Nearly a third of those asked believe they’ll be treated worse than a heterosexual when enrolling their child in primary or secondary school.  Only one out of ten people asked felt they wouldn’t expect to face barriers when applying to become a foster parent and 20% thought they’d get worse treatment when applying for social housing.

Applying for positions of authority produced some interesting results. Three out of five asked believed they’d face barriers if they wanted to be a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party but that rose to 90% when trying to be selected by the Tories. 60% felt they’d face barriers if they wanted to become a magistrate.

1,658 people were surveyed and they were asked about their own experiences and expectations of discrimination when it came to work, education, politics, crime and the criminal justice system, housing and healthcare.

I’ve wriiten many articles about the non-reporting of offences against our community and this survey reports that 20% of those asked expected to be treated worse than a heterosexual when reporting a crime to the police and that figure was doubled for London residents. It doesn’t just apply to reporting crimes though as nearly a quarter thought they’d be treated worse if appearing before a judge.

Ben Summerskill, Stonewall’s Chief Executive, said: ‘Too many public services are still a bit too smug about the progress being made towards fair treatment for the lesbian and gay taxpayers who help fund them. The insight provided by this report is a valuable antidote to that sort of complacency.’  He added “This pioneering research highlights the one remaining gap at the heart of Britain’s legislative equality framework. There is not yet a duty on public bodies requiring them to promote equality of services for gay people in a way that already exists for gender, ethnicity and disability. We’ll now be pressing the government to honourits outstanding manifesto pledge to introduce such a duty.”

Actually giving our community fair treatment does have benefits for them. Nearly half of those asked said that they were more likely to buy products from businesses that use images of gay people in advertising and two-thirds would be more likely to buy products from companies who have a positive commitment to recruiting gay people.

Sam Clark, Accenture’s U.K. employee relations lead, said: “We hope that this ground-breaking research will help both employers and public bodies better examine – and address – a number of important issues in today’s workplace.’

For more information about the report go to www.stonewall.org.uk