Context
24th March 2020[8] marked the first day of ‘lockdown’ in Scotland, in which the Scottish Government’s restrictions for businesses and personal movement came into effect. Covid lockdowns had a significant detrimental effect on LGBTI+ people’s ability to maintain connections and community and a timeline of these lockdowns is necessary context to understanding how LGBTI+ communities were affected. You can read more about the effects of these lockdowns in our Further Out: Scottish LGBT Rural Equality report[9].
The extent of the lockdown in Glasgow is singled out to highlight the fact that many LGBTI+ community services are based in urban areas, and even those that were allowed to remain open, such as outdoor exercise groups, will have become inaccessible to LGBTI+ populations outside the boundaries of the local authority (and to those outside of the central belt, whom we know may rely on these central LGBTI+ spaces).
- 24 March 2020
- First day of ‘lockdown’ in Scotland, with restrictions on businesses and personal movements. Contact with people outside your household was banned and people were not to leave home apart from for essential reasons and one daily period of outdoor solitary exercise.
- 19 June 2020
- Scotland moved to Phase 2[10] of the ‘five tier’ system. Two households could become one ‘extended household’ under stringent rules – all household members had to be in the same ‘bubble’ and at least one of the households had to be single occupancy or only one adult.[11]
- 10 July 2020
- Scotland moved to Phase 3, allowing two households to meet indoors and non-cohabiting partners to form an extended household.[12]
- 5 August 2020
- First regional lockdown in Scotland announced in Aberdeen, restricting businesses and household contact
- 1 September 2020
- East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, and West Dunbartonshire enter regional lockdowns. Glasgow will not enter lower protection levels until June 5 2021.
- 29 October 2020
- A formal system of regional protection levels from 0-4, governing lockdowns in each local authority, is released.
- 17 November 2020
- All people in local authorities in levels 3 and 4 are barred from travelling outside their local authority.
- 26 December 2020
- All of Scotland is placed in level 4, the highest level of restriction.
- 13 April 2021
- Rules about travel within Scotland are relaxed for outdoor activities.
- 20 April 2021
- All of Scotland is moved to level 3, with various local authorities moving to lower protection levels over time.
- 14 May 2021
- All of Mainland Scotland apart from Glasgow and Moray is moved to level 2. This means people from Glasgow and Moray are no longer allowed to leave their local authorities and no one from outside these authorities is allowed to enter Glasgow or Moray.
- 5 June 2021
- Glasgow is the last authority to leave level 3 restrictions.
All of the restrictions above are recognised to have had a clear negative impact on LGBTI+ people who have diverse kinship structures, who did not live with family (for many reasons), who have chosen family outside of the home (and/or outside of their local area), who do not have children or live-in partners, who may not have felt safe or supported
in the home, who relied on LGBTI+ inclusive social spaces, community groups or services, and / or who relied on these spaces and services outside of their local authority.
The Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry[13] is working to better understand this government response in Scotland, and may prove to be a good resource for considering the social aspects of public health for the future.
Recent research has shown some of the ways LGBTI+ people were affected by the pandemic and the above restrictions,[14] including older people [15] and those who were already experiencing health inequalities.[16] We do not give details here, but that research provides more information on how the pandemic affected the LGBTI+ community should readers wish to look further at this.
This report explores how LGBTI+ people connect with each other, and the people around them, to receive and give support.
As part of this, the Equality Network is interested in how the restrictions on movement and socialising implemented in Scotland during the pandemic affected existing LGBTI+ support networks. With this information, we hope to better understand the status of LGBTI+ support networks now that those restrictions have been lifted, and what could be done to help LGBTI+ people to be supported, and to support one another.
Footnotes
- Timeline of government guidance and restrictions (Return to reference [8])
- Equality Network’s ‘Rural Equality Report’ (Return to reference [9])
- ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19) Phase 2: Scotland’s route map update’ (Return to reference [10])
- ‘Support bubbles: How do they work and who is in yours?’ (January 2021) (Return to reference [11])
- ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19) Phase 3: Scotland’s route map update’ (Return to reference [12])
- Scottish Covid 19 Inquiry (Return to reference [13])
- McGowan, Victoria. 2021. ‘Life under COVID-19 for LGBT+ people in the UK: systematic review of UK research on the impact of COVID-19 on sexual and gender minority populations’. BMJ Open (Return to reference [14])
- Hafford-Letchfield, Trish. 2021. ‘Unheard voices: a qualitative study of LGBT+ older people experiences during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK’. Health & Social Care in the Community, 30(4), pages e1233 to e1243. (Return to reference [15])
- Phillips, Callum. 2021. ‘How COVID-19 has exacerbated LGBTQ+ health inequalities’, BMJ, 372. (Return to reference [16])
