An Open Letter to the LGBT+ Community

I went to see Pride last week. Yeah, I know it was released a month earlier but my dad was in hospital at the time so I was mostly just seeing the A12 as I drove up and down it.

It was a period of British history that I know very little about: I was only 5 in 1984. I heard mumblings about miners; but what 5 year old actually pays attention to the news? And it was certainly a long, long, time before I realised I was gay.

I went to see the film after 3 nights of no sleep because of a shoulder injury. Due to the sleep deprivation I was just a tad over-emotional. I spent the whole film alternating between laughing and crying, and was in floods of happy tears at the end. The second the house lights came up I had to make a dash for the nearest toilet to hide until my red splotchy face looked less red and splotchy.

The miners were probably the hardest hit during that particular 4 year term of office. And it was deeply heartening to hear a story about another oppressed group the government loathed - the LGBT community - coming to the support of others in solidarity just because it was the right thing to do.

But after the film I couldn't shake the thought "where are the LGBT community now while disabled people are being kicked even harder than the miners were then?"

The Centre for Welfare Reform calculated that severely disabled people will be hit 19 times harder by the cuts than other people. So many cuts that even I probably can't remember to list them all. But here are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head:

• The creation of Personal Independence Payment to replace Disability Living Allowance. The intention was to reduce the budget by 20% by making the criteria stricter. DLA is only paid to meet care needs and mobility needs. It's to be spent on things like wheelchairs and having someone help you out of bed in the morning. Not exactly luxuries that a disabled person can cut back on. Did you know that now if you can walk a mere 21 metres you probably won't get that help to put towards buying a wheelchair? With the DWP and the private firms hired to carry out the medical assessments unable to organise a proverbial in a brewery; people are waiting for up to a year for their application to be processed and there are 145,000 people waiting for support they need to function.
• Employment and Support Allowance is the benefit for people too ill or impaired to work. There are 394,000 people waiting to have their application for that processed. 394,000 waiting to put food on the table. Such an appalling system that we regularly read about people who were so ill that they died of their condition while allegedly "fit for work". Larry Newman and Cecilia Burns are just 2 of those people. The company doing the fitness for work assessments got it so wrong so often that 40% of appeals against their decisions were successful.
• Two thirds of households affected by the bedroom tax contain a disabled person.
• In most parts of the country; working age benefit claimants have had their Council Tax Benefit cut by 10%.
• At the moment there's something called the Severe Disability Premium. It's not a benefit in its own right; it's a top-up premium on top of ESA/Income Support. The clue as to who is eligible is in the name: Severely disabled people. The eligibility criteria are so complex that only 230,000 people in the whole country are eligible. Under Universal Credit; the SDP is being abolished completely. Not made a bit stricter: Abolished.
• The Independent Living Fund, which allows 18,000 disabled people with the highest care needs to live in the community, is being closed next year.
• Social care is being cut to the point that continent people are being told to use incontinence pads because they're no longer allowed help to go to the toilet. Once I caught the local news while at my dad's house. A representative of Norfolk Council actually went on TV and said "we're cutting things like adult social care in order to preserve popular services like libraries." Disabled people are so loathed that council officials can go on TV and say that with their head held high.
• We're all aware how this government made it more expensive to get an education. Did you know that Disabled Students' Allowance, which pays for things like Deaf students to have a BSL interpreter, is being cut? They recently announced these cuts are being postponed. Not cancelled, just postponed.
• Access to Work, a scheme which funds support to allow disabled people to function in the workplace, has been utterly screwed up. Jess and Julie have both written recently about how these cuts are jeopardising their jobs. They are far from alone.

And these are only the cuts so far. Recently we've heard how the Tories want to cut housing benefit for 18-21 year olds, freeze working age benefits (which will affect disability benefits, despite Osborne's claim at the Tory conference), and pay benefits by cards instead of cash. Then IDS wants to charge income tax on support to pay for wheelchairs and for someone to wipe your butt, despite the fact that many disabled people don't see penny of it because it's immediately deducted to pay for support services. And, of course, Freud let it slip that he wants to be able to pay disabled people only £2 an hour.

