Lesbian, Gay and Bi-sexual

Scottish Government's Equality Evidence Finder estimates that 2.6% of the population is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Other [LGB].

The last time Equality Here, Now checked the performance of Universities in Scotland as an employer in delivering equality for LGB people was in 2019.

The research carried out then found :

The elimination of LGB discrimination, a pivotal part of the general equality duty, requires an explicit acknowledgement by all public sector bodies that institutional discrimination is alive and well and exists within and across the structures, policies and cultures which create each organisation as an individual legal entity.

No such acknowledgment has been made by any of Scotland’s universities in the employment data reports published this year. If changing the established order, the status quo, is accepted as key to the challenge in making equality a reality for people being discriminated against as opposed to the content of a biennial report, then recognition must be given to the inevitable resistance to change the established order will mount in an effort to maintain the status quo. An essential counter to this cultural roadblock to equality has to take the form of active and robust enforcement of the legal duties on equality. In Scotland, the Equality & Human Rights Commission has deliberately chosen to adopt an enforcement approach based on providing support and encouragement to public bodies which are identified as not meeting their duties.

Until Scotland fills the structural, cultural and leadership gaps in its work on eliminating discrimination, the humiliation, indignity and hardship experienced daily by LGB people being discriminated against will continue to be the unsavoury reality of Scotland. Flying rainbow flags, integrating rainbow logos into corporate branding, and projecting rainbows onto HQ buildings may look pretty and may even signal a desire to end discrimination. Rainbow flags are no substitute for hard data evidence of employment equality, and will of themselves offer nothing but a feeble flapping at the relentless orthodoxy of discriminating against anything which is different.

Equality Here, Now has researched the performance of Universities in Scotland as an employer of LGB people over a number of years, and the journey from then until now can be uncovered in the research reports published in 2017, 2015, and 2013.