQ+ community is such an important issue.

“The staff in the home very rarely gave us any time alone together and on one occasion Arthur was taken seriously ill and transferred to hospital without them notifying me. The man I love could have died and I wouldn’t have been there or even known.”
Ian

“Remember, we started out life as ‘criminals’. Homosexuality was illegal till 1967 so many of us lived in fear of being caught, losing our jobs and even our families. Though I think Mum always knew deep down, it was never talked about and that’s how we all just got on with life.”
Joseph

“I lost my job as a manager in a freight company because I was reprimanded for using the women’s toilets, despite my having lived as a woman for some time. My bosses brought me into the office and said “I hope you’re not going to decorate the forklift pink and wear high heels. We don’t want you making our company into a circus”.
Shauna

Information & Advice Resources
There are two key resources created by Age UK specifically with supporting older members of the LGBTQ+ community in mind.

The “LGBTQ+, navigating later life” Resource has been created this summer and contains a wealth of really helpful, up to date information on topics such as money and legal matters, marriage and civil partnership, health and wellbeing, planning for the future, residential care, being a carer and what to do if things go wrong. You can read and download this information resource by clicking here.

We also have a Resource pack for professionals called “Safe to be Me”. The resource has been created for anybody working or volunteering in a health or social care environment who is keen to understand more and learn how to make a difference in the way that the older LGBTQ+ community are cared for. The resource has a really helpful introduction with many examples of people’s experiences as well as examples and info highlighting good practice, opportunities to reflect on current practice and recognising areas for improvement and change.
You can read and download the Safe to be Me resource by clicking here.

If you have any issues accessing these resources, please do not hesitate to contact us so that we can help.
We hope you have a fantastic Pride weekend!