Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Leeds Beckett Pride 2013 to 2017
“My very first Leeds Pride was 2013, around the time when I began my interest in joining the Leeds Metropolitan LGBT forum.
At that time the forum was made up of a chairperson, a member of the then equality and diversity team and two others, one a member of staff and the other, I think, was retired who had kept up his interest and would occasionally come along to meetings.
I went along out of personal interests and I was pleasantly surprised at the knowledge, friendliness and engagement in the Leeds ‘gay community’ these folks had. I realised too how ignorant I was of all things LGBT in and around our university, city, country and the world at large.
As I remember; events around that time in 2013 meant that the forum was suddenly none existent. The equality and diversity team were wanting to keep the forum going and said they were looking for a new chair. What did I have to lose? I volunteered and was duly appointed. With support from equality and diversity team at that time, we managed to grow the group.
At Leeds Pride in 2013 I joined our student’s LGBT Society at their place on the Leeds Pride. There was six of us.
In 2014 the university had set its sights on being in the Stonewell’s Top 100 Employer Index, so a sort of coordinated approach was adopted; as well as being the chair of the forum I was in the fortunate position in my role in the Library where I could influence the start of a Pinterest board to support LGBT February History Month.
Over the years the board has chronicled LBU’s involvement at Leeds Pride events and I’m privileged to maintain that board alongside helping to curate tracks for their Rainbow Over the Library Spotify playlist.
I also started the “Beckett Rainbow Roses” Twitter account @RainbowRose2014 which is still going strong with just over 1,000 followers, Leeds Pride is featured in its media stream, take a look and please do sign up.
As history proves, the university entered the Stonewall Employer Index scheme; in 2013 we were rated at no 168. Throughout 2014 the university worked hard to support LGBT staff and students and some will remember with pride, that we succeeded in achieving a higher position.
We had a Senior LGBT Champion in Andrew Disbury who was the director of the international office. The university had embarked on establishing the make-up of its staff too; for staff to offer details of their sexuality to the university was a key component of being seen to be a good place to work if you were LGBT, it helped boost our position. We also had a good, relatively small but strong group of about 30 colleagues from around the university made up from academia and services; our newly renamed Rainbow Rose forum received their ‘Highly Commended Network Group’ status.
When I created the rainbow rose logo I hadn’t realised that it would prove controversial. The university were understandably adamant in retaining their great logo of a white rose. But they were eventually persuaded by the forum and senior champion – and we were able to unfold the new banner at Leeds Pride 2014 with the Rainbow Rose logo proudly held high. By that time, we were also backed by vice chancellor, Professor Susan Price, and she received the Stonewall award with great warmth. More importantly the university had made a great leap up the Index when it was announced in January 2015 and after a change in name, that we had reached joint 51st place in the 2015 Stonewall Index.
Each subsequent year we have had a place at Leeds Pride 2016 and 2017 and we stayed within the Index at 64th in 2016 and 95th in 2017. Now I have renewed hope now that the university will start to rally and make efforts to be part of the Stonewall scheme once more.
The Library changes its own logo too to fit the LGBT rainbow colours and a personal favourite has been their 24/7 clock a couple of years back
I’ve always aimed to take part in the Pride marches; personal circumstances have meant I’ve had to miss out on some occasions since I first took part back in 2013, but my heart is always there.
Engaging with the Rainbow Rose forum inspired me to take a real engaging part in a world I want to live in. Whichever adjective you prefer to use to describe your sexuality or whichever logo or flag you wave we can all take part in this event in person or online, with pride; and we should do it, not as a protest but because we value each other for our differences, everyone included and everyone valued.”