Proud staff storm the streets

The LGBT+ community comes together across the North West every summer to celebrate Pride and this year we’ve had fun flying the rainbow flag at events in Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool and Chester.

Today’s Pride celebrations are a far cry from those that took place at the beginning of pride’s history, where parades were more like marches without the glitter, music and dancing that we see at modern celebrations.

Pride’s history begins in the USA, where a month of activities take place each year remember the Stonewall Riots that broke out in New York City, in 1969, following a police raid of one of the city’s most popular gay pubs, prompting the regulars to fight back in protest.

A year later, marchers gathered in New York to celebrate ‘Christopher Street Liberation Day’, (refering to the address of the Stonewall Inn), which along with parallel events in other cities, marked the anniversary of a watershed moment in the history of LGBT+ rights.

An annual tradition was born and these days more and more cities across the globe stage their own carnivals and street parades to celebrate gay, lesbian and trans culture.

NWAS staff from the LGBT+ community and beyond take part in the North West’s Pride events.

As an employer that values diversity that’s something we’re super proud of.

This year, in the run up to Manchester Pride, we were honoured to host the National Ambulance Service LGBT Network’s third annual conference in Manchester.

Almost 200 people from the UK’s ambulance services joined together to hear from keynote speakers about leadership, there were also mental health, trans and cultural change workshops.

The conference provided professional development and insights into areas of learning for LGBT+ people working in ambulance services and about LGBT+ patients which is not typically provided elsewhere.

There have been huge strides in getting rights and fairer representation for LGBT+ people and Pride plays an important role in providing a platform from which the community can speak out against discrimination and prejudice. But there’s work to be done; more than 70 countries around the world continue to enforce homophobic legislation.

In NWAS, 244 people have declared their sexual orientation as lesbian, gay or bisexual (around 4%), a further 20% have not declared.

Our strong LGBT network supports us on our equality and inclusion work. Over the last 12 months this has included a Procedure for supporting trans staff and an LGBT history event.