Are you gay?

I’m currently carrying out a small research project funded by the British Academy on the experience of homelessness among young people who identify as LGBT+, and people who identify as LGBT+ and live in the most deprived neighbourhoods in Scotland. You can read more about the project here, and it emerged from the research I blogged about here and set out the agenda for my current research, challenging narrative of gentrification, here.

We have employed a research assistant to interview people who identify as LGBT+ and I am interviewing people who work with housing associations, local authorities and homelessness organisations. All these organisations, and people, have been amazingly committed to advancing equality and really wanted to learn from my research, as well as providing some excellent examples of good practice.

A few of these organisations have been very open in admitting they don’t routinely collect data on the sexual or gender identity of people, beyond the simple male/female monitoring. They’ve also said it is something they were going to start doing soon. One participant suggested that they didn't do this recording historically because in Scotland (and I’d add, probably the whole UK) this was probably because people feel awkward about asking about sexuality, and being asked about it.

Now, what I’m about to explain I’m sure millions of people have argued (indeed the wonderful folk at LGBT Youth Scotland who are helping me with this research point this out) and I’d welcome academic references to this point, but…I dwelt on this for a while and it’s really fucking heteronormative to not routinely ask service users about their sexual orientation because of a feeling of discomfort.

Because, you see, the 95% of you reading this who identify as heterosexual never have to explain your sexual identity because everyone presumes you are straight. You feel awkward being asked about who you have a sexual relationship with because you have never had to justify it. Every time I, or anyone else who identifies as LGB, has to answer that question we are coming out to a stranger. We don’t know how you would react. Actually, it usually makes me feel more comfortable. Yet organisations choose not to ask this question for fear of making people feel uncomfortable, or insulting people; straight people who really don’t have to worry about this at all.

Why does this matter? Before I get to that, it’s important to note that it is very difficult to ask a good question about what someone’s sexual identity is. Technically, in a survey, you should ask three questions: what sexual identity someone identifies with; who they usually form romantic relationships with; and who they have sex with. In the UK the NATSAL is the only survey that manages to do that. However, the social scientists at the Scottish Government and Office for National Statistics found that something along the lines of “How would you describe your sexual identity” with the choices “Gay/Lesbian”, “Bisexual”, “Straight/heterosexual” and “Prefer not to answer” does a good enough job. The same applies around asking people about their gender identity, or what pronouns they prefer. And, as Katherine Brown argues in this book chapter, despite the fact such survey questions impose identities on people, it’s better to know something about this population than nothing.

And this is why it matters. This is why people need to get over their straight, heteronormative cringe with asking people about their sexuality and sexual identity because then you can do something about it. To give a housing example, a tenant might report anti-social behaviour and abuse. This might be a homophobic or transphobic hate crime. As a body, you have a duty under the Equality Act (2010) to prevent harassment and discrimination, so your staff should be trained to help tenants report a hate crime. If you had never asked your tenants if they were LGBT+ identifying then your tenants might not feel comfortable in explaining that it was a homophobic or transphobic hate crime. On a more mundane level, partners who live in a socially-rented home in Scotland can be added onto tenancies so they have succession rights. It wouldn’t surprise me if many LGB identifying tenants might not think this would apply to their partners. Again, asking tenants their sexual and gender identity when they move in would make them feel comfortable – they would know you wanted to know – and so they would be happier to add new partners to tenancies.

So, are you gay? A simple question, but one we’re still not asking enough. 

Debunking “the pink pound” – LGBT poverty and place in Scotland

I did a research project recently with our fantastic Research Associate Kirsten Besemer (pictured). One of our finding was so interesting I've invited Kirsten to write this entry - my first "guest blog"! Do get in touch if you want to write something for me.

Over to Kirsten...

Arguably the most pervasive myth about the wellbeing of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people in the UK is that of the “pink pound”, the idea that LGBT people are prosperous, with an extensive disposable income which allows them to afford an abundant range of luxuries. According to this stereotype, LGBT people are childless and somewhat self-centred, with no dependents inhibiting them from spending their ample salaries on a lavish lifestyle. The “pink pound” myth may have its origins in a longstanding association between gay men and high-end fashion, and has certainly been perpetuated by stereotypes in popular media.

Further, in terms of planning and land-use, as LGBT people were often excluded from mortgage markets, they were also one of the groups commonly identified as “urban pioneers” in processes of gentrification – upgrading cheap properties they could afford and investing their sweat equity to improve the neighbourhood. This picture of a cool, hip, young couple living in a fancy loft conversion is all too common in the media. Non-mainstream sexuality is not commonly associated with poverty or economic disadvantage.

Yet there are a number of reasons to suppose that LGBT people are probably more likely to be in poverty than heterosexual people.  Firstly, employment discrimination against LGBT people has only recently become explicitly unlawful in the United Kingdom. It was only after European Union legislation came into force at the end of 2003 that discrimination in the work place on the basis of sexual orientation became officially recognised as against the law. Although there has been fairly little research in this area, there is some empirical evidence that homosexual men continue to earn less than heterosexual men with similar characteristics.

