Lesbian Visibility Week

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow and Gateshead East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Lesbian Visibility Week.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. In this debate we are considering that this House believes LGBTQIA+ women and non-binary people should be recognised for the work that they do and the joy that they bring.

Lesbian Visibility Week originated in 1990, and has been given life and observed annually in the UK since 2019, enabled by my good friend and ex-publisher of DIVA magazine, Linda Riley. I am so pleased that we are once again acknowledging its importance in a Parliament that boasts the largest number of openly lesbian, bisexual and gay women MPs in history.

Maureen Colquhoun, the first openly lesbian MP, was elected 51 years ago but was deselected by her local party the year she came out—a stark reminder of the struggles faced by lesbian politicians. It took 23 years for there to be another openly lesbian MP. Thankfully, there are now a lot more of us, including some of my brilliant colleagues who will be speaking in this debate.

Lesbian and gay women face intersecting discrimination based on their gender and sexuality, and of course, people of colour and lesbians with disabilities also face unique challenges and discrimination due to intersecting identities. But while it is crucial to address those challenges, it is equally important to celebrate the significant contributions that lesbians make in fostering solidarity and sisterhood within their communities. Lesbian women have played, and will always play, a pivotal role in not only supporting each other but leading and strengthening the broader women’s and LGBT+ rights movements.

For the past five years we have set aside this week in April to celebrate and uplift lesbians everywhere, from all backgrounds and all walks of life. We are a community that grows stronger each and every year for it. This year, the theme is celebrating rainbow families, focusing on LGBT+ women and non-binary people’s families and recognising the importance of all family structures.

On Tuesday night I was proud to host the second annual parliamentary launch of Lesbian Visibility Week. At the event, London Women’s Clinic launched its new IVF equality manifesto. As a mum of two wonderful boys, one of whom was conceived through IVF, it is a subject close to my heart. Everyone deserves the chance to start a family, no matter their sexuality or gender identity.

It was around 16 years ago that I started the IVF process as part of a same-sex couple. At that time we went through unnecessary procedures, a long waiting list and significant costs. But despite the hurdles it was achievable, and my wonderful youngest son is now 14. Since the IVF journey that I was part of, the hurdles that LGBT+ couples have to jump through have increased, with a fragmented NHS meaning a postcode lottery in provision, while the financial cost is significantly higher.

The event was attended by many MPs and guests, and I thank everyone who came. I particularly thank the Minister for Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), for attending the event and speaking, and for responding to this debate, as well as DIVA’s Linda Riley and Anya Sizer from the London Women’s Clinic for their speeches. It is disappointing that despite multiple promises there remain far too many unnecessary financial and practical barriers for same-sex couples, and a postcode lottery on IVF. I have written to the Secretary of State and Ministers on that on a number of occasions, and I will keep fighting until all barriers are removed.

I have dedicated most of my political career to campaigning for LGBTQIA+ equality. My first political activism was campaigning against section 28 and highlighting the damage it did, and continues to do, to our community. Section 28 was intended to silence the discussion of lesbians and gays. It failed. It united and energised our communities.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Like her, my first political activism was campaigning against section 28; that is what made me join our wonderful party. I feel truly supported by her and by my other lesbian colleagues in this place. It was that rhetoric, and comments that our relationships and families were somehow pretend family relationships, that was so hurtful. Does she agree that we now need to safeguard against the risks of the rhetoric about trans people doing the same sort of harm to them as it did to us in the 1980s?

[Kate Osborne]

I absolutely agree, and will touch on that later. As a community, we are always stronger when we are together, and we will always have T as part of the LGBT community.

Given the global attacks on our LGBT+ community, we need to find that fighting spirit again. The attacks on our community did not just start happening again; they were driven by far-right money from America, hate in this country and globally, the media and—yes—politicians, who should know better, continuing to demonise the LGBT+ community. Last year, I spoke about the increase in the lesbophobia that I faced: from being called a rug-muncher to being called a nonce, and having pride flags in my home town of Hebburn ripped down.

We have seen a rise in hate crime, and we must make active efforts to support our non-binary and trans community, who still face unique day-to-day challenges for simply being themselves and loving who they love. Under current hate crime legislation, hate crimes based on race or religion can attract a greater penalty because they are classified as aggravated offences. Our manifesto committed to ensuring that hate crime based on sexual orientation, gender identity and/or disability would also be classified as aggravated offences. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about moves towards that happening.

I sit on the Council of Europe and its committee on equality and non-discrimination. Part of my brief is reporting on the ban on so-called conversion practices across Europe. As part of that, I visit and speak to people in other countries about their legislation. One country was Italy. Outrageously, the official visit request was rejected, and I was unofficially told that this was because they did not want more of our finger-wagging critique. Thankfully, the very nice Maltese Government have offered us a visit instead.

