14 Nov 2023

Diversity Lens - Issue 199

Diversity Lens - Issue 133 Diversity Lens - Issue 132 Diversity Lens - Issue 131

QUICK FIRE NEWS 🧨

💊 New drug can halve breast cancer risk
🔫 Supreme Court considers whether domestic abusers can own guns
🇭🇺 Hungary museum director sacked over LGBTQ+ exhibition
💷 New £2M fund for youth Black community groups
🏳️‍⚧️ First transgender state senator elected in the south
🙌 AND first out gay state legislator in Mississippi

LET'S GET INTO IT 🤓

Homelessness a ‘lifestyle choice’ says Home Secretary 🤯

How's that?
We’re sure you’ve heard about those tweets posted by Suella Braverman last weekend, claiming that Britain’s streets are being ‘taken over by rows of tents occupied by people…as a lifestyle choice’.
Despite her confidence in her viewpoint, there’s been a lot of public backlash against her choice of words, including from comedian Joe Lycett, who has raised thousands for homelessness charity, Crisis. ‘Support is there for people who are ‘genuinely homeless’,' says Braverman. This phrasing is particularly worrying, and got us thinking - what does it mean to be ‘genuinely’ homeless? What is the criteria which we hold people to, to be deserving of help?

I’ve been learning more about the realities of homelessness recently through @Homelessvlogs on TikTok, and noticed comments doubting his experience, such as ‘If you are really homeless, how come you have a phone/are eating/have tattoos/look clean?’. Through his videos, Jimmy answers a lot of these questions honestly, and brings to light the realities of what homelessness can look like (and no, it doesn’t always mean having absolutely nothing to your name).

The housing and cost of living crises in the UK are making this a worryingly close possibility for many. We must wake up to the realities of our failed welfare system and extend our empathy to those who are struggling, and dismantle the harmful rhetoric that only those with absolutely nothing deserve support.

Donate to Crisis ❤️

Zoom meetings bad for brains 🧠 (yes really!)

Tell me more...
Researchers from Yale University did the science to back up what we all feel - back-to-back Zoom meetings are exhausting and brain-numbing.
Here's the thing - when we have normal face-to-face conversations, our neurological activity surges, AKA our brain is switched on and engaged. New evidence has found that this is not necessarily replicated for virtual interactions. "Online representations of faces" just don't do it for our brains apparently.

So what can we do?
So Zoom fatigue is real, but there are things we can do to mitigate it. We find that aimless meetings with no agenda or clear goals are the ones that take the most toll - take time to prep for the meeting (you might realise in this process that it can be an email chain instead.) To spark creativity in virtual spaces, trial out some tools such as collaborative whiteboards, or how about taking a walking meeting?

Conversion therapy ban missing from King's speech

Why is this significant?
The omission of 'conversion therapy' from the speech has obviously raised concerns, especially as the next parliamentary session is likely the last before the upcoming general election.Jayne Ozanne, who chairs the Ban Conversion Therapy Coalition, criticised the government for prioritising and appeasing fringe groups, and failing to fulfil its promise. The failure to mention the ban in the King's Speech is seen as a disappointment and an act of negligence, allowing LGBTQIA+ abuse to continue. The government has been promising a ban since 2018.

Well well well, it’s not a shock at all that LGBTQIA+ people are being used as a political football again by the government. I thought I’d exhausted my ability to be surprised/disappointed by the Tories, but yet here I am, still ever-so-slightly disappointed by the inability for the government to respect human rights that they so proudly fan-fared 5 years ago; but 5 years is forever in politics, and scapegoating refugees wasn’t enough, so they turn to the LGBTQIA+ community instead. I talked about this on our podcast with Eva Echo. There’s a lot of things to be upset about at the moment, and this is another; the only thing we can do now is donate to campaigns that we care about, use our voice and register to vote.

THIS WEEK WE'RE LOVING ✨

🏴‍☠️ The gay pirate TV show you need in your life
👻 A high school horror movie following an Indian-American teen
🎶 An exhibition on Black British music
Just, Caster Semenya 💗