A note from our LGBTQIA+ Champion

Happy Pride Month everyone. I’m Sid and I’m SARSAS’ LGBTQIA+ Champion!

The LGBTQIA+ Champion role is new to SARSAS and was created to ensure that SARSAS LGBTQIA+ employees, volunteers and clients feel safe and supported.

It involves lots of different things: sharing information and LGBTQIA+ related resources, arranging our stalls at Pride events and working with our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion team to ensure that our services and communications are inclusive.

As a trans non-binary bisexual queer person, I have a strong understanding of how being LGBTQIA+ intersects with experiencing sexual violence, as well as a big interest in learning together about LGBTQIA+ issues.
There is no ‘one way’ that sexual violence happens, or that survivors feel trauma: this is true for everyone, but especially important to remember for LGBTQIA+ survivors, whose experiences often don’t fit common narratives around sexual violence.

Our experiences of violence are affected by many things: trans/homophobia, our relationships with our families/community/society, and fear of ignorance or difficulties in accessing support services.

I started at SARSAS in February as a facilitator for SARSAS’ first Trans, Non-Binary and Intersex Peer Support Group. During this time, I’ve been so inspired by the work of everyone at SARSAS and how caring, respectful, and understanding everyone is!

I’m looking forward to developing the LGBTQIA+ role at SARSAS over the coming months!

Get in touch if you have any ideas.