Just last month, as I got off a train at King’s Cross, I was verbally abused by a man who shouted at me that I was obviously a lesbian, that I was a sexual deviant and that I was going to hell. I am frequently misgendered. I do not mean occasionally—it is a weekly occurrence. In January, I was misgendered three times during one two-hour train journey. I have been misgendered by staff of this House. I was misgendered while buying some jeans last week. This is genuinely a frequent issue for me and a number of my lesbian friends.

I note that Ministers said yesterday that there will be guidance regarding the Supreme Court verdict. That decision will have a huge impact on my life, on many other cis lesbians and, indeed, on heterosexual women. I suspect that I will get challenged even more now when accessing facilities. The impact on my life will be problematic, but the impact on my trans siblings’ lives will be significantly worse.

[Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and for securing debate. I know that she has spoken passionately about these issues over many decades and that, like me, she will have received lots of correspondence from concerned trans and LGBT+ constituents over the last few days. Does she agree that it is for the Labour Government to get on with advancing the LGBT rights in the manifesto—things like the trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban, modernisation of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and making LGBT hate crime an aggravated offence?

[Kate Osborne]

Yes, I believe that only now, with a Labour Government, will we see the continued advancement of LGBT rights, as we have in the past.

While we are on the topic of the judgment, let me say that it does not offer clarity. I believe that it has sown division and caused contradictions in legislation. The ruling was made without a single contribution from trans people and leaves them legally and practically at a huge disadvantage. I believe that the judgment raises many more questions than it answers, and I will be writing to the Secretary of State to set that out.

As a woman, a lesbian, a feminist and a proud dyke, the Supreme Court judgment, for me, is a step backwards. The court should not be telling me what a lesbian is or is not or how I should identify. We need empathy in finding ways to support people and let everyone live their own lives. Of course, we need to protect single-sex spaces in the very limited situations that they are needed—which is, and was already, covered in legislation and has never been disputed—while maintaining clear protections for trans people, especially trans women.

To see an already marginalised community attacked even more and the use of the law to increase discrimination, not prevent it, is deeply upsetting. Those celebrating the impact the decision has on trans women—that of curtailing their protections—should not be surprised when the same people that funded and supported their attacks then push for rights to be rolled back for all women. Research from Just Like Us clearly highlights that young lesbians are more supportive of the trans community than any other part of the LGBTQIA+ community. They are most likely to know a trans person—92%—and to say that they are supportive or very supportive of trans people—96%.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. In the light of what she is saying about young lesbians, I want to champion the work of Schools OUT, which is led and was founded by one of my constituents, Sue Sanders. The organisation educates people in school about the importance of LGBT diversity, challenges prejudice at exactly the important moment in young people’s lives when they will be exploring who they may want to be as they grow older, and increases the tolerance and respect that everybody deserves.

[Kate Osborne]

In this as in so many other ways, young people can often teach us a lesson or two. I am pleased that my hon. Friend referenced Sue Sanders, as I did in my speech last year, and all the great work she has done over the years with Schools OUT, and indeed across the whole of our movement.

Contrary to the narrative being heard at the moment, most heterosexual women agree with young lesbians. We need to be clear that lesbophobia, homophobia and transphobia are driven by attacks from a far-right, hateful minority. Feminism has to be intersectional, recognising that all women, including trans women, deserve the same rights, safety and respect.

I thank the Minister for giving up her time today, and for all her work. Having an out lesbian Minister responding to a debate on Lesbian Visibility Week is something that we can all be very proud of.

[Dawn Butler (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Osborne]

I thank all who spoke here and ensured that they did so with respect and care. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) for sharing her proud lesbian mama status, and for her commitment to fight for equal access to IVF, and for highlighting the local impact of the postcode lottery in fertility treatment. I am sure we will continue to fight that together in this place. I do not have time to thank everybody as much as I would like to, but I would like to thank Opposition Members, especially the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke), for highlighting the legend and legacy of Jackie Forster and her contribution on global hate crime and the stress that our communities face. Somehow we have never bumped into each other in any of those bars that you mentioned; we must try harder to do that. The hon. Member is quite right: we need more lesbian bars and lesbian spaces.

I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), for her words. My uncle Frank and my dad will be absolutely delighted that she mentioned them today. He wants recognition for his 50 years as a councillor, and I hope that this goes some way to doing that. I agree that we will all be looking very closely at the NICE guidelines when they are brought forward. This debate has indeed been a lot less heated, which is to be welcomed, and I hope that continues, going forward, and that politicians of all stripes stop using our community as a political football. I thank the Minister for all the work that she has done and continues to do, for her kind words, and for her commitment to take away the many asks from this debate. Thank you, Ms Butler, for your expert chairmanship, I hope to be here in front of you in the future.

By our visibility and contributions today, we give hope and encouragement to lesbians who are not yet in a position to be out and proud, or who are at the start of their journey. Our hard-fought rights are under attack and we must defend them. I want to end by wishing all lesbians who work in this House, and all lesbians globally, a very happy Lesbian Visibility Week.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Lesbian Visibility Week.