Public services and politicians have failed to tackle gay people’s fear of discrimination

New polling commissioned by Stonewall shows that lesbian, gay and bisexual people continue to expect to face discrimination in almost all walks of life.

Published today in the report Gay in Britain the research demonstrates that, in spite of huge advances in legal equality, people still expect to face poor treatment from schools, hospitals and police forces because of their sexual orientation.

Almost half of the 2,000 gay people surveyed by YouGov expect to be treated less fairly than a heterosexual person when applying to adopt a child. Seventy per cent expect barriers to becoming a school governor and 61 per cent believe the child of gay parents would be bullied in primary school.

These concerns are reflected across other public services, with a third of gay people expecting worse treatment in a care home and one in five believing they’d be treated less fairly by a judge. Nine in ten say they’ve never been consulted about their needs by local service providers.

Stonewall Chief Executive Ben Summerskill said: ‘Completion of our work on marriage means that one strand of Stonewall’s domestic focus – legislative equality – is effectively complete. But this polling demonstrates starkly that changing laws doesn’t change attitudes and lives overnight.’

‘Gay taxpayers contribute £40bn every year to the cost of Britain’s public services. They should be able to have confidence that they’ll receive the services they need when accessing schools, hospitals or policing. It’s time the needs of this country’s 3.7 million lesbian, gay and bisexual people, both as citizens and service-users, were properly met.’