Equality Network’s Response to the Human Rights Bill for Scotland Consultation
October 2023
Back in August, we asked you for your experiences of being LGBTI+ in Scotland. This was, in part, to inform our response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on their proposals for a new Human Rights Bill.
Almost 700 people have responded so far.
We heard from a diverse range of people with unique perspectives and experiences. This shaped our consultation response.
The human rights of LGBTI+ people are often breached or not fully realised, and there are ways in which we are treated without dignity.
We found within the LGBTI+ community;
- Significant impacts of the cost-of-living crisis
- Financial precarity
- High rates of homelessness
- Discrimination in employment
- Discrimination from landlords/letting agents
- A lack of access to safe, affordable housing
- High rates of hate crime and verbal abuse
- Concerns about safety in our own neighbourhoods
- A lack of equalities-competent service and health care and inequality within
- Pathologisation and current, and historical, persecution of LGBTI+ people
- Many people feeling the need to suppress their identities in public spaces
- A lack of access to inclusive/affirming spaces
Our full economic, social, and cultural rights, and our rights to a healthy environment, are not being realised. We also found that being multiply marginalised further negatively affects access to these rights.
We called on the Scottish Government to acknowledge the marginalisation of LGBTI+ people and recognise the ways in which LGBTI+ people lack access to our human rights.
We asked that LGBTI+ people be meaningfully and explicitly referenced in the new Human Rights Bill and supporting documents.
Because LGBTI+ people do not have a specific international human rights treaty, we asked the Scottish Government to draw on other pieces of international guidance to guarantee LGBTI+ people their rights, and to do this in a way that recognises intersectional discrimination and harm.
The consultation closed on the 5th of October. We will be providing updates as the Bill progresses, and asking for your input, so that each step of the way the voices of our community are heard.
