International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (IDAHOBIT)

On 17 May, we’re marking International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia (IDAHOBIT), a day which was created in 2004 to draw attention to the violence and discrimination experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex people, and all of those with diverse identities and expressions.

Jake Edwards, co-chair for CLCH’s LGBTQ+ Network, sat down with Cathy Walker, Chief Operating Officer and the networks executive sponsor, to talk about IDAHOBIT.

When talking about the future of CLCH, Cathy said: “There has to always be more that we can do. We have done a lot of work around pronouns in the organisation. I kind of feel we're at the stage where we need to again, encourage and reinforce that. I just think we need to talk about this more.

“We need to make sure that all colleagues feel valued and included in the way we do things at CLCH, because everybody is so important.

“We don't tolerate discrimination of any form across CLCH and it is incredibly sad if that happens. I would really encourage people to speak to somebody. Sometimes that can be really daunting, but we have a number of channels, including our Freedom to Speak Up guardians, who are available to speak to people confidentially about that.”

At CLCH, we’re proud of our Freedom to Speak Up team, as well as our staff networks and all they do to contribute towards this being a great place to work.