Do you remember last Wednesday? It was a great day. For one day the entire country cared about how this government wanted to undermine disabled people's right to the same minimum wage as everybody else. He was the top story for most news outlets, he trended on Twitter all day: And for just one day it felt like the entire nation cared about our equal rights.

Then everyone went to bed that night and by the following morning most people had forgotten about us again. This week disabled people have been in court again fighting the Independent Living Fund closure. Where was the outrage this week that the government want to withdraw the funding that pays for severely disabled people to have food put in their mouths and their butts lifted onto the toilet?

I kind of get it. I mean, in 1984 LGBT people were really oppressed. Relationships weren't legally recognised, the age of consent for gay men was 5 years older than for heterosexuals. AIDS was misunderstood, treatments hadn't been developed, and it was far more stigmatised than it is today. There were no anti-discrimination laws protecting us from being fired for being LGBT or protecting us from being discriminated against by B&B owners when we just want a break for a couple of days.

Now we can get married, the age of consent is equal, HIV is a controllable chronic condition. We do have the legal right to sue our employer if they fire us for coming out at work and we can sue B&B owners who refuse us a room.

In 1984 LGBTs could look at miners and see people who were equally oppressed. The same can't be said of LGBTs looking at disabled people today. Except for those of us who are both LGBT and disabled; most LGBTs have the freedom to have a proper meal every day. The same can't be said for disabled people who are physically unable to cook, can't get social care for someone to help them with that, and so end up eating mostly just crisps. Most LGBTs can have a shower every day. The same can't be said of disabled people who were forced out of their accessible home by the bedroom tax, no longer have an accessible shower, and can only get clean by wiping themselves down with a flannel.

You have to remember that the LGBT community and the disabled community have so much in common in so many ways. We both still experience discrimination, even though it's illegal and we have the law on our side. It's a fight we both face. Hate crime affects LGBT people just like it affects disabled people. Some people are even attacked for being both disabled and LGBT. Both disabled people and LGBT people are massively unpopular with the senior party in the coalition: Not only are the Tories stripping away all the support systems that allowed for the equality of disabled people, but more Tories voted against equal marriage than for it. The law only went through because of supporters in the other parties.

The main difference between the 2 communities I belong to, of course, is society's response. When lesbians were thrown out of Sainsbury's, protesters quickly responded. A few days later a blind woman was kicked out of Tesco. Protesters were nowhere to be seen. Disabled people are more likely to be mocked for going shopping than supported if we get discriminated against in store.

In Pride we see Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) helping to fund and distribute food parcels to the striking miners. Where were the food parcels for David Clapson or Mark Wood? I don't mean to suggest that the LGBT community is in any way responsible for such tragedies for not being more supportive: But the handing out of the food parcels had such a resonance with the issues of today.

The film depicts LGSM getting to work before consulting miners about what it is they actually need. If LGBTs started supporting disabled people (LGBTSDP?); I'd beg of you to ask us how you can help. Disabled people's lives have historically been dominated by non-disabled people thinking they know what's best for us. There's a common saying in the disabled community "nothing about us without us," and that applies as much now as ever. A couple of years ago UK Uncut organised a protest specifically about disability benefit cuts. But because they didn't consult with disabled people for the meet-up arrangements: They chose to meet at a tube station that has no access for mobility impaired people.

Disabled people have loads of ideas for creative ways of challenging the cuts; but we need help to pull them off. We've written films about the ILF closure that we can't find anyone to produce. We organise protests and sometimes only 10 people turn up. There are far more LGBT people with social influence than disabled people. When there's a story like this week's court case we need the help of people with prominence to amplify our message because our collective voice amounts to a mere whisper; where potential LGBT allies have the power to really shout about it. Bronski Beat supported the miners; who is going to support us?

