Allyship of LGBT+ people

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Written By The Positive Birth Company

As LGBT+ issues rightfully receive more and more attention, we asked our friend AJ from The Queer birth Club to talk to us about what we can do to show allyship to their community. What exactly is allyship and how can one be a meaningful ally? Here is what AJ has to say to help us.

To be an ally of the LGBT+ community, you do not have to know all the dates and stats off the top of your head. You do not need to justify or convince anyone that LGBT+ people exist and deserve rights, inclusion, visibility, and love. That is fact. If you are ever stuck for what to say when faced with an attack on LGBT+ folk, you could say a simple: “Something about this concerns me. I believe LGBT+ people deserve inclusion, love, support and visibility”

Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly this isn’t a cheat sheet how not to fuck up. Those who know me and know my work know that I will never be that skin deep in a topic so important as allyship.

Allyship can be loud, silent, visible, invisible, scary, empowering and everything in between. There is never one way to ally.

Allyship isn’t always caps locked twitter brawls.

A lot of folks who I speak to are concerned about getting into the “debate” on social media. The debate usually being do LGBT+ folk deserve humans rights. Social media can be a huge tool for LGBT+ folk and allies alike but arguing that we deserve humans’ rights isn’t one of those tools. LGBT+ folk have existed as long as folk have existed. From the bisexual King Mwanga of Uganda in the 1800’s¹, homosexuality in ancient Greece, to two spirit native folk in north America. We’ve been here a while, honey.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor- Desmond Tutu

Saying nothing when LGBT+ rights, folk and inclusion is under attack give those with bigoted views permission and agreement.

The first laws against homosexuality (as most laws are based on the almighty penis and LGBT+ rights are no different) in the UK came in 1533. The Buggery Act of 1533 to be precise².  The Buggery Act stood until the Sexual Offenses act was updated in 1967³ to make legal sex between two consenting men over the age of 21. Trans folk got legal recognition in the UK shortly into the new millennium (2004, GRA⁴). Non-Binary folks are still waiting here in the UK. Third gender markers have been available since 2003 in Australia. (India, Australia, some states in the USA, Nepal and more also have X gender markers available). Indeed, the World Health Organisation still considered same sex attraction to be a mental disorder until 1990⁵.

Now, these facts are not only to serve as a short sharp shock to the system. They are here to frame where we are within the history of LGBT+ rights. From the black and brown, sex worker, trans women who threw the first bricks at The Stonewall Riots in June of 1969, we get our Pride Month. In the UK, we have a real knack for pretending anything “bad” that we, or our ancestors did, to be a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. 

Within my lifetime, alone (b. 1988) it’s been illegal to; talk about LGBT+ people in school⁶, same sex folks to be married⁷, same sex couples to adopt or foster⁸, we had a higher age of consent for sex⁹. I was born marginally before the world health organisation thought I had a mental disorder for fancying Sporty Spice. Didn’t we all? A bit? 

We can use these dates and stats to frame how far we have come in just a few decades. This may seem like a victory. We can now apply for recognition where we couldn’t before. We’re able to marry, and we are protected by the equality act of 2010. However, we can also view this that although these rights are won, how true equality is still so far away.


We are nothing if but a product of our elders and the society we are raised in. Our elders likely were alive in a time where homosexual acts were illegal. Where whether we should be allowed to adopt or foster children was debated in parliament and alike. How can we just a few years after these debates already be caught up as a society? Consider the sexual offenses act of 1967. It made legal 2 consenting men, over the age of 21 to have sex in private. How often have we heard and still hear “whatever two consenting adults get up to, behind closed doors, is up to them!” regarding LGBT+ folk and their love being visible in public¹⁰. That might be why nearly 60% of LGBT+ folks don’t feel safe holding hands in public huh? If we are still expecting LGBT+ couples to behave in accordance with the sexual offenses act of 1967, some 54 years ago, how can we expect more recent changes in legislation or law to have changed the societal view of LGBT+ folk?

What came first, changes in law, or changes of society?

You may be wondering when this turned into an LGBT+ history summary rather than a how to be an LGBT+ ally piece. We must know where we’ve come from to know where we are going. Knowing that LGBT+ folk walk through the world differently to cisgender heterosexual folk is allyship 101. Knowing how recently we have had our rights won. Knowing how recently we had our rights denied (GRA reform 2018¹¹ anyone?). Knowing the history is the first step en route to allyship. Believing folk when they tell you who they are. Without question or gatekeeping comes in at a close second. 

Take Pride Month as an example. Celebrate and uplift the voices of LGBT+ Folk. Resist the urge to photoshop your logo with a rainbow. Avoid tokenistic inclusion of queer folk purely because it’s pride month. Don’t speak over, don’t question, don’t come to ask expecting free labour. In pride month you can make a start your journey to allyship.

Buy some books.

Do some courses / workshops.

Download some podcasts.

You can share the works and interact with LGBT+ social accounts if you are not able to purchase or donate money. 

Pride month is for LGBT+ folk. Not for cishet folk to prove to us how inclusive they are.

Going to pride and dancing to “I’m every woman” with a drag queen does not an ally make. Allyship is active, not passive. 

Pride month is the perfect time to examine your intersectionality. We owe pride, in majority, to black and brown trans women sex workers. Act like it.

The Positive Birth Company
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