On 9 April Jayne Ozanne, a leading voice for LGBTQ rights within the Church of England, launched the Ozanne Foundation.

Jayne was one of the first lay members to be appointed to the Archbishops’ Council, the central executive body of the Church of England, from 1999 to 2004. She struggled with her sexuality for a number of years. Jayne even tried conversion therapy, before finally coming out to family and friends in 2009 and then more publicly in 2015 – the year she was re-elected to Synod, the Church of England’s legislative body, comprising bishops, other clergy and laity.

Jayne has been actively involved in the progress made for LGBTQ people within Synod since 2015. In January 2016 she orchestrated a letter signed by 105 senior Anglicans to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, which called on the Church of England to apologise to its LGBTQ members. She was central to the repudiation by Synod in February 2017 of the Bishops’ Report on Marriage and Same-Sex Relationships, which did not go far enough in its support for LGBTI Christians.

At the last Synod, in July 2017, she initiated the motion to ban conversion therapy within the Church of England, which was successful and resulted in Synod calling on the Government to make conversion therapy illegal in the UK. Having spent so many years struggling to reconcile being gay and Christian, she is now at the forefront of the LGBTQ rights campaign. She is a massive inspiration to LGBTQ Christians, including myself.

The Foundation aims to promote equality for LGBTQ people within faith organisations, both in the UK and internationally. Read more via Gay Times