In celebration of Pride Month, we’re spotlighting four of our trailblazing LGBTQIA+ Ambassadors that you need to keep your eye on.
Making healthcare accessible for the LGBTQIA+ community
Have you ever considered the barriers that LGBTQIA+ people face when accessing cancer care?
In 2016 Stewart was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia, a rare blood cancer that only 750 people in the UK are diagnosed with every year. Whilst being treated in various hospitals in the UK, they took note of the lack of LGBTQIA+-specific support and visibility in the cancer sector and knew that reform had to happen.
Stewart founded OUTpatients, formerly Live Through This, as a support group, where LGBTQIA+ people could connect and share their experiences with cancer. This quickly grew into a system-changing movement that not only offers support for LGBTQIA+ cancer patients but provides educational resources for healthcare professionals on the principles of equitable healthcare and pushes for LGBTQIA+ health care to be on government agendas.
Join Stewart on their life-saving mission by visiting outpatients.org.uk.
Fighting for the right to choose in Northern Ireland
Bethany Moore is actively campaigning for women in Northern Ireland to have autonomy over their bodies through her role in the Alliance for Choice Derry.
Globally, the topic of abortion is a contentious one. It was first banned in Ireland in 1861 by the Offences Against the Person Act, and has been campaigned for and against ever since.
Fast forward to 2018, Irish Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy signed an order for an abortion referendum that saw Bethany and thousands of others successfully lobby and campaign against the bill.
This spurred her on to join the Alliance for Choice Derry, a grassroots group fighting for reproductive justice in the north and south of the island of Ireland. It is here where she offers her services as an abortion doula, offering support, empathy, and emotional and practical assistance to women going through the abortion process.
Connect with Bethany on LinkedIn to follow her activist journey: Bethany Moore
Advocating for accessible LGBTQIA+ sexual health education in Samoa
In Samoa, LGBTQIA+ people are discriminated against because it is illegal to be part of the community. A lack of LGBTQIA+ sexual health education is a direct impact of this discrimination. Mathew Siliga Amituanai is working to bridge that gap through his organisation, Thrive Initiative.
Thrive Initiative provides members of the LGBTQIA+ community with comprehensive sexual health education and testing for sexually transmitted infections in safe spaces that are not hospitals or clinics. In just five years, Mathew directly impacted just under 4,500 members of the community.
Tireless campaigning for the rights of LGBTQIA+ people in Samoa from advocates such as Mathew are promising steps towards equality.
Recently, Mathew partnered with grassroots organisation, Brown Girl Woke and co-founded the Alofa Initiative. This new project seeks to further strengthen the movement towards equity and equality by empowering young LGBTQIA+ youth and allies in advocacy and activism education, and empower them to become financially independent young people.
Alofa means Love in Samoan and it is their belief that love should be the operative baseline of all activism and that this was once part and parcel of Samoan culture. The work of the Alofa Initiative reclaims the narrative of love not as a way to decolonise but to re-Indigenise.
The Alofa Initiative is particularly focused on the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Samoa and the creation of a safe space for non-heteronormative young people, where sexual health education can be taught without stigma and discrimination.
Follow Mathew’s advocacy journey by connecting with him on LinkedIn: Mathew Siliga Amituanai
Lobbying against LGBTQIA+ discriminatory laws
Nandini Tanya Lallmonis is fighting for the rights of LGBTQIA+ people through her active involvement in community campaigns.
She is the co-founder of the pioneering #Reform53 campaign of the Commonwealth Youth Gender and Equality Network under the Royal Commonwealth Society. #Reform53 is an initiative lobbying against discriminatory laws that perpetuate injustice against LGBTQIA+ individuals within the Commonwealth and beyond.
In October 2023, the #Reform53 campaign assisted in the landmark Supreme Court judgment decriminalising same-sex relations in Nandini’s homeland, Mauritius, where she is now pushing for local legislative reform of the criminal code to align with this verdict.
At the continental level, Nandini advocates for the safety and rights of LGBTQIA+ activists as a board member of the Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network. As part of the Coordinating Collective of Africans Rising, she fosters the integration of LGBTQIA+ rights into broader human rights and development agendas across Africa.
As a board member of the Gender Standing Group of the Internet Society, Nandini strives to create inclusive and secure virtual spaces by pushing for gender and sexual diversity considerations in digital rights discussions.
Stay up to date with Nandini’s inspiring advocacy by following her on Instagram: @nandini_tanya
