I live in Scotland and have for the whole of my life. No, I haven’t seen Nessie and believe it or not, I don’t play the bagpipes or wear a kilt (every day) but asides from these stereotypes, I do happen to live in the country with the ‘gayest parliament’. To give this some context, we have six major political parties. The leaders of four of these parties have identified themselves as lesbian, bisexual or gay. Doing the maths, that means 2/3 of our political party leaders identify as LGB, which in my opinion (and yours I hope) is a really amazing thing, especially with the current state of world politics. Yes, I’m looking at the homophobic orange who likes to call himself president.
The Scottish parliament also made sure that one of its first acts as a re-established parliament was to repeal Section 28 – which was basically a law which meant that homosexuality could not be discussed in educational establishments or otherwise “promoted”. It was officially repealed in 2000 – three years before England and Wales in 2003. Meaning that our parliament was always ahead of the game. Scotland has also been named as the best country in Europe for LGBTI legal equality as we meet 92% of the criteria, as opposed to the 86% registered for Britain in its entirety.
However, despite all of our achievements and political representation, homophobic and transphobic slurs are still heard in schools and on the streets up and down the country. I have noticed in my school that such language is used often, however it is very likely that this is down to a lack of education or understanding. Although our education system is in such a state that I feel requires an article of its own, I feel that having such a large LGB representation in a place of power to change education, action needs to be taken to make Scotland an even better place for the LGBT community and try to eliminate the fact that 97% of LGBT people in Scotland have experienced discrimination in their lives.
At the end of the day, I am extremely lucky to live in Scotland and I am very excited to see our little country progress under a parliament with an incredible LGB representation and we can only hope that the rest of the world starts taking leaves out of the Scottish book and voting open-minded and diverse (not to mention well qualified and educated) people into power.
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