Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Women’s Health Inequalities

Stephen Farry Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Hannah Bardell]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. We know that it is sometimes the most vulnerable children who are being taken out of schools who need that relationship education. That is causing huge issues. As we know, there are many LGBT young people who are suffering profoundly for various reasons, whether it is their parents taking them out of school or the schools not yet providing that education. My own sex education in high school was literally about putting a condom on a banana and a quick discussion about the pill, and that was it. It is frightful to think that that is what children were being taught, and we have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go.

The work that Time for Inclusive Education—TIE—and Pink Saltire are doing in Scotland is hugely important. In 2019, TIE delivered 41 education sessions across Scotland, and found that 85% of the pupils it worked with who had previously held negative views or had a negative attitude towards LGBT peers reported that their opinions had changed positively after TIE had delivered a session. I have seen and been involved with some of the materials that TIE has produced. Its work is not just around sexuality; it is also around harmful gender stereotypes, which have a hugely negative impact. The learning outcomes highlighted that all the young people involved had an improved understanding of challenging those stereotypes, being true to themselves and speaking up if they were struggling. The testimonies that TIE shared with me included an S1 pupil saying that they had learned

“to never bottle anything up and to speak to someone about problems”.

Another said they had learned that

“no matter how bad things are it can get better if you try”.

Another had learned that

“it’s ok to ask for help…that you shouldn’t be afraid of who you are”.

Another had learned

“that it’s ok to be a bi girl and that things will get better”.

Another had learned that

“it is fine to be LGBTQ+ and as a lesbian I felt a lot better about myself after this”.

A poster created by pupils in Primary 7 read:

“Girls can play football, we’re all equal!”

I could not agree with that more.

In closing, I just want to say how grateful I was to Members of this place, to the Speaker and to the House authorities when I recently suffered homophobic abuse—that is the only way to describe it—from a Member of the other place. I named him at the time, and I am not going to name him again, but it had a profound impact on my mental health. I also want to mention the support that I have had from the police. That was the first time I had ever experienced that kind of discrimination in my workplace. We all know that there are workplaces across the UK where LGBT people are facing discrimination, but to have experienced it in such an acute way, with a Member of the House of Lords saying homophobic things about me in the press, is still something that I find utterly incredible. There is not very much I can say about it, because the matter is ongoing, but I do want to say how grateful I am to the Members of all political parties who supported and contacted me, and to the public. The Member in question is a former MP from Northern Ireland who now sits as a life peer in the House of Lords. I received a number of emails from people in the Northern Ireland LGBT community, telling me about the damage he had done to their community over many decades. I did not know who he was before I came across him.

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

I appreciate the hon. Member’s shock and revulsion at the comments that were made. May I stress that they are very much unrepresentative of Northern Ireland today? My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Colum Eastwood) and I are putting forward a different face of Northern Ireland for these types of debates. As the hon. Member has indicated, many people in Northern Ireland have suffered and been at the brunt of similar comments in the past, including from that Member, but I hope we are turning the page.

[Hannah Bardell]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and I could not agree more. I have a deep affection for, and many friends in, Northern Ireland. I have spent a lot of time there. I got emails from people saying, “We’re so sorry. This person doesn’t represent us.” I knew that, but none the less I was heartbroken to hear of the profound impact that this individual has had on the LGBT community in Northern Ireland.

Putting that to one side, I am glad that we are having this debate. I hope all Members will agree that there is still a long way to go and that debates such as this one are part of the picture of making sure that good and proper healthcare is available for everybody in the LGBT community. We as Members must do everything we can to make sure that no one suffers from poor mental or physical health just because of their gender, sexuality or gender identity. We are all equal. At the end of the day, we are all human.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and for the fact that the debate has been organised.

This debate has largely focused on how equality has been implemented in most of the United Kingdom—that is, Great Britain—but of course the context is very different in Northern Ireland. Not only do we share many of the problems that have been set out this afternoon, in relation to accessing rights and how that works in practice, but we have had long-running battles with equality that have only come to fruition in the past few months. For example, take the issue of abortion, which is relevant to this debate for reasons I will come to in a moment.

