Photo by Ella Marshall

Last night I did my thing at the Freedom of Mind Festival. You can see me on platform in the photo above. The location is Bristol’s City Hall. The panelists are, from left to right: Jenny Lacey (chair), Councillor Clare Campion-Smith (LibDem), Thangam Debbonaire MP (Lab), Councillor Fi Hance (Green), me (WEP) and Dr. Dominique Thompson who runs Bristol University’s student health service.

There are a couple of things worth noting about the line-up. Firstly there are no Conservatives involved. Gee, I can’t imagine why. Also, all of the panel are women. That, sadly, is also not much of a surprise. I’m doing a lot of work with organizations that deal with mental health issues these days, and the vast majority of the staff are women. Given that suicide is a significant cause of death of men in the UK, this is rather worrying. I’m very pleased that the festival had a specific event devoted to men’s mental health.

Naturally most of discussion was about general mental health issues and the lack of money for dealing with them. Local councils and the health service are both at the mercy of the government’s “austerity” program, which basically means requiring everyone to do more work for less money each year. No one was happy, but short of a major revolt among Conservative MPs there’s nothing that can be done until the next election in 2020.

My point was rather different. Firstly there are still things that are defined as mental health issues that are actually social ones. Technically being trans still marks me as being insane in the UK, because the World Health Organization takes forever to change its diagnoses. However, the USA has declassified trans people (sort of), and the UK government has stated that they don’t think we are mad either. Saying so “cured” several hundred thousand people of insanity overnight, so well done Nicky Morgan!

More importantly, however, there are many people who are suffering stress because of social conditions. Some of those are down to money (unemployment, homelessness, etc.), but many of them are due to prejudice. The work that my colleague, Berkeley Wilde, has done on LGBT+ heath needs has shown very clearly that the mental health of LGBT+ people does still suffer because of social prejudice. The situation is much worse for bisexuals and trans people than for gays and lesbians. Speaking out against such prejudice is something that politicians can do without having to spend any money at all. A less bigoted society is a happier, healthier society.

There are other areas where non-medical intervention can make a big difference too. There has been a lot of talk recently about social pressures on young women. Compulsory sex and relationship education in schools could do a lot to help with this, which is why Thangam made it her number one priority. Done properly it will do a lot for LGBT+ equality too.

Sadly our current government seems to be hell bent on making Britain a less friendly society. Currently we are being encouraged to be The Country That Hates Foreigners. We all know where that leads. When they have run out of one group of scapegoats, they’ll move on to the next.