Saying who you are: Identifying best practice to support positive identities for LGBTQ people with intellectual disability

The project team, made up of LGBTQ people with intellectual disability, service providers and researchers, worked together from the start: conceptualising, designing, implementing and disseminating the research. 

Rainbow Rights & Advocacy is a co-initiator and partner organisation: principal investigator Cameron Bloomfield is the spokesperson for Rainbow Rights & Advocacy and identifies as a LGBTQ person with intellectual disability. 

The methods (focus groups and Delphi) were co-designed and all participants in this research (n=24) were LGBTQ people with intellectual disability. 

The research team and the Advisory Panel (n=14) were LGBTQ people and/or people with disability. 

LGBTQ people with disability were sought for the two research positions identified for this project. 

Advisory Group meetings were chaired by a LGBTQ person with intellectual disability and all discussion was held to cognitive access standards managed collectively by the group. 

The research clearly demonstrates that LGBTQ people with intellectual disability are reliable sources of information about their lives; this message is reinforced by the role of researchers with disability, the exclusive focus on LGBTQ people with intellectual disability as participants, and LGBTQ people and/or people with disability as the support team to enable the research.