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In The South

Greens advance LGBTIQA rights at Spring Conference

Gary Hart March 1, 2016

Green Party pass five motions improving policy to support members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Intersex, Queer, and Asexual community at their Spring Conference last week.

Green Party LogoAt the conference in Harrogate from February 26-28, 2016, Greens voted overwhelmingly in favour of improving the Gender Recognition Act, the Equalities Act and Equal Marriage Act to better respect the rights of trans people.

The party also adopted a range of policy designed to improve LGBTIQ and wider sexual health including a policy on making Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), which helps protect people vulnerable to HIV from developing the disease, available on the NHS, the extension of the HPV vaccines to boys and increased of funding to HIV prevention.

The calls come after national sexual health charities including Terrence Higgins Trust, National AIDS Trust and Metro recently criticised the Government for the impact of cuts to HIV prevention budgets which is being caused by local authorities having to starve many organisations of public health funding.

Following on from the Death of Leelah Alcorn in December 2014, the Party also passed policy to ban all LGBTIQA+ ‘cures’ including Conversion Therapy.

During Conference, Equalities (LGBTIQ) Spokesperson, Aimee Challenor, signed an open letter to the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), calling on them to sign a memorandum of understanding to prohibit trans and asexual Conversion Therapy, following a BACP fellow revealing that the BACP were planning not to sign the new memorandum of understanding.

Aimee Challenor
Aimee Challenor

Challenor said: “It is wonderful to see Conference support the rights of LGBTIQA+ people through passing our new policies this weekend. The Green Party has a history of pushing for LGBTIQA+ rights, and the passing of these motions helps further our support for the LGBTIQA+ community. By working together, we can improve our future.”

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