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Remember Pet Shop Boys’ song “Go West”? For various historical reasons, it was an anthem where I grew up and developed as a person. Prior to the globalisation and the transition of Eastern Europe, Bulgaria was one of the most amicable places to grow up as a kid – children tended to be the centre […]
It’s a strange phenomenon when people talk about pride and coming out. Each person has their own personal and unique story to tell. Getting on in years, as junior lawyers keep reminding me, and as a 49-year-old I have been recalling my pride journey, reminiscing if you like. I had always thought that I exuded […]
I joined Simmons & Simmons as a trainee in September 2019, spending only six months in the office before diving into the digital world of working from home. In a new work environment, the feeling of having to come out to colleagues is nerve-wracking at the best of times, and swapping to working remotely certainly […]
I am responsible for the provision of business support functions in Sidley’s network of international offices outside the US, working closely with management in the US and also local Office Managing Partners. Unlike many of my LGBTQ+ colleagues, I did not come out as a gay man until relatively late in life, at the age […]
“Where’s mummy today?” is a question I’m asked all too often, in restaurants, the park and the nursery line when with my two-year-old. Before I used to laugh it off or even let it slide, but now I’m confident in putting people right: with a smile I politely say “my daughter has two dads”. And […]
At 50 plus, while not quite an elder statesman, I am certainly at the “experienced” end of the scale. So what have the experiences of nearly 30 years as a Scottish lawyer been? Going back even further than that, university in Glasgow in the late 1980s was undoubtedly fun and pretty liberated. New Romantic fashion […]
‘You are old and straight’ is not how most people are asked to write their Pride story, but this is what happened to me, so perhaps a little context is required. As a white, straight guy of a certain age (okay, 59) I have been fortunate not to have ‘knowingly’ suffered any prejudice, either in […]
With Pride celebrations cancelled this year due to COVID-19 I found myself asking – what does Pride mean to me and, what is my Pride story? When I first started in the legal industry it wasn’t as much a question of being “out in the office” that I struggled with as much as struggling being […]
Let me start by describing my “coming out experience”. It shouldn’t define one’s path but negative experiences shape how one deals with it going forward. Growing up, I never expected to come out. I wanted a family – I wanted to get married and have children, but that was unthinkable for gay men when I […]
Turing’s Law, enacted in 2017, granted a symbolic and long-awaited posthumous pardon to thousands of deceased gay and bisexual men who were convicted or cautioned for certain abolished sex offences in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, the legislation does not go far enough to right the wrongs inflicted on thousands of men in the […]
With the benefit of hindsight, coming out at work was surprisingly easy. But it followed a lengthy period of sleepless nights. For a long time I kept my private life completely separate from my career; it was one of those subjects that I never really got drawn into conversations about. I mangled sentences desperately looking […]
Covid-19 is more than just a health pandemic, it has been a complete change of life that is affecting many communities across the globe. With lockdowns and social distancing measures in force in numerous countries, each community is experiencing the impact of these measures differently. The LGBT+ community will experience a variety of distinct challenges […]