How thinking differently about Pride is helping us do more to beat blood cancer
When we think about Pride today, often the first things that spring to mind are colourful marches, rainbow flags… a celebration of diversity. But is that what Pride should be about?
As a charity we’ve been discussing what Pride means to us. We’ve learned how Pride began when a community took a stand against prejudice, ignorance and violence. And we’re aware of the push to recapture the original spirit of Pride – rooted in struggle and protest.
In the past we’ve been proud to celebrate
In the past we’ve been proud to celebrate LGBTQ+ voices from the blood cancer community. Scott spoke about honest communication about his sexuality when diagnosed with blood cancer, and Stewart told us how they built their support network.
We’ve celebrated moments like when men who have sex with men who were previously barred from giving blood because of their sexuality – finally won the right to donate. This helped end an injustice and was great news for the blood cancer community, as 20% of all transfused red blood cells are given to people with blood cancer as part of their treatment.
“The first Pride was a riot”
This phrase is often repeated – and if we look at Pride through this lens, it’s easy for us as a blood cancer charity to recognise that many in our community have had to fight harder to get the cancer care they need because of their sexuality or gender identity.
Whether that’s because they’ve faced assumptions about their lifestyle through cancer care, they’ve been given health information that isn’t tailored to their identity, or because they don’t yet see people like themselves represented in the services that charities like us provide – we’re glad Pride has given us an opportunity to focus on the ongoing struggle, as well as the celebration.
But we still have a long way to go to fight for LGBTQ+ people in the way we want
Last year we carried out the first survey of our community to try and find out who we were reaching successfully and who we were struggling to reach. That survey showed that 0.8% of our community identify as gay men (against 1.3% of the population in the 2020 ONS survey), 0.3% as gay women/lesbians (against 0.6% of the population) and 0.9% as bisexual (against 1.3% of the population).
We want everyone with a blood cancer diagnosis to feel able to trust us and use our services, and this research shows we still have much more work to do to get there.
Last year we also received some feedback from people who felt we hadn’t done enough to mark Pride month. It’s important that we respond to this by pledging to do better in future, so that all LGBTQ+ people with blood cancer know that our charity is here to support them and that their cause is our cause.
So this Pride, we’ll be listening and learning so we can better advocate for the LGBTQ+ blood cancer community
There are some great organisations out there who are already supporting LGBTQ+ people through their cancer diagnosis and treatment. We’ll be listening to and supporting charities such as our friends at Live Through This.
Internally, our staff will be marking Pride month by sharing their personal reflections and also starting a conversation as to how our charity can do better for LGBTQ+ people.
And we'll be sharing other content throughout the month, and asking our audience what they’d like to see from us.
Because we won’t deliver our mission unless we can stand up for all people affected by blood cancer
At the heart of a strategy is a commitment to focus our efforts on activities that will accelerate us towards the day we beat blood cancer.
We know that minority communities like LGBTQ+ people face specific challenges that others don’t, and we won’t beat blood cancer for everyone until we do more to stand up for these communities.
We may not yet be where we want to be, but in the spirit of Pride: we will fight until we get there.
We're making a difference to people's lives
Our research is helping those living with a blood cancer across the UK