Overview
How can the Scottish Parliament act to improve LGBTQIA+ people's lives? What do the candidates have to say about your policy priorities for the coming 5 years?
Our organisations - Equality Network, Scottish Trans, LEAP Sports, LGBT Health & Wellbeing, and LGBT Youth Scotland - are hosting a hustings for the upcoming Scottish Parliament election focusing on the needs and priorities of our LGBTQIA+ communities.
Making your voice heard
Our hustings will be chaired by Professor Kezia Dugdale, Associate Director of the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow.
This will be your chance to ask questions of your potential future representatives and hear what they have to say about making our lives better. It will also be your opportunity to hold them to account, to demonstrate that LGBTQIA+ people are politically engaged, and that our voices and votes matter.
Registered participants will be given the opportunity to submit a question, with the deadline being 7 April. Having the questions pre-submitted will allow us to ensure a range of questions are asked. Questions may be amalgamated or grouped into similar topics for the sake of brevity and time.
What to Expect
As charities, we have a duty to be non-partisan. Electoral commission rules also dictate that since we are not a registered campaign group, hustings should be non-selective. This means that all parties represented in parliament or likely to win seats should be invited. Invitations have been sent to the Scottish Conservatives, Scottish Greens, Scottish Labour Party, Scottish Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party, and Reform UK. We will update the event when we have details of the candidates participating.
We understand that this means engaging with views from across the political spectrum, many of which you may not agree with. However, we would be failing in our duty to the community if we did not take the opportunity to ensure that our voices would be heard and that political parties have to set out their positions on issues that matter to us in this election.
Wellbeing & Accessibility
In the current climate, engaging with frontline politics can be difficult. First and foremost, we urge you to consider whether this event is right for you.
We will have wellbeing support present on the day, so if you need to step out of the hall and speak to someone this can be facilitated.
BSL interpretation will be provided for the main portion of the event. Please let us know if you require any further communication support and we will do our best to facilitate.
The venue is all on one level with step-free access, and the front row will be reserved for people with limited mobility. There is a wheelchair-accessible toilet available.
All toilets are gender neutral self-contained single units.