A support network for the LGBT+ community in France
To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The initiatives currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.
This societal initiative has been collected by: Suzanne de Cheveigné
Joining forces to alleviate the pandemic’s impact on the LGBT+ community
Inter-LGBT is a French network of civil society organisations supporting LGBTQI+ people. Founded in 1999, they extended their usual activity during the Covid-19 crisis, basing their responses on pre-existing actions. Members of the network include historic HIV actors such as Aides and Act-up as well as local groups, including one in the overseas territories.
At the beginning of the pandemic, members joined forces to help vulnerable LGBT+ communities during the crisis. The network created a listing of all participating organisations with details on the types of services they provide and how to reach them. The initiative targets the entire LGBT+ community and provides a wide range of support such as psychological assistance and counselling hotlines, legal support, health screening services, housing and shelter providers, guidance for asylum seekers and more. If most were already active before COVID-19, they extended their activity during the pandemic as inequalities and urgent need for help increased within the community.
The support listed is available in different formats; websites and call lines being the most common. It also includes Flag!, a mobile application launched in Spring 2020 simplifying the process of reporting homophobic and transphobic acts such as verbal abuse, discriminations, assaults as well as domestic violence within LGBT+ couples. Users can report acts anonymously and the results are geo-localised. Backed by the French government, the app aims to tackle discriminations against the LGBT+ community as well as the rise in domestic violence caused by the pandemic. In the longer term, the data gathered will inform future public policy.