Lesbian Visibility Week

Ashley Dalton Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) on securing this debate, the first on Lesbian Visibility Week in parliamentary time. I congratulate her on her inclusion in the DIVA 2024 power list. Her sharing of her coming out story today was generous and powerful. She also reminded us of all the trailblazers and giants upon whose shoulders we stand. She also talked about the homophobic abuse she faces on a daily basis, and I applaud her for her courage and insistence that she will not be silenced.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) talked about the importance of everyone being able to be their authentic selves. I was also struck by what my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) said about how, as lesbians, we have often been more hidden than she thought, because for so long lesbians were not noticed, not considered and marginalised; we were not seen even when we were not hiding.

As has been said, Lesbian Visibility Week was founded in 2020 by Linda Riley, the publisher of DIVA magazine. It is a global event that aims to celebrate LGBT+ women and non-binary people everywhere, and to increase lesbian visibility. Today is an opportunity for us to reflect upon the history of lesbian Members of this place, to celebrate the progress that has been made to make Britain a better place in which to live as a lesbian, and to recognise the issues that our community still faces and the progress that is still to be made.

When I was young, lesbian role models were few and far between; being openly gay was just not something that was present in the public psyche, and I could not then imagine a lesbian being able to exist, never mind be happy. Lesbian Visibility Week is an opportunity for us to celebrate not only that we exist, but that we are a diverse community. We do not all look like each other, behave like each other and agree with each other, but more often than not we can be united, although we are not uniform; fundamentally, you cannot tell by looking.

Today’s debate is a chance to usualise us, and to show that lesbians are everywhere and not in niche, discrete communities. We are in workplaces, communities, schools, churches, temples, synagogues, mosques and families, and, yes, we are in Parliament too. How many times are lesbians expected to ‘”blend in”, keep our heads down and not make a point of our sexuality and whom we love? Without being visible, our identity is hidden, and when we are so hidden, it confirms assumptions that we are somehow shameful. That is why Lesbian Visibility Week is so important. We must be included for who we are, not for fitting in. Once no one looks twice at two women holding hands in public, once no one raises an eyebrow when your wife picks you up from work, when a child’s teachers are not surprised when two mothers arrive for parents’ evening and when people are not looking at the clothes we wear or the length of our hair to decide whether or not we are lesbians, that is when lesbians are becoming equitable. It is not so much about being accepted as being expected. I want my being a lesbian to be un-noteworthy, not because no one has noticed, but because it is usual.

Since today’s debate is the first in this place to celebrate Lesbian Visibility Week, it seems only right to recognise the first out lesbian Member of this place; Maureen Colquhoun, who died in 2021, was one of merely 23 women elected in the February 1974 election. Not only was she the first woman to come out as a lesbian while an MP, but she was the first MP to come out at all. I never met Maureen, but she was a trailblazer and she never hid who she was, even in the face of some of the worst discrimination, including from within my party. A feminist and a fierce campaigner for women’s rights, Maureen openly stated that her sexuality ruined her political career. Deselected by her local Labour Party in Northampton North, Maureen was reinstated by the national executive of the Labour party just before the 1979 election, but ultimately she lost her seat as the country went to the polls. Maureen rightly takes her place in Labour party history and parliamentary history, and I am proud that we are able to celebrate her as part of this debate today.

However, after Maureen’s election in 1974, Parliament would have to wait a staggering 23 years until my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), whom I am delighted to see has just entered the Chamber, became the second out lesbian on the green Benches, coming out in 1997. Thanks to those women trailblazers and those who have come since, it has been possible for me to believe I could be here too.

Living as a lesbian in 2024 is vastly different from living as a lesbian in 1974, and I am pleased to say that since then my party and this place have made significant progress on lesbian and LGBT+ rights. I am glad that progress has been made in recent years. I welcome the Government’s expansion of the scope of the Turing law to include lesbians who were wrongly convicted of homosexuality while serving in the military. As a Christian, I am delighted that same-sex couples are finally able to receive blessings from the Church of England.

Looking around the world, we see progress in other countries too. 2024 is the year that Greece, Estonia and Latvia are legalising same-sex marriage, and in Dominica homosexual activity has been decriminalised and the age of consent equalised. But there are challenges too. In Russia, displaying the Pride flag has become a criminal offence, and in Uganda, simply identifying as LGBT+ is illegal, showing just how far there is still to go for LGBT+ people, including lesbians, to feel safe to be who they are.

There are still many disparities and discriminations here at home. The Government cannot seem to decide whether or not to bring forward a Bill to ban conversion therapy. Two weeks ago, it was reported that the Prime Minister was killing it off, but a week later it was said that the Minister for Women and Equalities was still working on it. The position changes depending on whoever was last asked. The fact remains that the Government are still kicking a Bill on conversion therapy into the long grass, with no expectation that it will make it on to the statute book during this Parliament, despite its being promised six years and four Tory Prime Ministers ago.

Inequality has soared under the Conservatives. Fourteen years of low growth and their reckless gamble, which cost households thousands, has affected everyone, but women, including lesbians, have been brutally exposed to the cost of living crisis, thanks to a complete failure to close the gender pay gap and a failure to create a working environment that works for women with caring responsibilities. Lesbians and GBT+ people have been let down by a Conservative Government that killed off their own LGBT action plan, disbanded their LGBT advisory panel, cancelled their international LGBT conference and have still not honoured their promise to ban the insidious practice of conversion therapy. Instead of standing up for LGBT+ rights and bringing people together, the Conservatives have stoked a culture war and pitted different groups against each other.

When Labour left office in 2010, life in Britain for LGBT+ people, including lesbians, had been completely transformed. The last Labour Government repealed the appalling section 28, introduced civil partnerships, paving the way for equal marriage, and ended the ban on LGBT+ people serving in our armed forces. Labour equalised the age of consent, gave LGBT+ couples the right to adopt, introduced the Equality Act 2010 and made homophobia a hate crime. I am proud to take my place here today as a Labour Member and a lesbian, with the record of the last Labour Government behind me and standing on the shoulders of the brave women and men who made this country a safer and more hospitable place for lesbians and all LGBT+ people to grow up, work, love and thrive in. The next Labour Government will continue to build on that work.