Another very common saying in the disability community is "rights not charity". In Pride LGSM start out their work with the collecting buckets to raise money. At the moment the disabled community is in a paradoxical position: We need to raise money in order to fight for the rights which are being stripped away. Paypal is the 21st century collecting tin and Disabled People Against Cuts are currently asking people to donate 50p to carry on their excellent campaigning.

Pride was a beautifully told story of the LGBT community rushing to the support of those who really needed it. I can't wait for it to come out on DVD so I can watch it again. But ever since seeing it I haven't been able to shake the slight feeling of sadness. There have been so many wonderful changes in the last 30 years that have benefited both communities I belong to. As a disabled person I first had the Disability Discrimination Act, which then became subsumed by the Equality Act. As a gay person I also have protection under the Equality Act. I can even get married now!

But the passion LGSM had for supporting people whose lives were being utterly destroyed by the government: The film just made me acutely aware that disabled people doesn't have that same support. And as someone with a foot in each community, that awareness is slightly frying my brain.

So, LGBT community. Please help us. Our equality, our independence, our jobs, our education, and even our lives depend on winning this fight.

Not Worth It

You'd have to be away from all means of communication today to have not noticed that Lord Freud thinks that disabled people "aren't worth" the minimum wage. Surprisingly even the mainstream media are outraged; BBC News are leading with it.

I'm not going to go into depth about everything wrong with his initial remarks because it's already been covered extensively. If you're looking for comment pieces on his original remarks, I recommend this from Frances Ryan, or this from Richard Exell.

The only things I have to add on the subject of his initial statement are these:

1. He's not the first Tory to say this during this term of government. Philip Davies said the same thing in 2011. Then there is Cllr David Scott who raised the idea of us being not "worth" it with Freud. It's starting to seem like a common thought in the Conservative party.
2. Disabled people make more reliable employees than non-disabled people. A report by DePaul University in the US found that disabled people stay with an employer for longer, take less time off, and are "loyal, reliable, and hardworking.". That doesn't sound to me like people who are "not worth" even the minimum wage, does it?
3. Disabled people currently in work are having their ability to do their job screwed about with by the hideous mess this coalition have made of Access to Work. Read Julie's and Jess's accounts. These are people worth more than the minimum wage, having their capability undermined by an incompetent government.
4. Over 50,000 disabled people in work may be forced to quit their job by DLA cuts. Again, people who are perfectly good at their jobs being prevented from functioning by a government that aren't good at their jobs.

What interests me more is Freud's piss-take of an apology. He said:

I care passionately about disabled people. I am proud to have played a full part in a government that is fully committed to helping disabled people overcome the many barriers they face in finding employment. That is why through Universal Credit – which I referred to in my response – we have increased overall spending on disabled households by £250m, offered the most generous work allowance ever, and increased the disability addition to £360 per month.

From Spectator Coffeehouse.

We all know that he doesn't give a toss about disabled people. Increased spending on disabled households? Tell that to the 394,000 people waiting for their ESA claim to be processed so they can put food on the table. Or the 145,000 people waiting for their PIP claim to be processed so they can afford to pay for a wheelchair or for someone to get them out of bed in the morning. Or the bedroom tax victims: Three quarters of whom have a disabled person in the family. Or the people who currently get DLA because they're only capable of walking less than 50 metres, but will lose it under PIP because they can walk more than 20 metres. Or all the terminally ill people who've been deemed "fit for work" like Larry Newman or Cecilia Burns.

And as for Universal Credit increasing spending on disabled households: They're abolishing the Severe Disability Premium under UC. Not replacing it with something a bit stricter - like the move from DLA to PIP - they're just abolishing it. The country's 230,000 most severely disabled people will be significantly worse off under Universal Credit.

While it's great that the mainstream media are - for a change - coming to disabled people's defence over Freud's original remarks: Why are they accepting his apology without delving into the outright lies it contains?

Edit 16/10/14: Yet another Tory thinks the minimum wage is "A barrier to work". She too presumably was complicit in the DLA cuts which will force disabled people to quit work (the Tories were whipped to vote for cuts.)

