Operation Equality: Supporting LGBTQ+ Veterans, Serving Armed Forces and Their Families

Up until the year 2000, a historic ban was in place that prevented openly out LGBTQ+ persons from serving within the Armed Forces. Sadly, many people suffered and faced gross injustices as part of this ban. We are here to help you connect with your peers and feel less alone.

Our service is here to help you connect to other people who have a similar lived experience as you, and provide you with safe spaces and workshops.

Funded by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, this project provides services to support any Armed Forces personnel, Veterans and their family members who identify as LGBTQ+.

How can I get support?

Our service takes on three main forms:

You can get support through our peer support service to allow people like you, with lived experience, an opportunity to support one another through mutual experiences, understandings and common interests. These will be in both a 1:1 format, and through group sessions.

Our creative wellbeing sessions seek to assist you by providing alternative spaces for you to explore your own health and issues in a safe space.

Alongside these, we provide networking opportunities allowing a safe space to meet and connect with similar people, both in person and virtually via events that we host.

Can I be involved as a Volunteer?

Yes you can! We think that good services are delivered by the people that use them, people who have lived experience and understand first-hand what people are going through. Peer support and sharing lived experience is are two of our key aims.

Our volunteering opportunities are a great way to build confidence, learn new skills, meet new people and be involved in your community.

There are many ways for you to be a part of this rewarding service.

This could include giving 1-1 support to somebody over the phone, in person or over video call, facilitating one of our peer support groups or helping out at one of our events.

Keep an eye on our volunteering page for exciting updates!

How do I access these services?

Whether you are interested in accessing any of these services for yourself, or if you’d like to sign up as a volunteer, we invite you to get in touch with our Wellbeing Coordinator, Hiren (he/him), by email via [email protected] who will explain what to do next. Alternatively, you can contact our Helpline on 0345 3 30 30 30

You can also access our volunteer form for more information about this, and all other volunteer opportunities within the organisation.

Once you have completed this, someone will get back to you to have a chat about where your strengths lie and how we can best make use of these whilst providing support and services to the LGBTQ+ community.