Lesbian Visibility Week

Katherine Fletcher Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Lesbian Visibility Week should be about lesbians, but the website put up this week says it is about

“celebrating the power of sisterhood by uplifting incredible LGBTQIA women and non-binary people”.

I think it is a real shame that, in the week about our visibility, the lesbian identity is being subsumed into a number of other identities that have nothing to do with being a same-sex-attracted woman.

Many lesbians fundamentally disagree with this, and I want to speak up for them today. They need someone to speak up for them. It is a mark of how marginalised lesbians have become in our society that so few hon. Members have turned up today. It is the reason I am speaking from the SNP Front Bench, despite having been removed from it several years ago, partly for being the wrong sort of lesbian and one who does not believe that the rights of men who say they are women should trump those of lesbians.

Before I go any further, I declare an interest as a supporter of LGB Alliance and a member of the advisory boards of both the Lesbian Project and Sex Matters. But my main interest in this issue is that I am a lesbian. I came out in the 1980s, when homophobia and lesbophobia were still rife across the UK, and my first activism was against clause 28. In those times, like many other lesbians, I was physically assaulted in the street and mocked for being a lesbian. Lesbians of my generation also faced losing our jobs and our children.

For a long time, we thought that lesbophobia had gone, but lesbophobia is back, and it has been created by those who think that the rights of lesbians are conditional on them accepting gender identity ideology. They are not. Lesbians are same-sex-attracted women, and we are protected on that basis from discrimination, bullying and harassment under the Equality Act, under which our protected characteristic is sexual orientation. Our protection is on the basis of our sex, not our gender. And as J. K. Rowling has said, without sex there can be no same-sex attraction. That is why lesbians like me fight the replacement of the biological reality of sex with the nebulous concept of gender.

I said a moment ago that the rights of lesbians are “not conditional” on accepting gender identity theory. That is a direct quote from my friend Allison Bailey. As some Members will know, Allison Bailey is a black lesbian barrister who nearly lost her job for standing up for the rights of lesbians. Other lesbians have faced similar persecution.

My friends Kate Harris, Bev Jackson and Eileen Gallagher had to fight a lengthy court battle to protect their charity, LGB Alliance, from being removed from the charity register as a result of malicious legal action. Justice prevailed and they won the case but, shamefully, those who sought to destroy a charity run by lesbians for lesbians included Members of this House, and it was not the first time that Members of this House have displayed hostility towards lesbians.

As the Father of the House said a moment ago, when I was invited to speak on a cross-party panel at the first LGB Alliance conference back in October 2021, I faced the challenge of crossing a picket line that included a heterosexual female MP who, together with self-styled trans rights activists, was protesting against the rights of lesbians to organise a conference to talk about lesbian and gay rights. Just let that sink in. That is where we have got to—heterosexuals telling lesbians that we cannot hold a conference.

Many lesbians have been persecuted for refusing to bend their knee to gender identity ideology. Some have faced losing their job and their livelihood, and some have also faced violence or the threat of violence. I will name a few of them this afternoon. All are or have become my friends as a result of our struggle: Lucy Masoud, Professor Kathleen Stock, Julie Bindel, Professor Jo Phoenix and my dear friend Dr Shereen Benjamin, a Labour activist who has been treated appallingly by the University of Edinburgh.

There are many other lesbians whose lives have been severely restricted by gender identity zealots. We are not allowed to have lesbian-only social events. The only venues left for lesbians say that they are inclusive, which means that men are included. Women’s sports are also now inclusive, which means that they include men while excluding lesbians who want to play on women-only teams.

Recently, a lesbian coming to view democracy in action at the Scottish Parliament was told by security that she could not enter the building wearing a small pin badge reading “Scottish Lesbians.” I am wearing that same badge today in solidarity with Scottish Lesbians, which is an excellent grassroots lesbian collective.

Across the United Kingdom, lesbians have been intimidated at Pride marches, spat on and assaulted for simply asserting their right to say that lesbians are same-sex attracted. At a recent event for women in Edinburgh, men counter-protesters held up vile, abusive lesbophobic signs. The police did nothing because, for all the furore in Scotland about hate crime, it seems that hate directed at lesbians does not count.

I do not believe that the interests of lesbians are being properly represented by organisations such as Stonewall and the organisers of Lesbian Visibility Week because, in their determination to promote gender identity ideology and to keep themselves in a job by doing so, not only do they fail to represent lesbians but they actually promote lesbian invisibility and lesbian erasure.

Most people think it is absurd to say that a man can be a lesbian, or to say that lesbians can have penises, and they are right. It is absurd. I am proud to be able to stand up in Lesbian Visibility Week in the House of Commons and say so. I am proud that I can stand up to speak for the lesbians who reject the forced teaming of lesbians with other groups that have completely different issues from us. I say: stop lumping us together with those other groups, as it has the effect that our interests are obscured or overlooked altogether, and it renders us invisible.

