Questions over whether Teesside is doing enough for its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities have lingered amid fears it is losing young, talented people to bigger cities.
Members of Stockton Council’s crime and disorder select committee are scrutinising hate crime in the borough.
Most abuse and recorded hate crime centres around race and religion but a significant chunk, 11.9%, is related to sexual orientation.
These figures sparked Cllr Steve Nelson to offer a warning at the meeting of a potential “brain drain” of young, bright people choosing to live outside Stockton and Teesside due to the lack of a thriving LBGT+ scene.
“There is an economic impact as well,” added Cllr Nelson.
“I’m not sure of the scale but talking to people, that was what was coming across.”
Total recorded hate crime has increased in Stockton by 87% since 2014 - a rise mirrored nationally.
The crime and disorder panel has worked with LGBT+ charity Hart Gables and Trans Aware, in Stockton , to try to support victims of hate crime and get to the root of some of its causes in the borough.
Hart Gables launched a project in April to help young gay, bisexual and transgender individuals focus in on mental health through its “behind the eyes” project after they found a high percentage of youngsters accessing their services suffered from poor mental health.
Ellie Lowther set up Trans Aware to help transgender and non-binary people from the charity’s base at Gloucester House in the centre of Stockton.
Speaking outside the meeting, Ellie did not think Stockton or Teesside had a problem with trans or non-binary people leaving the area or a lack of LBG activity going on.
But she did say she would not be as “mis-gendered” in big cities as much as she was in Middlesbrough .
“Culturally, you do not get a true figure of hate crime from transgender people as you get problems from law abiding people,” she added.
“It’s a cultural issue - we are a third party crime centre and we hardly report any hate crime.
“I have a group of 100 people and I put a question to them about who reported hate crime - they said they didn’t and if they did they would never leave the police station.”
She also had misgivings about transgender people being lumped together in the LGBT+ acronym.
“Gender identity has got nothing to do with sexual orientation - bit by bit people are getting it.
“When we see people without labels we can stop people dying.”
Satnam Singh, Stockton Council’s senior cohesion and diversity manager, told the crime panel how more volunteers from the LGBT+ community were being recruited as “community champions” and being signed up as volunteers.
“It’s about trust and confidence,” said Mr Singh.
Teesside’s last pride march came in 2014 and organisers from Tees Valley Community Pride have rallied to revive the festival in Middlesbrough later this summer.
A vigil will be held tomorrow on Tuesday at the Centre Square, in Middlesbrough, at 6pm to mark the two year anniversary of the Orlando shootings where 49 people were killed in a gay nightclub.