Gay people still fear widespread discrimination according to new poll for Stonewall

12 April 2008 in England, Equality, Lesbian Gay, Northern Ireland, Research, Wales

* Nine in ten expect barriers to becoming foster parent
* One in four expect to be treated worse by police if victim of hate crime
* Nearly one in five still bullied at work for being gay

A major YouGov poll of lesbian and gay people, commissioned by Stonewall, has found that despite recent legislative protections, a majority still believe they will be discriminated against when accessing public services. Almost a third expect to be treated worse than a heterosexual when enrolling their child in primary or secondary school. Nine in ten think they would face barriers from becoming a foster parent. Three in five still think they’d face barriers if they wanted to be a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party, a figure that rises to 90 per cent for the Conservatives.

YouGov surveyed a sample of 1,658, the first statistically significant national poll ever conducted into the life experiences of Britain’s 3.6 million gay people. Asked about their own experiences and expectations of discrimination when it came to work, education, politics, crime and the criminal justice system, housing and healthcare, the findings show:
* One in five expect worse treatment when applying for social housing.
* 60 per cent expect to face barriers to becoming a magistrate.
* A fifth expect to be treated worse than a heterosexual when reporting any crime to the police. A third think they would be treated worse by police if suspected of committing a crime, a figure which rises to 41 per cent in London.
* Nearly a quarter think they would be treated worse if they appeared before a judge for committing a criminal offence.

The polling is published in a new report, Serves You Right, supported by Accenture, which also makes a range of recommendations offering simple ways of improving public service delivery for lesbian and gay people.

Ben Summerskill, Stonewall’s Chief Executive, said: ‘Too many public services are still a bit too smug about the progress being made towards fair treatment for the lesbian and gay taxpayers who help fund them. The insight provided by this report is a valuable antidote to that sort of complacency.’

Serves You Right does, however, find that public bodies and companies that make a positive effort to promote fair treatment can reap significant reputational benefits. Nearly half of lesbian and gay people said they were likely to buy products from businesses that use images of gay people to sell their goods; two thirds are more likely to buy products from a company that shows a positive commitment to recruiting gay people.

Sam Clark, Accenture’s U.K. employee relations lead, said: ‘Accenture is committed to developing a culture that is blind to colour, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. We foster and sustain an environment where each employee is energised and feels respected, valued, fairly treated and able to develop his or her full potential. We hope that this ground-breaking research will help both employers and public bodies better examine – and address – a number of important issues in today’s workplace.’

Ben Summerskill said: ‘This pioneering research highlights the one remaining gap at the heart of Britain’s legislative equality framework. There is not yet a duty on public bodies requiring them to promote equality of service for gay people in a way that already exists for gender, ethnicity and disability. We’ll now be pressing the government to honour its outstanding manifesto pledge to introduce such a duty.’

http://www.stonewall.org.uk/media/current_releases/2223.asp

To download a copy of the report “Serves you right: Lesbian and gay people’s expectations of discrimination (2008)” at http://www.stonewall.org.uk/documents/servesyouright.pdf

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Notes
1. Full survey or breakdown of responses to individual questions are available on request.
2. YouGov sampled 1,658 adults who identified as lesbian, gay and bisexual between 6 -10 December 2007. The survey was conducted using an on-line interview. The resulting data was analysed and presented by Stonewall.

See news story about report:
Homophobia rife in British society, landmark equality survey finds
* Bullying in schools worse than for older generations
* Public bodies complacent, says gay rights charity
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/apr/01/equality.gayrights