Being pro-active in fundraising for our LGBT organisations

Camping this bank holiday weekend might have been slightly optimistic as five of us huddled close around the open camp fire trying to stay warm once the sun went down, leaving frosty sub zero temperatures.

Conversation turns to what we've been up to, plans ahead; next Sunday is the Stonewall Equality Walk which takes place annually during May bank holiday in Brighton. We discuss who's planning on taking part.

“The thing is, I just don't like ramming it down people's throats; raising money for gay things” says one of the women, there are nods of agreement from the others.

As someone who has been active in the Brighton LGBT community, both working and volunteering for its' many charities and groups as well as my current employment being with a fundraising organisation, I find this viewpoint disappointing, but not unfamiliar. Just ask any of your friends who they are running, abseiling, swimming for, or some other fundraising challenge and you’re unlikely to hear it’s for an LGBT organisation, with the view expressed around the campfire shared by many of the LGBT community.

Yet this leaves our LGBT organisations vulnerable. MindOut, Switchboard and Sussex Beacon nearly closed in 2012, and Pride changed from being a charity to a business in the same year in order to remain operational. The small charity sector which includes nearly all of Brighton's LGBT organisations, is still heavily reliant on statutory and grant funders; but this has increasingly become a smaller pot of money available and the competition for it, ever higher.

For sustainability, small charities need to diversify their income through fundraising, but this seems to be an even bigger challenge for LGBT charities. It’s a sad fact that as LGBT individuals the majority of us do not seem to be as loyal to LGBT services, don’t seem to care in fact if they exist at all and general apathy prevails. May be, because we fail to see the value of these services if we are not using them ourselves and do not know those who are or how we, are benefiting from them?

LGBT organisations need to get better at engaging with their LGBT communities, so they see the value of their services and understand who and how they are helping, but LGBT individuals also need to recognise that we should all be more pro-active in raising awareness of 'gay things' and being a voice for LGBT rights and equality, the organisations enabling this and the fundraising money that is needed by them.

A very typical lesbian love affair

The girlfriend might be away this weekend, but the title of this post is not me alluding to having any hanky panky in her absence! However this is about others who are.

In the last year I've seen some of my closest friends have their long term relationships come to an end through affairs – not untypical you might be thinking – except that, the partners were not actually (they claimed) having sex with the women they were having an affair with.

I've experienced it, the girlfriend has experienced it, and friends are being hurt because of it. It seems this is a very typical lesbian love affair; whereby women get together emotionally without the physical contact. There's sexual chemistry, emotional intimacy and emotional attachment resulting in secrecy, lying and loss of transparency with their partner.

They might hang out together or it might be an 'online' affair, confiding inner most thoughts and feelings with each other, they might express emotions for each other verbally or through 'signals' – but they don't kiss, they don't have sex. In their minds denying themselves this forbidden fruit means they are not and cannot be accused of, having an affair.

For those on the painful end of lesbian 'emotional affairs', the biggest element of this betrayal is the denial when the partner having the affair is challenged either prior or post break-up.

• They claim they did all they could to protect you from getting hurt during your break-up (by not getting physical with the woman who is now their new girlfriend).
  
  
• Outright deny they are having an affair so they don't have to face the consequences (yet!)
  
  
• Claim they only got with the person once you were separated so they can avoid the wrath of others. Let's face it, lesbian circles are small; to be isolated out from it, is a big deal!
  
  
• Deny it to themselves so they can feel less guilty about what they've actually done/doing. 'Affairs are what the straight world do' and are not in the realm of lesbianism!
  
  
• By not getting physical it looks to their peers like they got together after splitting up with respective partners so this new relationship is accepted by those peers; and as girlz barely pause for breath between relationships no-one questions the speed at which they 'moved on'.

• As I was reminded and wrote about in where and what is the lesbian moral code with exes, in the lesbian world, the moral boundary is not crossed if, “theoretically they’ve done nothing wrong”.

The sense of betrayal in an emotional affair is just as great as if it was a physical one. In many ways it is worse because for the partner they can often see and feel it happening, especially if it is with someone within their lesbian friendship circle or from the only lesbian pub in town. Denial makes them even more powerless. If you are engaging in an emotional affair, do the decent thing, and at least be honest about it! 

Lesbians eagerly airing their dirty laundry in public

I had anticipated that New Years Eve was going to be uneventful. I'd invited a friend I've known since my university days to Brighton to come and celebrate with me. Together with the girlfriend we headed to join others at the popular local gay pub.

I should have known that lesbians in a room together consuming alcohol is always going to lead to trouble in someone's quarter. I immediately sensed a problem brewing in mine when, a couple of hours into drinking, my shy and timid visiting friend returned from the bar,

"I've been chatting to a couple of girls at the bar. It's a really weird situation they've got going on. They've recently broken up but are out together."

"Don't get involved" I tell my mate, but know she's already too involved into the unfolding and unresolved issues of someone's else's relationship, may be to escape her own.

I notice one of the girls from the couple is hovering nearby and I feel annoyed by it.

Annoyed because this is what lesbians do. Instead of dealing with or accepting the crumbling state of  their relationship, they bring their dirty laundry to (in this case) the pub, involve and use others (stupid enough to get involved) to create jealously and push buttons in their partner.

All becomes distracted by Chiming Big Ben on the overhead speakers counting down those last 10 seconds of 2013.

We toast in the new year and attempt to sing Old Lang Syne but like most of the British populace I suspect, end up humming for the majority.

My friend disappears again.

A short time later she hurtles back at break-neck speed with a girl chasing her who slaps/pushes my friend's back in aggression and storms out the back door. My friend hides behind us.

"Oh my God, I've just kissed one of the girls from the couple at the bar and the girlfriend didn't like it! It was stupid of me but I just felt sorry for her" she tells me like a naughty school child.

"This is soooo typically lesbian!" I reply in my best teacher tone.

We rally the girls we're out with in case of further aggressive outbursts - this is when butch lesbians come into their own! I can see the girlfriend from the couple pacing outside.

Whilst my friend continues to hide behind us, all seems to calm down and the couple disappear in the throng of New Year celebrants. We decide it's the perfect opportunity to slip out and head home.