Lesbian Visibility Week

Debate between Kate Osborne and Dawn Butler

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the importance of Lesbian Visibility Week; and believes LGBTQIA women and non-binary people should be recognised for the work they do and the joy they bring.

Lesbian Visibility Week was founded in 2019 by the publisher of DIVA Magazine, my good friend Linda Riley—and I am delighted to welcome Linda to the House today. 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, and we are a community that grows stronger each and every year for it.

Forty years ago this year, I took my mum to see the “Rocky Horror Show”, and at dinner I told her that I was a lesbian. I distinctly remember her response: “Yeah—and?” Of course she already knew; as a colleague pointed out yesterday, if I was ever in the closet, the closet must have been made of glass. I was incredibly lucky to have friends and family to lean on when I faced and overcame the many barriers that most lesbians have to deal with because, sadly, it is still the case that for so many such support is just not there. However, that does not mean that my journey and dealing with coming out was easy. There was stigma, and there were people our community was losing and not talking about. The feeling of loneliness and isolation led me to move to Newcastle in 1989, and until I was elected to represent my wonderful Jarrow constituency in 2019, I barely came back to London.

Seeing so many people celebrating and recognising Lesbian Visibility Week gives me hope that this and future generations of lesbians will be accepted—and that is thanks to those who came before us, paving the way. When I hosted a reception in Parliament on Monday night in partnership with DIVA magazine and the LGBT Foundation, there was an incredible turnout from activists, campaigning organisations, and Members of both Houses. I am so grateful for the fact that so many friends and colleagues joined us at our first ever parliamentary reception: I think that was the largest number of lesbians that we have ever had in Parliament at any one time. At the event we heard about the media narrative that lesbians are disappearing, but we are not. We are in our ascendancy: there are more lesbians than ever. The number of women who identify as lesbian has increased by 64% since 2014. Instead of being erased, we are multiplying.

As many Members will know, 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 that it did and continues to do to our community. To go from campaigning against section 28, to stop LGBTQIA+ people being forced to hide, to holding a debate on lesbian visibility in the gayest Parliament in the world is some feat, and something that an 18-year-old me could never have imagined. However, I also could not have imagined that 40 years later I would still be challenging the same homophobic language, including comments about LGBTQIA+ people being a danger to children. It has to be said that the slurs currently being thrown at the trans community, and at me for being supportive of that community, are a carbon copy of the hate we faced in the 1980s.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredible speech. Does she agree that hate is hate? Some of the hate we hear reminds me of the hate that my parents heard when they were being subjected to vile racist abuse.

[Kate Osborne]

Yes, hate is hate, and it is unacceptable in any form. We defeated it then, in the ’80s, and we will defeat this hate and discrimination now.

Let me return to my coming out. Although I had a supportive family, when I came out “lesbian” was still a dirty word, a word thrown at me at school in a derogatory way. If you were a lesbian you were seen as unnatural. You were chased out of girls’ bathrooms—that has, in fact, happened to me in recent years—and you were sexualised by men far older than you, which is something that lesbians still face today.

It was 10 years after I came out that I bought my first copy of a magazine called DIVA. There was nothing else like it at the time; there was nothing else for my generation that helped lesbians to feel included, and that magazine helped me to feel less alone. That was 30 years ago—so happy birthday, DIVA, and thank you.

In the last 30 years DIVA has been a lifeline for many women, and it was DIVA and Linda Riley who launched Lesbian Visibility Week. DIVA is much more than a magazine: as it tells us, it is a movement. It has an annual Power List, and for the first time, in 2024, I have made it. To travel from being that young, lonely lesbian 30 years ago buying my first copy to being included in this list has made me feel honoured and deeply grateful. It is a privilege to be named alongside colleagues and other brilliant activists, including the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell), my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) and the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black). Today, I feel proud to see so many LGBTQIA+ women basking in the freedom to explore their sexuality in ways that many women could not, only a few years ago.