Yesterday was the launch of the new website for ILGA. I was not there and in my absence I recorded a personal message which was played during the event explaining from a personal perspective how this project has affected me. On behalf of those who were also unable to make it, I have uploaded it for your viewing pleasure. For all those who were at the event I hope you enjoyed yourselves!

Why straight people should care about LGBTI rights from Jon Robson on Vimeo.

Transcription

Hi my names Jon. I've been working for BT for just over 2 years now and I joined on their graduate program.

It might surprise a lot of BT Kaleidoscope (BT's network for LGBTI people) members that I'm actually straight. When I've had drinks with them previously I'm pretty sure most of them assumed that because I was hanging around with them I must be gay. I was one of them. And likewise i feel that when I talk to my friends and work colleagues about the work I'm doing I'm pretty sure they felt the same I'm pretty sure that most of my friends now think I am gay as over the last year I've had a quite strange change in behaviour in that I've been talking about LGBT stuff quite a lot. When India decriminalized homosexuality for instance I was on Facebook and Twitter saying "yes it is okay to be gay in India!". In hindsight maybe not the best idea.

When I first joined this project I didn't really have any knowledge of LGBTI issues and what reason did I have. I'm straight and to me LGBTI issues were exactly that they were issues for LGBTI people not for people like me. However when you reflect on it I'm sure many people in the audience have friends or work colleagues or maybe even family members that are gay. I personally do I have several friends from university, several friends I've made through this project and I know personally that if I took one of those people and put them in a country where the understanding of homosexuality was completely different from ours I know they would have a problem with that and it is quite a scary thought. Imagine that person you care about in a country like Uganda or Iran for instance.

I remember seeing the map for the first time. We took a PDF document - the state homophobia report - and inside this pdf document there was a list of all the laws and the legal status in all the countries around the world. We took that pdf document and put in on a map. I remember being shocked at seeing how many countries were red and said that homosexuality was illegal. I remember seeing another map which was punishments for male to male relationships and that really shocked me as I realised there were countries in the world that not only said that homosexuality was illegal - something i didn't even see as a crime - but they were saying this was a crime punishable by the death penalty.

The Your Stories section was particularly interesting for me. The Your Stories section allows anyone to come on the website and to publish a personal story about themselves and their life in a certain country. So for instance if you went to Italy and had a holiday there you could report back on how it was for you. Did people shun you in bars? Did you have issues in hotels because you wanted to share a bed? That sort of thing. There was one particular message on that section of the site which was particularly moving for me. It was from an Algerian guy he was 35 years old and he published a cry for help. He was saying he was close to suicide because of the homophobia and lack of acceptance he had just for being homosexuality. And as more and more people contribute to that section it really brings to life that these are more than just laws these are more than just writing on a piece of paper they make their lives horrible just by there very existence.

It strikes me that I'm not the only straight person that should care about these laws. I'm sure there are many politicians that are straight, straight people like me and I believe that these people haven't thought twice about these laws either, just like I hadn't before. What if one of those politicians had a son and that son came out as gay and has a really bad experience. is it only then that the politicians will take notice..

Being involved in this project has been quite a journey for me. I've come from this guy who has no awareness of LGBTI rights to someone who has a lot more knowledge then most people. Still to this day when I see things in the news about anything LGBTI related I notice it and I never would have noticed it before.

I really hope that when you leave this you will look at the website, look at all of the maps, read some of the articles and start that journey that I did.And please don't forget that what we are talking about here is love. I'm sure many people in the room, watching this video will agree that you can't help who you fall in love with. You are who you are and what right does a law or a country have to say that you can't love that person. And I'm sure many people in this room do have loved ones, people they care about that are gay. As straight people we need to care.