By Hugo Greenhalgh
LONDON, Aug 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Disabled LGBT+people called on the wider gay community to be more inclusiveand address internal discrimination at the launch of London'sfirst ever ParaPride on Saturday.
Hosted at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London - listed as ahistoric building in 2015 because of its significance to theLGBT+ community - the event drew several hundred people to anafternoon of panel discussions and stage acts.
LGBT+ venues need to be more accessible and the gay,bisexual and transgender community needs to address how it viewsdisabled people, said former teacher Domenico Pasquariello.
"We want people to know that there are people within theLGBT community who are disabled and we don't want people todiscriminate (against) disability within the community,"Pasquariello, 49, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Performance poet and disability activist, Ruthie Adamson,who was performing at ParaPride as Wonky Wordsmith, saiddiscrimination can take many forms.
Adamson, who has written about being born with "delightfullydeformed digits" on her right hand, experienced what she termed"disablism" from a fellow partygoer at a recent evening event.
"As soon as she walked in and saw me and saw my delightfullydeformed digits, she sneeringly said, 'A lesbian with onehand?'," Adamson, 55, said.
"So yes, there was disablism coming from a queer comrade."
Government data estimates there are about 14 milliondisabled people in Britain - or more than one in every fivepeople.
Leading LGBT+ rights organisation Stonewall estimatesbetween 5 and 7% of the British population identifies asnon-heterosexual, suggesting there might be as many as700,000-980,000 disabled LGBT+ people in Britain.
Disability Pride events first started in the U.S. city ofBoston in 1990.
In Britain, Disability Pride Brighton was founded in 2017 byJenny Skelton following an incident with her disabled daughter.
"We want to ensure that the experience for disabled LGBTpeople is fun, welcoming and equal," said co-founder ofParaPride, Daniele Lul.
"We want to work with venues in order to make the spacesmore inclusive for people with different types of disabilities."
NHS volunteer Melody Powell said part of the problem waslack of awareness that disability encompassed a range of issues.
"I often feel places don't remember people have differentneeds, especially within the LGBT community," she said.
"They already think they're being inclusive by saying,'Yeah, we accept gay people, so we've ticked that box'."(Reporting by Adela Suliman; editing by Belinda GoldsmithPlease credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable armof Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climatechange, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking and propertyrights. Visit http://news.trust.org for more stories.)