You, Me & Us: Wellbeing and the LGBTQ+ community

With support from the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership in September 2021, we hosted a safe and collaborative discussion space for any LGBTQ+ people (16+) living in or around Edinburgh, to explore what wellbeing currently means for them, both as an individual and for us, as a community.

On Wednesday 29^th September, we hosted the online event ‘You, Me & Us’, creating a supportive and validating framework to hold discussions with the wider community, with respect to all LGBTQ+ identities and experiences. The discussions took place in break-out rooms and the main space and included guided prompts to explore the theme of ‘Wellbeing’ and what people’s current needs are.

With the help of guest collaborators, we have been able to collate these contributions and are delighted to be able to capture discussions in both a community poem, curated by Gray Crosbie, and a graphic illustration by Madeleine Leisk.

We are delighted to introduce you to the artworks below which will be soon available in print.

From Here

by Gray Crosbie, and the LGBTQ+ community of Edinburgh

Where do we go from here?
After all these months and that endless year
locked down, pandemic stuck.

Now we’re ready
……excited, nervous, desperate
to be together.
For new friends and familiar faces,
safe spaces to take it slow,
or to jump back in,
to jog, run, box, swim,
dance and sing our way back to ourselves.

To share the ways we endured the days
the discovery that flower-picking and photography
can be survival skills.
Our new favourite movies,
the best forests and hills.
To tell of the things piano keys can unlock
and talk about how it’s not only time
that’s been lost.

Now we’re ready to be with our people,
to laugh and worry over a shared apple crumble
and tangle ourselves in cuddle-pile jumbles.
To relearn the energy of bodies,
to remember how company in itself
…………………………………………can be a cure.

We need music to close the meters
activities to ease anxieties.
We need journeys that are worth the three buses.
To buy tickets, hold programmes and run fingers
over plans for the future, to embrace our city
in a big queer takeover and have parties in the street.

We need the calm of nature,
and a good night’s sleep.

And some of us, we need
to know we won’t now find ourselves alone.
That the virtual rooms where we found connection,
that sparked with joy
won’t go dark and empty.

And some of us, we need for things to be different,
better, fairer.
Back to normal isn’t as exciting
when “normal” wasn’t always inclusive.
We need the same changes we did before:
affordable childcare, help with the bus fare,
spaces to be social while sober
places without prices, where it’s only time that is spent.

We need wait lists to be smaller and bigger funds
counselling, assistants, interpreters,
to be around people who’re like us.
Accessibility,
comfort,
safety—

Our needs are varied
but that’s the beauty of diversity.

Lately, we’ve been looking forward again.
Because after all those months and that endlessly long year,
if nothing else, we’ve learned the importance of togetherness.
Where do we go from here?