Blog: Celebrating our Black LGBT+ activists

This month we lit up our UNISON Centre in Pride colours to celebrate all our LGBT+ members during LGBT+ History Month. As this is UNISON’s year of Black workers, I also want to celebrate our Black LGBT+ activists, both from our past and present, who’ve led the way in the struggle for equality and LGBT+ rights both within UNISON and across the UK. Rizwan Sheikh was a leading activist in lesbian and gay, and Black members groups. He became a senior activist in his region and then nationally. He was very proud to be the first Black co-chair of UNISON’s national lesbian and gay committee (as it was known at the time, now the LGBT+ national committee) and campaigned for supporting migrant workers in the Northern region. Then there’s Bev Miller, our first ever lesbian chair of the national Black members’ committee and a tireless advocate for Black LGBT+ rights for many years in UNISON. Dave Merchant’s activism on trans rights was pioneering. He was the first trans man to co-chair the national LGBT+ committee and drove the work on trans equality in workplaces and within UNISON itself. Tim Roberts is now Eastern regional secretary, but he has always been an influential advocate for equality, whether it was on our national LGBT+ committee, or challenging racism and discrimination in the workplace. Tim led the way for UNISON to have continued representation at UK Black Pride. We also can’t forget Ted Brown and Dirg Aaab-Richards, both national lesbian and gay committee me...
Source: UNISON meat hygiene - Category: Food Science Authors: Tags: Article General Secretary's blog 2023 year of Black Workers Christina McAnea lgbt history month Source Type: news