Calls for more education and understanding as LGBTQ+ support service expands meet-ups in Berkshire

“I think there needs to be a lot more education, a lot more understanding.”

These were the words of Sarah Macadam, the CEO of Thames Valley Positive Support (TVPS), as she explained the stigmas still faced by the LGBTQ+ community today.

The organisation, based in Slough, has been supporting those living with HIV for 40 years.

The team also runs the BeYou service, providing a social and emotional support group for adults from across the LGBTQ+ community.

The group meet-ups, which take place in Slough and launched this week in Reading, look to provide a safe and private environment where people can be themselves and spend time with like-minded people.

Around 200 people are supported by the service, with 20 to 30 people on average attending the drop-in safe space meet-ups.

The service also provides support by telephone, on WhatsApp, and through meeting people on a one-to-one basis.

“We recognise that group social support is just not for everybody and if you’re still finding out who you are, it’s probably a step too far,” said Sarah.

“There’s a range of options that we can work with them on to get them to the point where they do feel comfortable to step over that threshold, into our safe space.”

The service looks to ‘connect people to help them build a community of their own and to pre-empt mental health

issues’.

The inclusive service is also used by many from communities or cultures where their sexuality or gender ‘is not recognised’.

This includes ethnic minority groups where ‘people have told us that were they to be their authentic self, they wouldn’t be accepted by their local community’, Sarah said.

She added: “All of the stigmas are really around people’s identity.”

While ‘huge steps’ have been made, Sarah added: “If you look at what’s happening in the world and the way some countries are stigmatising people and not recognising the transgender community, for example, that does filter down to local communities.

“So, they read that they’re not welcome or their transition is not recognised.”

She added: “I feel like we’re going backwards at the moment, which is quite a depressing thought.”

The service has seen a rise in users recently, which is partly down to word of mouth, but also having an increased presence in East Berkshire.

“I think we live in quite a judgemental world at the moment and that’s just not helpful for any kind of minority community,” said Sarah.

“I think we perhaps should stop judging others and just focus on making the world a happier place.”

While TVPS is not a

campaigning organisation, Sarah highlighted the

impact of issues such as the Supreme Court’s ruling on the legal definition of a woman being based upon their biological sex.

Sarah said she sees the effect ‘all of this is having’ on transgender service users, adding that they’re ‘very frightened’ and ‘very worried about the future’.

“For our transgender services users, they are extremely aware of how they’re viewed in public at the moment,” she said.

“All it does it make them not want to go out and not want to be themselves in society.”

She added: “I’m just so glad that we can provide them with their own safe space here.”

On the importance of the service, she said: “I think without that service, we’d have more people with mental health issues, more people feeling suicidal, [and] more people who just can’t be themselves’.”

She has called for ‘more understanding, more education and more acceptance’ and would welcome more education around sexuality, gender and sexual health.

“I would call for more work going on in schools around HIV, for example,” Sarah added.

“I think it’s about giving the public more information. We need something to balance the opinions.”

Last year the service undertook a project looking into barriers affecting the LGBTQ+ community’s access to healthcare.

“Some really interesting results came out of that around how people felt that sometimes the terminology that was used by healthcare professionals wasn’t up-to-date for example,” she said.

“Or where people were avoiding accessing services because they didn’t want to divulge their sexuality or talk about their gender, and that’s what we’re working on this year, which is helping people.”

February is LGBTQ+ History Month and, to mark the occasion, some panels of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt, made in the late 1980s and early 90s by those who had lost loved ones to HIV and AIDS, were put on display by TVPS for the first time in Reading.

TVPS is also sharing social media posts delving into LGBTQ+ history in Berkshire.

The organisation will be appearing at Pride events across the area this summer.

Sarah has encouraged anyone needing support to get in touch.

“Even if you’re not ready to meet other people, speak to one of us on a one-to-one basis, and we’ll do everything that we can to support you.”

For more information about TVPS and BeYou, visit: tvps.org.uk/