Lesbian Visibility Week

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

It is a real privilege to speak in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) on securing it and on her excellent opening speech. I also thank our fantastic ally, our hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), for all that she does—for the pertinent points she makes about supporting the whole LGBT community and for all the work she has done in standing up for trans people. I must not forget our hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), an outstanding champion who, long before many of us were in Parliament, was flying the flag in what was a very lonely place at the time.

It was also a real privilege to attend the event on Monday that my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow organised and to meet Linda Riley, the publisher of Diva, and Professor Sue Sanders, the co-founder of LGBT History Month. Just to be among such people is such an honour for someone like me. Thinking back to 30 years ago, Diva was quite a lifeline for people as isolated as we were in south-west Wales, perhaps not knowing anyone quite like us and certainly not wanting to be open about ourselves because we were worried about society’s reaction.

At the time of section 28, I was in a relationship with another woman, both of us were teachers and this was very inhibiting. As I have previously said in this Chamber and in Westminster Hall, it was a very difficult time—a time when it was not easy to challenge the homophobic bullying that was going on then and which still goes on now. I thank all those who were braver than I was and came out sooner than I did.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I apologise to the House for intervening, but I have to go with my wife to celebrate her 17 years as chancellor of the University of Hull.

The hon. Lady is rightly talking about the bullying and the fear she experienced. There has been some of that more recently. I started to become conscious of some of the issues when Kathleen Stock was being bullied mercilessly in Sussex. We ought to be careful. If I were to make a speech in this debate, I would say that two of the greatest events I have been to were the LGB Alliance conference meetings, which were picketed by people who seemed to hate the people inside. They would not come inside to listen; they were shouting outside. That kind of attitude has echoes of what speakers today have talked about.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central has said, there is real need to approach these things in a calm and appropriate way, and to respect everybody’s different ways of manifesting their humanity.

What for me is very telling is the fact that I came out when my relationship broke up. It is almost impossible to hide grief. It is ironic that, having spent a considerable period not being open and trying not to make it obvious that we were in a relationship, it was when we did not “need” that hidden approach any more that I came out. It is incredibly difficult to explain to people why you are in such a state of grief if you do not explain the relationship. What was interesting about that was not only the reaction of very supportive friends, which was great, but finding that some people had never guessed; I was quite shocked and surprised by that. It was strange to realise that we were more hidden than we understood, because people did not see lesbians. That shows the importance of Lesbian Visibility Week.

Perhaps because society is so male-dominated and women are marginalised in many respects, or perhaps because women are more likely to be seen doing things together, holding hands or going on holiday with other women, we were not even noticed. One of the important aspects of raising lesbian visibility is enabling people to be their natural selves and enabling other people to recognise that. Of course that has meant over the years that women were perhaps not the subject of homophobic legislation. In many ways, it reflected the role of women as society was then and that women were very marginalised and not seen. That is perhaps part of the wider picture of where women were.

There have been workplace stereotypes: women have to dress in a certain way and behave in a certain way towards heterosexual men, or they are expected to do so. When they do not, be that as lesbians or as heterosexual women, it can be interpreted negatively, which has often held lesbian women back over the years. It is a form of discrimination and stereotyping that has had pernicious results.

It is not enough for us to hope that attitudes can change. Hope is not enough. We all have a responsibility to challenge, and to use our legislative powers to strengthen our challenging through legislation. We were proud, as a Labour Government from 1997 to 2010, to do a number of important things that helped LGBT rights, including ending the ban on LGBT people serving in our armed forces, ending discrimination against lesbian and gay partners for immigration purposes, and giving LGBT individuals and couples the right to adopt children. Of course, we scrapped section 28, which was very important for people like me, but we also banned discrimination in the workplace and in vocational training with the introduction of the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003.

We also included homophobia in the definition of hate crimes. Sadly, we have seen a rise in hate crimes in recent years, to which I draw the Government’s attention. In particular, I ask that more should be done to tackle homophobic, including transphobic, hate crime.

Of course, we created civil partnerships and awarded statutory rights to fertility treatment for lesbians on the NHS but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow said, there is a long way to go on equal and fair access. I hope the Minister has listened to what she said today, and to what she said to the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday, and I hope progress can be made on this sooner rather than later.

Although we have made progress, we know that, in many respects, there is a lot to do to stop attitudes regressing in this country but also internationally. Women are hardly noticed or recognised in many countries and, if they are, they are certainly not allowed to be in same- sex relationships.

Again, I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. With others in this House, I hope I can play my part in securing greater lesbian visibility.