Meet our new Chair of the Pride network, Naomi Roberts. She will be working this role alongside her usual job as an Associate Practitioner for the Point of Care Testing Team within Pathology.

Hello my name is…

Naomi Roberts, my pronouns are she/her. I am an out and proud lesbian, and an active member of the LGTBQ+ community.

I have been with the Trust for two years now. Before joining CHFT, I worked in the private mental health sector for a charity called Inspiring Healthy Choices. Here I worked alongside sexual health nurses in schools and youth centres to promote healthy relationships, consent and safe sex. It was my responsibility to educate people about the LGTBQ+ community, and we also did work to fight period poverty.

What is your role as Chair of the Pride Network?

I give a voice to the LGBTQ+ community to promote equality, diversity and inclusion, and to give queer people a safe space to be their most authentic self. 

Sum up this role in three words.

Advocate. Educate. Facilitate.

Who is your hero/heroine and why? 

Gladys Bentley was an openly queer black jazz singer in the 1920s. When lesbian identities were regularly dismissed as illnesses, she proudly shared her queer identity. She wore white tuxedos and openly flirted with women.

Many queer women of her time were forced to keep their relationships secret, but Gladys boldly wrote and sang about her relationships with women, and she even married her white girlfriend in a highly publicised Atlantic City wedding ceremony.

What did you want to be growing up? 

When I was about 6 or 7, I pestered my parents for about a year because I wanted an illustrated children's Bible for my birthday. My mum finally asked me, why on earth I wanted a Bible? I answered: "Because I want to be a nun, so I don't have to kiss boys!" 

When you are not at work, how do you relax? 

I like to relax with my partner of eight years. My hobbies include Dungeons and Dragons, painting miniature models, baking, and reading. I also crochet and make blankets and little hats for premature babies on NICU units, and make quilted weighted blankets for the autism society. 

What would people be surprised to know about you?

Over the years I have had many jobs and hobbies. In my youth (a long time ago), I was a Drag King for a while, alongside a Drag Queen as part of a duo called Starsky and Butch.