Lancashire LGBT attended an East-West LGBTQIA+ Forum alongside LGBTQ+ organisations and activists in Liverpool last week. Lancashire LGBT was represented by Didier, Lancashire LGBT’s Programme Coordinator.

The Forum is a government funded scheme, which hopes to establish cross-jurisdiction collaboration between LGBTQIA+ actors in Northern Ireland and Britain.

Ruth, who led the two days shared this message: “Across the two days, we moved from mapping risk, power and uneven capacity to drafting the first iteration of the East–West Outcomes Framework. What now exists is a working document shaped directly by your contributions on jurisdictional clarity, consent, labour, governance, and bounded priorities.

This gathering built on the foundations laid in Derry/L’Derry in December. There, we explored whether East–West coordination was desirable and under what conditions it could work. In Liverpool, we translated those conversations into structure. 

What made the space powerful was the depth you brought into it: political clarity, lived experience, strategic realism, frustration, hope and care. We worked through difficult questions in a difficult climate and stayed with the complexity. Alongside structural thinking, you spoke about joy, isolation, self-advocacy and the importance of coordination that strengthens rather than extracts. That balance runs through the draft Framework.”