Lack of access to marriage may be another contributory factor linking poverty and sexuality. Until 2004, there was no way for same-sex couples to form a legally-recognised union in the UK. Although the 2004 Civil Partnership Act created a form of union which is very similar to marriage, civil partnerships are not fully identical to marriage in terms of their legal protections and responsibilities. Successive Governments have gradually removed some of these legal differences, for example by extending domestic violence legislation to all couples, by calculating benefits according to household occupation rather than married status and by extending occupation rights to partners and parental responsibilities to all categories of persons.  As these changes have all occurred within the last ten years, particularly older LGBT couples may have experienced a long periods of considerable economic disadvantage resulting from their barriers to marital union. These advantages include, among others, easier access to a mortgage, and various tax advantages including exemption from capital gains tax and inheritance tax in the event of the death of a spouse.

Furthermore, family conflicts and estrangements over coming-out may have considerable economic implications. At the extreme end, LBGT people may experience a sudden need for independent accommodation resulting from severe family conflict over their ‘coming out’. On a more subtle level, they may simply receive less or no family support in times of financial difficulty (See also this pdf working paper).

For all of these reasons, we would expect to see an association between poverty and not identifying as heterosexual. In this light, it is interesting to note an incidental finding from a study recently conducted where we analysed the representation of a number of equalities groups in the 15% most deprived areas in Scotland. From our analysis it emerged that people who identified as heterosexual were significantly less likely to live in the most deprived areas than people with other sexual orientations (p<0.05).  The table below shows just how striking this difference is. If populations are distributed evenly then there should be 15% of that particular group in the most deprived 15% of neighbourhoods in Scotland. As we can see, only 13% of all people who declared themselves heterosexual live in the most deprived neighbourhoods, whereas 17% of those who declared themselves lesbian, gay, bisexual or “other” do so. Quite a finding.

An interesting observation was that of those who refused to answer the question about their sexuality (which was asked as self-completion and therefore anonymous even from the interviewer), were as likely to live in deprived areas as the people who had indicated they were lesbian, gay, bisexual or “other” (LBGO).  Although inferences should be made only hesitantly, it may be that this population is more likely to belong to the LBGO group than to the heterosexual.

Further analysis also showed that people who did not identify as heterosexual were much less likely to live in owner-occupied accommodation, and were overrepresented in the social and private rental sector. This difference might be indicative of earlier-mentioned barriers to access to mortgages.

In terms of the debates around urban regeneration and deprived neighbourhoods this is a really interesting finding. Firstly, we know of no area-based regeneration policies that have specifically focused on sexual orientation as something that might lead to concentrated deprivation. Further, Scotland’s deprived neighbourhoods are not blocks of tenements awaiting gentrification. They are predominantly peripheral social housing estates around our major cities. These are not capable gentrifiers, but people who find themselves in a neighbourhood of concentrated poverty.

Low sample sizes make the LBGT population difficult to study statistically.  However, it may be possible, for example by using merged years of large statistical datasets, to look more closely at possible correlations between sexuality and poverty, and gain a better understanding of why people with non-mainstream sexualities are overrepresented in Scotland’s poorest areas.

Coming out in the classroom

So, before I leave work and head home to finish my marking, I thought I'd make time to say what happened today.

In the Social Sustainability course I'm teaching I introduce dimensions of equality, specifically gender, ethnicity and race, disability and sexuality. My students had to choose one of these four topics and from this they had to read a journal article and comment on it in a class seminar, write a mini-essay and more substantively write-out an Equalities Impact Assessment based on this dimension of equality. Students could sign-up but spaces under the four categories were limited and sing-up was on a first-come-first served basis.

So, students started to sign-up. But no one signed-up for sexuality. I apologetically appealed to the class to sign up for the topic as the article was actually really interesting (it is, by the way). I persuaded two students. But it seemed from the actions of other students that they were actively avoiding choosing the topic. This all came to a head last Thursday when I had to forcibly put some students in this particular topic group.

On reflection over the weekend the whole thing seemed a bit of a stupid pickle. But I was hurt by the actions of the class. And I realised my apologetic attitude belied a continued discomfort myself in being honest and open about my sexuality (particularly in front of a very international and diverse audience). So, I started this morning's class by coming out as a gay man to my students and explaining how much their behaviour had hurt me and I did perceive it as homophobic. I was absolutely terrified and almost in tears. They were flippin' fantastic about it.

And also, I got one final, very good reflection, from a student. I ended up emphasising to them that there probably are not gender or sexuality issues for them to consider when doing their Equalities Impact Assessment, but I want them to demonstrate why there are not. If I had made this clearer in the first place then they would have felt less of a need to choose a dimension of equality they empathised directly with and would have welcomed the challenge of another topic.