Pride Month

Peter Gibson Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con) [V]]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate as we mark the end of Pride Month. Yesterday, I was delighted to attend Longfield Academy to meet members of the SMILE group who have produced artwork to mark Pride, alongside Darlington’s deputy mayor and our town’s LGBT champion.

Pride flags are now a common fixture of almost every organisation in June. That is an important measure of how far we have come as a society, celebrating diversity; embracing acceptance, tolerance and understanding; and recalling the struggles that our LGBT community have had and the battles still to be won, both here and abroad,

Pride marches grew out of the Stonewall riots in New York, and the Stonewall bar in Greenwich Village in New York remains a place of pilgrimage for LGBT visitors. It seems hard to imagine that a fairly small bar could become the catalyst for a worldwide movement that has brought about so much change and freedom around the world.

For some, including me, Pride is something deeply personal: it is a public display of recognition of our worth and dignity as individuals, when for so many years we were criminalised and did not enjoy the same rights and protections as others. Every day I am reminded of the battles and struggles we have overcome. Indeed, my being in this House as an openly gay man, among many others, is an indicator of how far we have come. There is not a gay Conservative who has not had the shame of section 28 thrown at them in debate. Although we cannot forget this party’s past, I am proud of how far we have come to now be the party of gay marriage. Section 28 and its impact on our community might now be in the past, but we should be mindful of the steps being taken in Hungary that, sadly, reflect very similar provisions. I was in secondary school in the late 1980s and suffered elements of homophobic bullying, and although the spectre of that Act may have hung over them I have nothing but praise for the supportive pastoral care given to me by teachers such Dorothy Granville.

This August, I will be celebrating 13 years since my civil partnership, which was an important milestone in my life and a day on which my partner and I fondly reflect. For many there just a short time after the law had changed, including my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), it was their first attendance at such an event. Since that time, many thousands of couples have celebrated civil partnerships and marriages, with records indicating that there are now already more than 100,000 same-sex marriages.

However, much still remains to be done. I am proud to be part of these diverse Conservative Benches, with many openly gay colleagues in this place doing the job they love, free to love the person they do, and free from the fear that will have been experienced by our predecessors, who lived in fear of being outed. This Conservative Government are tackling the scourge and abuse that is conversion therapy. That such practices still exist in our free and modern society should be a warning to all that dark forces are never far away.

Solidarity with the trans community is important too. The “T” in LGBT is just as important to our family and to my family as the “L”, the “G” and the “B”. As I learned of my nephew Luke’s transition and his coming out as trans, I am reminded of the same journey of fear, acceptance, love and celebration that gay men and women go through. We may live in enlightened times, but there is always more to do. Pride, the rainbow flag, is a celebration of our diversity and a symbol of how far we have come, but it is a challenge to those countries around the world that do not share our love, tolerance and respect for the entire LGBT community.

Finally, I want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for appointing Lord Herbert to the position of his special envoy on LGBT rights. He will lead the first ever global LGBT conference next year, here, during Pride Month. We can as a country be rightly proud of how far we have come and what we are doing, but we must not forget that for many, especially those abroad, there is still a very, very long way to go.