Anyone who denies that the minimum wage is a barrier to employment for the less able is living in cloud cuckoo land.

— Jackie Doyle-Price (@JackieDP) October 16, 2014

Even Mr Money Saving Expert himself thinks disabled people should be exempt from the minimum wage:

Just read what Lord Freud actually said and mostly agree. We need Labour market flexibility to help the v few whose disability means (contd)

— Martin Lewis (@MartinSLewis) October 16, 2014

... they won't get work at minimum wage. Some with severe mental capacity problems will never gain work on level playing field. Helps needed

— Martin Lewis (@MartinSLewis) October 16, 2014

Remember yesterday when people thought disabled people were worth it? What a great day. Shame it's "shit on those disableds" business as usual again today.

Overheard in the Waiting Room

This morning, I took a pair of gruesomely infected toes to the doctor's. During the long wait, I politely eavesdropped on a conversation between three friends who had bumped into each other (that is, they had met by accident; they weren't seeking medical help having violently collided). I would guess that they were around retirement age, or maybe a little younger, two women and a man; ordinary folks. They competed as to whose winter coat had lasted longest, discussed Strictly Come Dancing and expressed some nostalgia for The News of the World before it went trashy.

Then they had a conversation, which went something like this:

A: Of course, all these cuts have just come in, haven't they? A lot of people are going to be struggling.
B: Oh yes. It's not fair that the poorest people should have to pay when it's the bankers who got us into this mess.
C: I know. It's only going to cause the country trouble in the long run, making people so badly off.
A: But there are some people swinging the lead.
B: That's for sure. You hear a lot about disability fraud.
C: Yeah and everybody knows somebody, don't they? Someone who's working the system.
A: But there's a lot of propaganda about that, I think.
B: Of course, the government want you to think they're all the same.
C: You can't believe anything you hear, that's for sure - especially not from this lot!

It went round like this, several times, sometimes with specific anecdotes or particular stories they had seen on the television and in newspapers. At one point, there was a very nuanced discussion of workfare (although they didn't use that term), which talked about the difficulties someone might have if they had depression, would benefit from work and might sign up for one of these schemes, only to get in trouble when they struggled to get out of bed in the morning and were late for their placement. Because people with depression can have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, however hard working and enthusiastic they are.

But time and again the same sentiments were repeated:

1. Some people are on the scrounge for sure. 
2. Some people are really suffering.
3. You can't believe anything your hear.

This disbelief was extended across the board. At one point the conversation shifted from a discussion of just how difficult it was going to be for some people - just how little money people would be left to live on - to the "scare-mongering" about how difficult it was all going to be.

And this is the trouble we have; the position that ordinarily apolitical people who are not directly affected by the cuts have been placed in. They don't trust what they hear - least of all from politicians. They care about the fact that people are being left with little to live on, and the removal of crisis safety-nets like the Social Fund and Legal Aid for civil cases. But, weighing the balance of everything they've been told, they feel that there's a fair amount of cheating going on and that needs to be stopped.

Most people I speak to, outside of disabled, poor or otherwise politically active types, feel the same. They support Welfare Reform in principle (and why not? Few people feel there's no room for improvement), they are anxious about how this effects vulnerable people in practice (People like you). But they don't know what the answers are and they feel that everyone who has a voice in the public sphere is probably lying to them.

I don't know what the answers are, but I wonder if this conversation is about to change. Although there's more to come, a lot of the cuts which came into place on Monday have been a long time coming, and the real life consequences have been - while reasonably speculated about - as yet uncertain. Now it's happening. The poorest people are poorer than they've been for many years. There are many more of them.

And maybe there's some optimism to be taken from the fact that people are confused. A few years ago, when the scrounger rhetoric had just got underway, I think the friends' conversation would be less balanced. The deserving poor would have been spoken about as rare exceptions, as opposed to "many".

See Also: John Harris: We have to talk about why some people agree with benefit cuts.