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.

LGBT+ History Month

Nadia Whittome Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the Minister, who bravely spoke about the realities of teaching under section 28 and how she did her best to protect LGBT children in her class. I am so glad that she is now able to do so in Government. I also pay tribute to the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), who has always been a staunch and fearless ally, and speaks about these issues with warmth, compassion, humanity and empathy.

Today, we have seen some of the best of all parties represented in the Chamber. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), has always been a voice on these issues within the Conservative party. The Liberal Democrat spokes- person, the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), has long been ahead of many in this House when it comes to equalities issues, including being outspoken in support of the rights of sex workers, who must never be excluded from conversations on feminism and LGBTQ equality.

I am thrilled that we have the opportunity to discuss LGBT History Month in the Chamber for many reasons, not least because it gives me the opportunity to put on record just how gay Nottingham is and has long been. I was overjoyed to learn that Mansfield Road, where my constituency office is based, was home to queer-friendly cafés in the 1960s, and that just down the road in St Ann’s there was a flourishing lesbian pub scene. Nottingham also had a trans meet-up group all the way back in the 1970s—again, disproving the lie that trans people have only existed more recently—and people in our city were active in the section 28 protests, in fighting the AIDS crisis, and in running life-saving phone support lines. I was privileged to meet some of them at Silver Pride, a social group for older gay and bi men in Nottingham.

It is thanks to CJ DeBarra that much of that history and more is being uncovered. They have interviewed more than 150 members of our community, and delved deep into archives around the country to ensure that the history of Nottingham’s LGBTQ+ community is preserved, highlighted and celebrated. I also pay tribute to many of the groups that support and advocate for LGBTQ+ people in Nottingham today: Notts LGBT+ network, Notts Pride, the Pastel Project, Nottingham Against Transphobia, Silver Pride, the Nottingham Centre for Transgender Health, Notts Trans Hub and more. Those involved are unsung heroes—often volunteers who work tirelessly to improve the lives of people in our community. They deserve huge thanks and recognition.

As well as marking LGBT History Month, this debate coincides with HIV Testing Week. I commend the Prime Minister for being the first to take a public HIV test. At the height of the AIDS crisis, that would have been unthinkable. It demonstrates just how far we have come in this regard. It is thanks to activists who have fought so hard for proper treatment and funding for research, and against ignorance and stigma, that we are where we are today. HIV is no longer a death sentence—far from it—and ending the epidemic is possible. UNAIDS has set a goal of 2030, and it is vital that our Government play their part in helping to achieve that. I welcome our commitments in this area.

Although it is right that progress is celebrated, it cannot come at the expense of recognising where we are continuing to fall short and even going backwards in some areas. Many of the struggles of the past are also struggles of the present. The LGBTQ+ community continues to face huge inequality, with trans people at the sharpest end, including higher levels of homelessness, discrimination at work and school, an increased likelihood of experiencing verbal and physical abuse, and, yes, disproportionate rates of suicide. This is not hyperbole, and recognising that sad reality is not in some way irresponsible. Life for may LGBTQ+ people is still immensely difficult.

We are living in an era of rising hate, both here and around the world, which is putting more people at risk. The state of politics on LGBTQ+ issues is appalling. Trans people have been made a political football, with their suffering almost considered a price worth paying to score political points. That makes some people feel tempted, I think, just to ignore the reality that trans people face, or to try to find some kind of so-called middle ground, but when the conversation has been dragged so far to the extreme right by anti-trans activists, the middle ground is far from moderate. History shows us that the answer is not to cede ground to the right’s framing; it is to fight back. Generations of queer activists held fast in demanding their rights, and they won them eventually.

I want to make clear, as a feminist and as a woman who is not trans, that I am proud to stand with my trans siblings. Those who claim that standing up for my rights as a woman requires rolling back the rights of trans people do not speak for me. When people with very loud voices and newspaper columns tell us that there is a conflict between trans rights and women’s rights, and that they are standing up for women, they are just not being honest. From the abuse towards women of colour competing in sport to cisgender lesbians being harassed in bathrooms, attacks on trans people endanger all women who do not fit within anti-trans activists’ ever-narrowing heteronormative and Eurocentric parameters of womanhood. Far from advocating for women’s rights, they are putting them under threat. Whether or not they realise it, they are helping to usher in the far right, who want to restrict women’s freedom and reinforce traditional gender roles.

We see time and again, for example, campaigns against trans rights and abortion rights working hand in hand, because they are part and parcel of a politics being dragged ever rightwards. Entire Conservative leadership contests have been fought on the basis of who can talk the toughest when it comes to an extremely marginalised group. The Conservative party has gone from supporting gender recognition reform under the May Government and promising to outlaw conversion therapy, to outright opposing the first and coming up with excuses to allow the second to continue.

I am extremely sad to say that my party, too, has been dragged in the wrong direction. Our policy on trans issues is worse now than it was in previous years. That is the wrong approach. Our party must completely reject the tired narrative that trans people are a threat, which underpins so much of this moral panic. It was not true about gay men in the ’80s and it is not true about the trans community now. Our approach must centre on trans people themselves and their humanity. We must stand against bigotry and for human rights, and deliver material change, such as a trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban; the reform that we have promised in the gender recognition process; proper access to gender-affirming healthcare to trans people of all ages, including by ensuring that everybody who needs puberty blockers has access to them; the creation of inclusive schools; and the expansion of affordable housing.

LGBT history is not just in the past; it is being made every day. Labour is now in government, and we must decide what role we want to play. Thanks to years of campaigning by LGBTQ+ people, previous Labour Governments took important strides in equalising the age of consent, repealing section 28, and legislating for civil partnerships, adoption rights and gender recognition. The future of the next generation of LGBTQ+ people will be shaped, in part at least, by our party. That generation will judge us on our record. We still have time to make it one to be proud of.

I want to speak directly to them—to LGBTQ+ youth. I know that for so many of you, life is really hard and your future feels uncertain. There is no doubt that this chapter of history, and the direction in which the world is moving, often feels dark, but you are not alone. There are so many people who love and not just accept you but celebrate you for who you are, both within our LGBTQ+ community and outside it. Our history is one of struggle, but not every chapter has been bleak. We have faced down bigotry and won rights. Throughout it all, queer joy has always co-existed. A better world is possible, and I hope that one day the need for struggle and the feelings of darkness will have gone and that our joy is all that remains. Until then, we will keep fighting.