Rethinking LGBTQ+ Safety & Security

During Pride month, there are good conversations surfacing about how organisations can help people in LGBTQ+ communities stay safe in humanitarian and development work. While it is great that Pride month brings attention to those who face greater risks, the question itself is, perhaps, the wrong one.

Instead, we should be asking: Why do LGBTQ+ people feel unsafe in humanitarian and development work? What makes them unsafe? Why do our current risk management systems fail to fully accommodate their safety?

We tend to think of ourselves as heroes for having the discussion at all – how to accommodate the safety of vulnerable groups. But, in truth, whenever we need to single out groups of people and address their risks separately from our standard safety and security practices, it exposes glaring weaknesses in our systems and gaps in our duty of care.

The real question is: Why do LGBTQ+ people need special consideration in their work? How do our mainstream safety and security systems fail to address their vulnerabilities systemically to the extent that they require special focus?

The real question is: Why do LGBTQ+ people need special consideration in their work? How do our mainstream safety and security systems fail to address their vulnerabilities systemically to the extent that they require special focus?

This shift in perspective can be uncomfortable. It suggests that our systems, as currently structured, are the ones that are vulnerable and weak, not the people who use them. Our safety and security models work perfectly for some people who have a gender and sexual identity. It happens to be that those are cisgender, heterosexual people because that is who most of our systems were built by and for.

Whenever someone requires specific "accommodation" related to their identity, rather than their actions or location, the first question should not be, "How can we help you be safe?" but "Why do you fall outside the risks our systems already address? How are our systems failing you?"

This line of thinking, however, can lead us to an even more uncomfortable truth: the danger that our LGBTQ+ colleagues face is not just due to anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in restrictive environments but is created and perpetuated by the very organisations, societies, and cultures we operate in. Every time we ‘other’ LGBTQ+ people we validate and foster the very environments which are creating the dangers.

Overcoming these systems, our own conditioning, and the demand to keep pace with a constantly changing discussion can seem, well, overwhelming. Some of the security leaders we speak to face the challenge frozen in fear of getting it wrong (note: there is no 'right', everyone is catching up); others in the sector abdicate responsibility with a 'no-lived-experience' excuse.

As with all our work and considering intersecting identities - our people, our organisations, our countries, and our cultures – we are all at different stages of understanding and response.  There is not a set text for each of the different components of our identities. It must be more holistic than that.

So, what would a genuinely inclusive security system look like? Some ideas are:

• Gender and sexual identity would be standard categories in all risk assessments, from organisational to individual levels.

• Security trainings would normalise discussions about gender and sexual identity and how this impacts individual safety. We have pioneered a personal security course that aims to do this and you can find our LGBTQ+ personal security course here.

• Every person receiving security information or training would be informed about unsafe environments for LGBTQ+ people.

• Those with security leadership or management responsibilities would scrutinise policies, plans, and briefings with an intersectional lens to ensure they are inclusive and effective for everyone.

Albert Einstein, who also campaigned for gay rights, once said, “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.” Similarly, we cannot sit comfortably in systems which have built-in prejudices; nor can we abdicate our professional responsibilities to collaborate and develop something better, while harm is occurring.

At Safer Edge, we collaborate with Pride Outside, a Glasgow-based wellbeing organisation with extensive experience in the humanitarian and development sector, to provide our clients with assistance in making their safety and security systems inclusive and diverse.

It is time to stop asking how we can keep LGBTQ+ people safe and start examining how our systems are failing. Only then can we create a truly inclusive and secure environment for all.