A Christmas Message from the Rainbow Bedfordshire Team

After a very eventful year in the UK, for LGBTQ+ people, for Rainbow Bedfordshire, and in each of our lives it is time to take a break from [the illusion of] normality for Christmas and New Year.

We are aware that there are people within our community who find the festive period really hard. Some of you might be spending this time with people who do not accept you for who you are. Some of you may have been rejected and have found yourself alone. We have not stopped our groups for the entire festive season. We have paused for three days this week and three days next week. We can see we already have a busy year ahead, with both new and continuing projects in 2026.

We hope that Christmas is how you each need it to be. Our support pages provide links and contact details of specific services for if you are experiencing any kind of crisis.

For anyone who has not registered with us we encourage you do using this form so we can give you opportunities to make connections with like-minded people. Registration costs you nothing, and helps us to keep the spaces safe for all of our members, we can support any access needs new members may have, and ensure you have the information you need. We also have a WhatsApp community that members can join.

If you are struggling to complete the form you can come to a session/group and one of us would be happy to help.

Our email inbox will not be monitored 23rd December-1st January

Registration form notifications go to an alternative email address, and will reach us.

Equalities Minister Meeting

Since the Supreme Court judgement in April, members of Rainbow Bedfordshire have been lobbying our local MPs to support trans, non-binary and intersex people’s rights, and urging the government to listen to trans+ voices when making policy that affects these communities.

Mohammad Yasin MP for Bedford and Kempston has been very supportive, writing to the Minister for Women and Equalities on our behalf.

Last week we were delighted when Mr Yasin invited us to join him to meet with Equalities Minister Olivia Bailey in Parliament. We asked the Minister questions about the EHRC guidance, the Equality Act and the forthcoming legislation on hate crimes and conversion therapies. Most importantly, we shared stories from our members of how the worsening atmosphere for trans+ people is affecting their lives.

We asked the Minister to:

• Take steps to protect trans people from the indirect effects of the Supreme Court ruling in services and employment;

• Reject the EHRC code of practice and require that any new Code of Practice ensures providers can lawfully include trans people in their services;

• Allow Parliament to debate any new Code of Practice and have a free vote on it, rather than passing it via negative procedure;

• Commit to consulting with trans organisations and experts on future guidance and legislative changes affecting trans+ communities, following the principle of ‘nothing about us without us‘.

unbinaried book launch

unbinaried is a collaboration between Rainbow Bedfordshire and the radical education and humanities group, a loose collective of academics at the University of Bedfordshire. The details for the book launch event can be found here.

General members meeting moved.

The general members meeting scheduled for 12th November has been moved to January. Further details will be available nearer the time.

External calendar integration

For those who want to connect the Rainbow Bedfordshire calendar to their own google, ical, outlook, etc calendars, please use the feeds below:

ICal/Apple/Outlook

Google (Bugged, will not sync recurring events, fix in progress)

Please note that changes made on the Rainbow Bedfordshire website can take up to 24 hours to propogate to these feeds. For the latest event information please always confirm on the website.

Website refresh now live!

Our new website is now live, providing improved navigation, updated accessibility options, an updated calendar system with google/ical integration and much more.