Claire shared a mix of sad stories, moving stories, unexpected stories and funny stories, such as almost having her MBE medal confiscated by Ukrainian customs, but being rescued in the nick of time by Prince Charles!
Clare first travelled to Poland in 1995 with 500 condoms in her luggage in an effort to support gay and bisexual men in a newly emerging, independent Poland. In recent years she has engaged with British embassies, and through them with other EU and world embassies, to consolidate support for the human rights and dignity of LGBT+ people. Clare was behind the raising of the rainbow flag at British embassies in 2008 - historic firsts in Riga and Warsaw which were followed in 2009 by Bratislava and Budapest. The practice has now become common among LGBT-friendly embassies throughout central and eastern Europe. Clare’s work featured in Hillary Clinton’s PRIDE speeches in both 2010 and 2011.
Clare is a Quaker. She says this helps her to engage with religious believers, support LGBT believers and equip LGBT people with the best religious arguments for use in public discourse. In 2010, at the request of the Foreign Office, Clare was appointed MBE “for services to promoting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Central and Eastern Europe”. This was the very first citation to use the words “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender” rather than “equality” or “diversity”. You can read more about this memorable moment in British and LGBT history here: http://tinyurl.com/c2mksnv
Much more information about Clare’s work is on her Web site http://www.pridesolidarity.eu/