Interestingly, back in 2021 the “Inclusive Britain” report found that aggregate terms such as BAME were “no longer helpful”, took no account of the differing needs and outcomes of those included under that umbrella, and should be dropped. The report’s findings were adopted and the acronym BAME is no longer used in government. I, like many other lesbians, think that the same principles should be applied to acronyms such as LGBTQIA+, so that lesbians are not force-teamed with other identities.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

I am reflecting on the speech we heard from the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), and what we could all benefit from in this debate is a bit more love and compassion. Anybody who is setting out to do anything other than demonstrate love to people who do or think differently perhaps needs to think again.

[Joanna Cherry]

Yes, but there also has to be room for difference and for someone such as me to speak up on behalf of some lesbians who feel the way that I do—we are quite large in number. I do not pretend to speak for all lesbians, but none of the other lesbians in this House speak for all lesbians either. I am putting forward what I consider to be a valid viewpoint. Most importantly, it is one backed by the law of this land.

I am constrained by not having as much time as I would have liked. I would have liked to have talked about the Cass report and how it has identified that a large percentage of girls presenting with gender dysphoria are same-sex attracted young women. I would like to have had time to talk about how important it is that we do not shut down holistic talking therapy for such young women. However, I am going to bring my comments to a close by saying this: in my belief, in the view of many lesbians and in the eyes of the law, a lesbian is a woman whose sexual orientation is towards other women. Those who think lesbians include men are deluded. You cannot be a responsible lawmaker if you believe that any man can be a woman just by saying so. That is an old joke worthy of the worst nights in student union bars back in my youth, with drunk testosterone-fuelled men telling me and other lesbians that all we needed was the right man. In future, let us try to retain our grasp on what a lesbian is. Many lesbians are sick of being bossed about by all those who promote their cult beliefs that gender trumps sex—it does not; it never has and it never will.

Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill

Katherine Fletcher Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

I would like to commend both the Secretary of State and her team for bringing forward this Bill. The sub-postmasters have faced a miscarriage of justice that has taken many people’s breath away. I am aware that this is specific and focused legislation, but two South Ribble constituents came to see me who had been Royal Mail customers, and they described scenarios of prosecutorial practice very similar to what sub-postmasters were subject to. Would the Secretary of State consider expanding the scope of the legislation in future to other people who may have been subject to poor treatment?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I can look specifically at the cases she raises, but I think they may actually be covered by this Bill. I would be wary of expanding the scope too broadly. The consensus we have with the CPS, the judiciary and so on has been achieved by the legislation being very tightly scoped, but we do want to make sure that people who have been at the end of an injustice can have those wrongs righted. I am very happy to look at the specific cases of her constituents.

International Women’s Day: Language in Politics

Katherine Fletcher Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that positive and opportune intervention. I did not want to embarrass you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I thank you for your calm nature last week when you took on the issues that arose. The calm and peaceful way in which you dealt with it all was an inspiration to us all.

Online abuse affects when women in public office speak and what they speak about. Online abuse, particularly abuse that is misogynistic and racist, has a detrimental impact on the mental health and wellbeing of women in public life, particularly ethnic women MPs, reflecting on the emotional toll that it takes on them, their families and their staff. It is deeply unfortunate that online abuse spills out into reality, causing real concerns about physical safety, with such abuse often including threats of violence. Even though women make up over half of the United Kingdom’s population, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke said, we make up only 35% of the House of Commons. There is so much more to do.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

We are talking about the importance of language in debate, but does she agree that we also need to start thinking about images, especially with changing technology? Several Members present were with me last night at a debate about deepfakes and artificial intelligence, hosted on the Committee corridor by Glamour and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. It strikes me that a lot of the themes of today’s debate around the use of language, and how off-putting it can be, can also be applied to stuff that is generated very realistically and very quickly. Does the hon. Lady agree that we should not forget that while we debate language, and women in politics?

[Ruth Jones]

I absolutely agree. Being a luddite, I may not be as familiar as lots of other people in the Chamber with AI and other online issues, but deepfakes are deeply troubling. I thank the hon. Lady for highlighting that really important issue.

I acknowledge that the Conservative party has had three women leaders. Although the last two did not last very long, the Conservatives have done more than we have, and in due course I hope that Labour will elect its first woman leader. In August 2022, just 36% of the 19,212 elected councillors across the UK were women. Fewer than 5% of councils have achieved gender parity, so the need to empower and support women is clear to all of us. The issue will not be solved overnight, but we need to start making progress. It will not be addressed by one party, but by all of us working together, and it will not work unless every man in this place, and in our country, recognises the role that they have to play too.