Discrimination

Discrimination is endemic to life, from employment to socialising, and it’s something we deal with every day. Although advances are being made, there’s still so far to go, and Let’s Get Better Terms aims to bring discrimination to light and fight it wherever it is found.

Just as there are a myriad of different kinds of people and situations, there are also sadly many kinds of discrimination, and not just one catch all bias. Compare the rights of a gay man to the rights of a similarly situated lesbian; or consider the fact that many people have no problem with homosexuality, but find they can’t handle trans or intersexual people. On top of this, it’s not uncommon to find bias within the LGBT community itself.

There are in fact so many fundamental points of misunderstanding that it sometimes seems impossible to see any way through, but the fact is we need to address these issues, because discrimination here and elsewhere in the world is stopping many millions of people from living their lives just as their neighbours do.

Many people argue that the term LGBT isn’t helpful in this, as in other contexts, as it quickly allows a bracket to be put around an enormous amount of people who have nothing in common. We’d argue that what they have in common is that they all need Better Terms – legally, socially, economically and in their family and working lives.

Not all discrimination is orientation based, and in fact the most common one to meet in the day to day is simply because of the way you look, or the way you are.

We may think we have come far, and in some senses we have, but discrimination runs deep, even where it has been addressed by anti-discrimination provisions. Consider the UK life insurance industry for example. Why should a man in a civil partnership with another man be underwritten for insurance as if he were a single heterosexual male? Legislation can only go so far, and although it can be useful when pursuing a claim or a particular grievance, legislation doesn’t instantly change people’s attitudes or even necessarily influence the majority of business and employment practise.