Winston Dorsett He/him

Winston identifies as a black gay man and was born in Slough in 1970. He moved to Leighton Buzzard when he was 12 and was the only black child in the school. By 13-14 he knew he was gay, but did not verbalise it. He left school at 16 and got a job in Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. He didn’t have any gay friends at that time. Then he was transferred to the London store and secretly went to gay venues whilst still having girlfriends. He had a son in 1990 and became a single parent. His first involvement with the LGBTQ+ community in Milton Keynes was YouthLine in 1995. He was training to be a social worker at De Montfort University and was researching local support groups. He was able to talk about his issues as a gay man and get support as a gay single parent. The youth workers guided him to legal advice to gain custody of his son. Section 28 was still in force and it was a challenge to become a social worker with children and young people and share that he was gay. It was also difficult for his son at school. His first LGBT conference was the International Gay & Lesbian Youth Organisation in Manchester in 1995, which became his most memorable event. That and YouthLine led him to become an LGBTQ youth worker and activist. He sat on the National Lesbian & Gay Committee for Unison. He remained active in the union. In 2024 Unison had a Year of the LGBT+ Worker. He worked in Bedford, then moved to Bristol where he met his partner in 2001. After three years he became a youth worker for an LGBTQ group, then returned to social work. His work with the black community was significant to him. He was a social work manager for the last ten years of his career and able to influence the social and youth workers around him.