28 Jun 2024
Diversity Lens - Issue 229

Have you got brat fever? Is it a femininomenon? Summer well and truly hit this week, and its soundtrack? Queer pop girlies! 💅
Chappell Roan has risen to quick fame with music that is open and unashamedly queer. Good Luck Babe, for instance, describes how queer identity can be suppressed by the pressure to conform to heterosexuality. Billie Eilish has also been dominating the charts and has been candid about exploring her sexuality with women. Then, there are the artists who are queered by their fan base. Charli XCX has been everywhere since the release of her new album Brat, and though she's straight, that hasn't stopped fans from turning her into a queer icon. And she's earned it too by demonstrating her allyship at every turn and always crediting her gay fans for her popularity, as well as making club bangers of course. It's brat summer!
QUICK FIRE NEWS 🧨
👧 Low wages push 900,000 UK children into poverty in 14 years
🤔 JK Rowling to meet with Labour about gender transition policy
🤰 Miscarrying black woman refused painkillers
🦮 Paralympian stopped from flying with guide dog post-Brexit
🪧 Junior doctors on 11th strike in pay dispute
Boom in weight loss drugs💉
The history Ozempic is the latest weight loss drug in high demand. It was originally a medication to treat type 2 diabetes, however drastic weight loss was noticed in patients. So, they re-named it Wegovy and started marketing it to people wanting to lose weight. It was approved by the FDA in June 2021 and immediately went into shortage, which meant diabetic people also struggled to access their medication.
What's happening now? In response to the booming demand, the manufacturers of Ozempic/Wegovy are investing an additional 3.2 billion in manufacturing plants. And cheaper, generic versions of the expensive jabs are on the way.
So what's the issue? People have the right to do what they want with their own body. The issue here is around the discourse these kind of weight loss drugs fuel, and the shortages caused for people who desperately need that medication for survival.
Just practically, research has shown that people on these drugs regain all the weight they lost as soon as they stop taking it, and that's while compensating with exercise and healthy eating. Like almost all weight loss measures, it is not sustainable in the long term. But more importantly, the media narrative has immediately jumped to the conclusion that this could mark the end of obesity.
Ozempic could be beneficial for individuals predisposed to serious health complications due to their weight; however, the media narrative has focused mainly on invalidating fat people's existence and promoting fatphobia. There is also a real concern of Ozempic getting into the hands of people with eating disorders and using it for harm - in fact there are many Ozempic dupes online with little research on their effects. Aubrey Gordon put it poignantly on her podcast:
"The stakes of this as a fat person are I feel like I don't belong in the world when people talk about how great it's going to be when I'm not around"
Half of disabled people feel ignored this election 🗳️
New research from disability charity Sense reports 47% of disabled people in the UK feel they are not important to political parties.
One in four disabled people are not optimistic life will improve under a new government, and a third believe their vote won’t make a difference to disabled people’s lives. When you consider that there are 16.1 million disabled people in the UK, that is a significant portion of society to be disenfranchising, yet unsurprising.
Disabled people have been repeatedly let down.
🔴 A disproportionate number of disabled people live in poverty
🔴 2/3 people who use food banks are disabled
🔴 Public services like the NHS, social care, and public transport have been underfunded
🔴 A "traumatic" disability benefit system In this election particularly, there has been a focus on pushing people back into work, likely making it even more difficult for disabled people to access financial support. The reality is that disabled people aren't avoiding work, they just aren't given the appropriate support by employers to sustain a job, or they are simply physically unable to work.
Sense is calling for provisions so that disabled people can afford the essentials, better funding in social care, equal access to education, reforming the benefits system and tackling barriers to employment.
Have you heard of ghost job ads?👻
What is that? Ghost job ads refer to vacancies you see advertised online which are never intended to be filled, and they are more common than you think. There seems to be an uptick in job ads that linger online for much longer than the standard 30 days, meaning candidates might put time and effort into applying for a non-existent role. Some of these are down to human error of not removing the ads after the position was filled, but some were never meant to be hired for at all.
But why? It could just be to collect details for an ever-expanding talent pool which employers can tap into when they need. There are also reports that it's about brand reputation - giving the impression a company is growing, or even to "placate overworked staff" hoping for additional support.
How bad is the problem? A US-based firm found that in 2023, the ratio of hires per job posting was below 0.5, meaning more than half of listings did not result in a hire. This could be down to a genuine change in company intention or failing to find the correct candidate, but ghost jobs are on the up and wasting job seekers' precious time.
Before you apply to a job we recommend: checking how long it has been on the platform, cross check against the company's website, look for a closing date on the application, and even see if they've been posting about the vacancy on social media. If still unsure, try contact the hiring manager.
THINGS WE'RE LOVING... 🥰
🏳️⚧️ Trans youth, you are loved
👨🎤 Superheroes, but make it South London
🎤 Nicola Coughlan releasing single to fund for LGBTQIA+ charities