Lesbian Visibility Week

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Thursday 24th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) for securing this incredibly important debate and for her tireless work in advocating for the rights of lesbians and the entire LGBTQ+ community. I am very glad that she is in Parliament and that I have the privilege of working with her.

As an MP who is an out queer woman, I am also grateful for the foremothers who made living as my true self in the public eye possible, from the countless activists who fought for and won the rights that we all enjoy today to lesbian MPs such as Maureen Colquhoun, a campaigner for the abolition of women’s prisons, the liberalisation of abortion law and the decriminalisation of sex work who was deselected in a homophobic campaign, and of course my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), a key architect of the Equality Act who I am privileged to call my friend.

Lesbian Visibility Week’s mission is to recognise and celebrate LGBT+ women and non-binary people. This year’s theme is rainbow families. Rainbow families have always existed and always will, but queer women and non-binary people both here and internationally face many barriers to having the families they want. In the UK, many people are shocked to learn that we still do not have equal access to IVF, despite the previous Government publishing a women’s health strategy in 2022 that promised to tackle the issue. Ninety per cent of integrated healthcare boards in England require LGBTQ+ couples to self-fund at least six cycles of artificial insemination before they are eligible for NHS IVF treatment. Lesbian couples should not be forced to pay for private treatment simply as a gateway to NHS care. That is why I am proud to back the IVF equality manifesto and the wider fertility justice campaign manifesto, which also campaigns for important changes to birth certificates.

It would be remiss of me to talk about family without emphasising the importance of chosen family in the LGBTQ+ community. Although there are many supportive parents and family members out there who should be celebrated, a common experience within our community is rejection, hostility and a lack of acceptance by those we are related to. That is why chosen family is so important. I want to be clear that just because someone does not share our DNA, it does not mean that they are any less our family. I am so grateful for the deep bonds that I have formed outside the traditional family unit, as well as within it. That is something I think many of us can benefit from, whether we are LGBTQ or not.

Visibility is something to celebrate. Every person should be able to live openly and freely, loving who they want, but sadly many lesbians still do not feel able to do so in certain contexts. Visibility sometimes comes at a price. Queer women are still the victims of hate crimes simply for being queer women, and rates are rising. Let us be clear that the overwhelming danger towards women, whether they are LGBTQ+ or not, comes from violent cis men. That is why I am deeply concerned about the impact of last week’s Supreme Court judgment and the way in which it is being interpreted.

Making it legal to exclude trans women from bathrooms and changing rooms is discriminatory. Forcing them to use men’s facilities would put them at greater risk of violence. It also sends a dangerous message, because it enables people who see themselves as the gender police to challenge people in bathrooms and harass them. Of course, trans women will above all be the victims of this behaviour and face being driven out of society, but other people will also be affected. Cis lesbians, women of colour, non-binary people, trans men, women with conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome and anyone who is gender non-conforming—who does not conform to these Eurocentric and ever-narrowing standards of femininity and womanhood—are likely to become a target too.

Incredibly, anti-trans campaigners regularly use lesbians as a justification for their agenda—an agenda that, by the way, undermines all of our rights. They claim that they are standing up for lesbians who do not want to share their spaces with trans women, when polling shows that cis lesbians and bisexual women are more supportive of trans people than any other group. They claim that trans people are forcing young cis lesbians to become trans men. This is the same as what was said about gay people under Thatcher: that we were “converting” children. Today, thankfully, most of society accepts that that is absolute nonsense, and there are more young women than ever before identifying as lesbian and bisexual. We should be pleased that people feel able to be their true selves, but it also puts to bed the lie that young lesbians are being forced to become trans men.

Finally, it is important to remember that many of the rights that queer people have now are relatively recent. The last Labour Government is quite rightly often remembered as a time of progress for LGBTQ+ people, but just as rights can be won, they can be lost. This Labour Government risks being remembered as a period when things went backwards for our community. We have only been in government for less than a year. It is possible to turn the ship around, but we must recognise that actions such as the blanket ban on puberty blockers and barring trans women from women’s spaces are dangerous steps in the wrong direction. We must take action to remedy them.

[Dawn Butler (in the Chair)]

I call Liv Bailey. I am very mindful that we have a vote coming up shortly, so I may have to stop you mid-speech, Liv.