Pride Month: protecting and promoting the rights of LGBT people

June marks an important month globally, where organisations and individuals come together to raise awareness of issues faced by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people.

Although strides have been made for equality since the Stonewall riots in 1969, there is still a long way to go. We take seriously the important role we play in ensuring people are treated equally and fairly – from advocating for better access to healthcare for trans people, to holding the UK and Welsh governments to account for their UN treaty commitments, which protect the rights of everyone in Britain.

Human rights monitoring and LGBT Rights

Human rights monitoring is an important part of our work. We report to the UN and UK parliament about the human rights situation in England and Wales, as part of our role as a National Human Rights Institution, bound by the Paris Principles .?

Upholding LGBT rights through the Universal Periodic Review

The Universal Periodic Review is a peer review of the human rights situation in UN Member States that takes place every five years. In our most recent UPR report, published last year we made several recommendations and findings around the protection and promotion of LGBT rights.

Firstly, we found that there was insufficient funding for specialist domestic abuse services for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans victims. We called on the UK and Welsh governments to make sure there is sustainable and long-term funding for specialist services, with ring-fenced budgets for services for specific groups, like LGBT victims. We were pleased that the UK government accepted a similar recommendation from Samoa to take steps to protect victims of domestic violence from abuse in the review stage of the UPR. This is one way our work has impact.

In our UPR report we also highlighted that LGBT parliamentary candidates are disproportionately affected by prejudiced intimidation on platforms such as social media. We recommended that the UK put in place a strong regulatory framework for online service providers, so that all people can participate in democratic spaces online without fear of harassment. Again, in the review, we were pleased that the UK formally accepted a similar recommendation from Spain to strengthen the protection of LGBTI people and take measures to prevent hate crimes online.

Economic, social and cultural rights are for everyone

The UK has also committed to adhering to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Culture Rights (ICESCR) , which covers a variety of areas including poverty, housing and access to healthcare.

In our last report on ICESCR in the UK, in February this year, we found that transgender people faced extremely lengthy waiting times for gender identity services in England and Wales.

In response, we recommended that the respective governments address barriers transgender people, and other groups, face in accessing healthcare. Our recommendation included improving providers’ knowledge of patients’ rights and increasing capacity at gender identity services to tackle long waiting times, as well as calling for the removal of certain barriers to getting a gender recognition certificate, such as the ‘list of approved practitioners’ which was making it difficult to apply for the certificates in the simplest way.

We have also called on the Government to respond to recommendations made by the Law Commission , including ensuring LGBT people have equal treatment in hate crime law, as currently not all hate crime offences apply to LGBT people.

Our future plans

We are committed to providing fairness and equality for everyone in Britain, during Pride Month and throughout the year.

We recently published our business plan for 2023/24, outlining our specific areas of focus for this next year.

Continuing to protect and promote LGBT rights runs through many of our projects. This year we are:

• identifying and reducing barriers for LGBT people, and others, to receiving the healthcare they need in a non-discriminatory way.
• working to promote the value of equality and human rights in schools and to promote respect for others. We’ll be working closely with educational bodies, the government and schools directly to achieve this.

Pride is an opportunity to reflect on how much has been achieved for LGBT people and their rights, but there is still more work to do to ensure that people live in a world without facing discrimination for being who they are.

To learn more about how well the UK and Welsh Governments are putting their human rights duties into practice, search and filter the UN recommendations submitted to the UK through our Human Rights Tracker.