Thousands of LGBTI people, friends and allies will attend Pride Glasgow, Scotland’s largest parade and celebration. Pride Glasgow’s this year’s theme is inclusive education asking the government to commit to teaching diversity and tackling homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in Scottish schools. This year’s Pride Glasgow is expected to be the biggest ever with potentially over ten thousand people braving the ...
Read More »Tag Archives: Justine Smithies
NHS Is a Life Saving Treatment – not ‘Whims’ of trans people
Speaking on her LBC Radio show yesterday Katie Hopkins has yet again hit out at the transgender community saying NHS treatment panders to transgender peoples’ “whims” After revealing that people are waiting extended times for their cataract operations and the NHS is in debt, Hopkins asked: “Do we really need to pander to the trans community and their whims? I say ...
Read More »Why Transgender Day of Visibility is so important
Today (March 31st) is Transgender Day of Visibility (TDoV), a day when transgender people like myself make ourselves openly visible on social media and elsewhere to stand up as role models and show the world that we are proud of who we are. It’s also a day to show simply that it is OK to be transgender. We also highlight ...
Read More »David Bowie (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016)
In 1983, “Karma Chameleon” spent six weeks at the top of the British charts, becoming a world wide hit. The following year, it was voted Best British Single at the Brit Awards. The band, Culture Club, and its leader, Boy George, would probably not have existed without the influence of David Bowie. The song’s title could easily have been a ...
Read More »That was the year that was
2015 will shortly be at an end…and what a year it was! It was a year that started with hope and optimism – in no small way due to the coming into force of same-sex marriage legislation on 31st December 2014. Several couples took advantage of the new law to tie the knot shortly after midnight on New ...
Read More »Stonewall: less than half of LGB staff comfortable being “out” at work
Stonewall, the LGBT charity, held its Workplace Conference today at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. With over 200 delegates attending, this is the largest Stonewall conference held in Scotland to date. The conference has brought together senior leaders, HR and diversity professionals, LGBT staff and allies from a large cross-sector of organisations to share the latest innovative thinking. Keynote ...
Read More »Why is the UK government still failing trans folk with regards to gender identity ?
It’s 2015 and being trans myself I have just about finished my journey to become who I really am, Justine Melanie Smithies, Wife & Mother of three children and Grandmother of two. I have done everything by the rules according to our government and in return they have helped me change my UK driving licence from Justin Mark to Justine Melanie and even ...
Read More »Justine’s Coming Out Story
From the very beginning of my life I knew there was something wrong, and coming out of that feeling, being true to myself was a long journey. This feeling there was something wrong I wasn’t sure of until around the age of eleven. I could never relate to people of the gender of which my body developed and I really hated myself. If ...
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