Relationships Education: LGBT Content

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I left school just over 10 years after homosexuality was decriminalised, and there was certainly nothing like LGBT affirming or inclusive sex and relationships education. Consequently, I did not know anyone at school who was openly gay. I certainly did not come out as gay until after I left school and found the relatively safe space of the University of Sussex, and I was fortunate enough to have a very supportive family and group of friends. I was therefore very moved when I visited one of my local schools in Exeter a few weeks ago. I was invited by a group of LGBTQ+ students for their weekly safe-space hour, when they get together and talk about their lives, feelings and so forth. It was an extremely moving experience for me because I thought of all the people of my generation who had been through experiences at school and who would have benefitted from living in a more enlightened age.

Of course, section 28, to which a number of colleagues have referred, was very much a backlash against the increasing visibility of lesbian and gay people after decriminalisation at the end of the 1960s. What is happening now, with the backlashes we are seeing against LGBT inclusive and affirming education in schools, is something rather similar—that visibility has continued, particularly when it comes to trans and non-binary young people. I just hope that we will resist the backlash, because some of the arguments that I am hearing now are very similar to ones that I heard back then—that we can make somebody gay or lesbian.

Now, people are saying that we can make somebody trans, and that it is an ideology. That phrase has been bandied around in this debate a number of times already, and it puzzles and upsets me. Being trans is not an ideology; it is who they are. It is something innate. Gender dysphoria is a condition that has been recognised for decades, if not hundreds of years, in human society. I worry that we are going back to pathologising and demonising people who simply want to be themselves, and young people in particular deserve the right to be respected and supported.

Although I am delighted to say that these days the vast majority of families are supportive and affirming of their children and other young LGBT people in general, we know that sadly some still are not. I do some work with an LGBTQI charity that works with young homeless people. Thirty per cent of young homeless people in this country are LGBTQ+, having been rejected by their families for being open about their sexual orientation or gender identity. Those young people need a safe space in school, and what schools have so brilliantly provided in recent years is that safe space. I have to say that whenever I pick up feedback or criticism about SRE in schools, particularly from young people themselves, it is that it is not affirming or inclusive, is not of good enough quality or is lacking altogether. The criticism I hear from young people shows that we need to build on what we have achieved and treat everyone with respect.

As I prepare to leave this House after 27 years, having come in at a time of moral panic about gay people and having myself been part of some of the fantastic progress made in this country in becoming a more tolerant, accepting and humane place, it saddens me that the consensus has somewhat broken down in recent years. I hope that the election this year will help to draw a line in the sand and that we can move on to a more hopeful and optimistic future in which not only all our young people, but everybody in this country—whatever their sexual orientation or gender identity—is supported and treated with respect.