May Leaders Blog: The UK can and must do better on LGBT+ rights

May Leaders Blog: The UK can and must do better on LGBT+ rights Welcome to the latest in our monthly series of reflections from Consortium’s Senior Leadership Team. Each month, a different member of the team will share updates, insights and sector-wide reflections, helping to connect our strategy to the realities of our work and the experiences of our members.

ILGA-Europe’s 2026 Rainbow Map has been released today, and it makes for deeply uncomfortable reading.

The UK now scores just 43.9%. Last year, it was 45.65%. In 2015, it was 86%.

That is not a small dip. It is not a temporary wobble. It is a decade of political failure.

For a long time, the UK relied on a reputation for progress on LGBT+ rights. We told ourselves a story about being a country that had moved forward, that had learnt from past harm, and that had become safer, fairer and more equal for LGBT+ people.

The Rainbow Map makes clear that reputation is no longer enough. Rights do not protect themselves. Progress does not keep going because we once passed good laws. Equality has to be defended, maintained and extended, especially when the political climate becomes hostile.

At Consortium, we work alongside LGBT+ organisations across the UK. We see every day how national policy and public debate show up in people’s lives. They show up in advice lines, youth groups, peer support spaces, trans-led organisations, community centres, Pride committees, mental health services and tiny grassroots groups doing far more than their funding should reasonably allow.

So when the UK’s score falls again, this is not just a ranking on a website. It is a reflection of what communities are living through.

It tells us that protections are weakening. It tells us that progress has stalled. It tells us that too many decisions affecting LGBT+ people, especially trans people, are being made without enough care, courage or direct community involvement.

ILGA-Europe is clear about what the UK needs to do.

• It must ensure timely and accessible trans-specific healthcare, including action on excessive waiting times and restoring access to puberty blockers for trans young people outside restrictive research frameworks.

• It must ensure that, following the For Women Scotland judgment, trans people can obtain effective legal gender recognition, including recognition of trans parenthood, and that the treatment of trans people is fully compliant with the European Convention on Human Rights.

• It must ban conversion practices on the grounds of both sexual orientation and gender identity.

None of these are extreme demands. They are basic expectations in a country that claims to value dignity, equality and human rights.

The issue is not simply that the UK has failed to move fast enough. It is that, in some areas, we have moved backwards. Trans people have been placed at the centre of an increasingly toxic political and media debate. Access to healthcare has become harder. Legal clarity has been replaced by confusion and fear. Promises on conversion practices have been delayed again and again.

Delay has consequences. It is not neutral.

When people wait years for healthcare, their lives are affected. When families cannot get clarity or support, they are left isolated. When organisations are expected to navigate shifting legal and policy environments without proper guidance or resources, services become harder to deliver. When politicians talk about LGBT+ people as problems to be managed rather than communities to be listened to, trust is damaged.

This is why the Rainbow Map matters.

It cuts through warm words and asks a simple question: what is actually in place to protect people?

From where I sit, as Head of Partnerships and Development at Consortium, I also see another part of this picture. The organisations holding our communities together are themselves under huge pressure.

Many LGBT+ organisations are small, local and underfunded. They are often led by people with direct lived experience of the issues they are responding to. They are trusted because they are rooted in community. They know who is being missed, who is most at risk, and what support is actually needed.

Yet they are too often asked to do crisis work on insecure funding, limited capacity and increasing demand. That is not sustainable, and it is not fair.

If the UK is serious about improving its position on LGBT+ rights, then it must also invest in the LGBT+ voluntary and community sector. Legal reform matters. Policy change matters. But so does the infrastructure that helps people access their rights, understand their options, find community, stay safe and have a voice.

That is why Consortium’s strategic focus feels so important in this moment. Our work is about strengthening the foundations of the LGBT+ sector. It is about capacity, connection, evidence, advocacy and investment. It is about making sure that smaller and under-resourced organisations are not left behind. It is about creating space for community-led expertise to shape the decisions that affect our lives.

This moment calls for leadership. Not the kind that offers sympathy while avoiding action. Not the kind that says the right thing in private but stays quiet in public. We need leadership that is willing to be clear.

Clear that LGBT+ rights are human rights.

Clear that trans rights are not optional.

Clear that conversion practices must be banned for everyone.

Clear that healthcare must be timely, accessible and based on care, not political fear.

Clear that LGBT+ organisations need proper, long-term investment.

Clear that communities should be involved in decisions about their own lives from the start, not invited in at the end to comment on decisions already made.

The UK can do better than 43.9%. More importantly, LGBT+ people in the UK deserve better than 43.9%.

We deserve laws that protect us. We deserve services that understand us. We deserve healthcare that supports us. We deserve public debate that recognises our humanity. We deserve a country where our rights are not treated as bargaining chips.

The Rainbow Map is painful because it shows how far the UK has fallen. But it also gives us a clear route back.

Listen to communities. Fund the organisations doing the work. Deliver on long-promised protections. Stop using trans lives as political terrain. Take human rights seriously.

The UK’s decline was not inevitable. It was the result of choices.

Now different choices need to be made.

Heather Paterson

Head of Partnerships and Development