LGBT History Month

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

It is a real privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), and I thank the co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on global lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) rights, my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) and the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing this important debate. I commend them both on their superb speeches.

As I stand in Parliament as an openly queer woman, I am standing on the shoulders of giants. In particular, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey, who was the UK’s second openly lesbian MP and the first openly lesbian Government Minister. I also want to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), who made history a few years ago as the first MP to come out in this Chamber as HIV-positive. I pay tribute to my city. Nottingham was home to Britain’s first licensed gay club, the first professor of gay and lesbian studies and the first LGBT trade union group.

The labour movement has a proud place in LGBT+ history. It was Labour in power that decriminalised homosexuality, equalised the age of consent, gave legal recognition to same-sex couples and brought in the Equality Act 2010. But our rights were not just given to us; they were won—won by people who were rejected by society, ridiculed, demonised by the media and criminalised by Governments. Our movement has faced resistance every step of the way, and as the current backlash threatens to roll back the progress we have made, we must not give an inch but keep fighting for more.

I was seven years old when section 28 was finally scrapped. It is thanks to years of struggle, including by people in this room, that my generation could go through education without it and not be taught that who we are and who we love is too shameful even to be mentioned. Now we have another generation of LGBT+ youth growing up in a dangerous climate of hostility. Trans children are every day hearing their very existence and human rights being subject to debate, and witnessing media figures speaking of them as potential predators and politicians using them as a political football. Some of the tropes against trans people today sound awfully familiar—like attacks used against gay people in the 1980s—and it is opening the door to wider homophobia, too. Let me say it clearly: our community will never be divided. There is no LGB without the T.

Throughout history we have suffered together, struggled together and as we win together, we will win for all of us. For a trans person growing up in the UK, it might feel like the whole world is against you. I assure you that there are MPs in here who are on your side. We see your struggle for rights and dignity. We are proud to march with you in the streets and to stand up for you in Parliament. We will not give up on this fight, and believe me when I say that we will win. Just like those who came before us defeated section 28, together we will beat this wave of transphobia and consign oppressive laws to the past.

The history of Pride is a history of resistance. Pride is not owned by corporations that want to profit from us and our community but then throw us under the bus when convenient. Pride is not the Home Office posting rainbows on Twitter and then deporting LGBT+ asylum seekers to Rwanda. From the days of the Stonewall riots, to the fight for queer lives during the AIDS crisis, to the campaign against section 28, to the ongoing struggle against conversion therapy, and from Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners to Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants, our movement has always been diverse and has often been led by those who are most marginalised. That is in recognition of the fact that there is no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us. We do not need allies who pick and choose. LGBT+ history is still being made, and everyone in this building has a choice whether they want to be on the right side of it or to be remembered as obstacles to progress who will ultimately be defeated.