Please see the recording and detailed overview of Jacob's session below. You can download the slides from Jacob's presentation here.

Overview

In our third instalment of the Equality and Diversity in Healthcare seminar series, we will hear from Jacob Bayliss. At 29, Jacob is the newest and youngest CEO of Brighton’s oldest LGBTQ organisation – Switchboard. Switchboard serve the health and wellbeing needs of LGBTQ communities across Sussex through a number of vital projects, provide community engagement and voice services, and provide training and consultancy around inclusion and affirmation of LGBTQ communities.

Jacob’s area of expertise is LGBT health and inequalities. This expertise hasn’t come from work or training, but from the need to initiate, co-ordinate and advocate for his own healthcare as a trans person.

If you read a newspaper, go on the internet, or turn on the TV at all, you may well have seen some shocking headlines about trans people lately. It’s fine if you don’t feel like you know very much about trans people. Lots of us don’t. It’s important to know that there are a lot of myths and misconceptions that are repeated over and over again in the media, which make it harder to get to the truth on some of these issues and create a ‘debate’ rather than a conversation.

Trans populations in the UK are much less likely to access healthcare or access it promptly. If they do, trans people are much more likely to report adverse experiences, and poorer outcomes. Being trans in no way means you’re going to have a bad life – trans people around the UK have rich, rewarding lives, careers, families and relationships, just as any other group of people do. Fortunately, we are seeing an increasing number of people in the NHS feeling able to be out at work as trans.

Jacob is passionate about starting conversations that support healthcare professionals and their patients feel more comfortable, confident, and competent when it comes to trans and non-binary people, and creating environments in which these communities can thrive.

Like many other trans people, Jacob has had experiences in healthcare that he’d rather forget, as well as some fantastic experiences with staff and services who got it right. He wants to share his story, and take a look at what made the difference.

Thursday 10 December

12.30pm - 1.30pm