The Abortion Act went through this House in 1967, but it was only last year that reforms for Northern Ireland were put through this House. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) in that regard. Similarly, through the efforts of the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) and others, legislation passed to provide for equal marriage for Northern Ireland has passed through this House—again with a number of years’ time lag. People in Northern Ireland are no different from people anywhere else in these islands, but very sadly we have had a much longer fight for our rights. The Irish sea has tended to form some sort of barrier where, in some people’s eyes, natural biology seems to change, but the exact same issues and challenges exist in Northern Ireland, and it is very disappointing that we have had that struggle.

There has been some pushback in relation to why this House should have legislated for Northern Ireland, but sadly, owing to blockages in our system, previous attempts at reform have been unsuccessful in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and, of course, that Assembly was out of operation for a while. It is now operational again, but it is still uncertain whether these kinds of serious reforms can be taken forward. Speaking as a former Member of that Assembly, I had no difficulty whatsoever in this House last year having to legislate in both of those respects. I want to put on record my thanks and, indeed, the thanks of many other people in Northern Ireland who are only now benefiting from these changes following the House having taken those particular actions.

As I mentioned in an intervention, Northern Ireland is a very diverse society, and often the views that have been expressed in this Chamber and, indeed, by Members of the other place, have not been representative of the views of Northern Ireland, where there is clear majority support for LGBT rights right across the political spectrum. We very gladly see a change in that regard, but obviously we are on a journey that is still being made.

I want to make a number of points to specifically address the issue of LBT women and trans people.

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Member has spoken extremely passionately and compellingly about the changes in Northern Ireland. Will he join me in paying tribute to the late, great Lyra McKee and the work that she did? Northern Ireland has some fine champions of equality and diversity, and she was one of the greatest. I recently had the privilege of meeting her partner, Sara Canning, who is also an incredible woman and also a great champion for LGBT equality. Lyra is sadly missed. I am sure that she will not be forgotten and that people in Northern Ireland will feel the power of her work for a very long time to come.

[Stephen Farry]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that intervention. Indeed, Lyra McKee’s legacy has many forms, not least in terms of giving further voice to social reforms that are being delivered. Her very sad death set in a particular context efforts made by both the UK and Irish Governments over the past number of months in relation to the restoration of devolution. Her memory will live long in Northern Ireland and, indeed, far beyond our shores.

I want first to make reference to the issue of abortion that I mentioned. I stress that this is a critical issue for lesbian and bisexual women, who are more likely to be pregnant as a result of sexual crime than heterosexual women. In Northern Ireland we have a mental health crisis. Homophobic and heterosexist bias is often, sadly, deeply ingrained in our society. LBT women and trans people therefore face huge levels of discrimination and social isolation. That often relates to issues such as how relationships and sex education is taken forward in our schools. That is not being done on a purely level playing field and on a purely objective basis. Sadly, homophobic bullying is still far too often a feature for our young people having to deal with their own experiences. Last year, the Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment issued an exam question stating: “Explain two negative effects of sexual orientation on the wellbeing of a young person.” That question was actually asked in an exam by a publicly funded body, so it is an example of how the situation is often loaded.

According to recent studies in Northern Ireland, about 70% of LBT women and 82% of trans people suffer from depression, and LBT women, in particular, have extremely elevated rates of self-harm. Owing to the effects of austerity and funding cuts in our health service, these issues are magnified for those facing other forms of discrimination, such as working-class LBT women, those with disabilities, and people of colour.

These are just a few examples of the policy reforms that we urgently need to see in Northern Ireland. We need proper research in terms of how we move things forward, notably on cervical screening uptake. We need rules on qualification for publicly funded IVF, and these need to be tailored for women who are in same-sex relationships. We need full implementation of donor intrauterine insemination regulations by the Regional Fertility Centre, as well as guidelines on eligibility.

We need mandatory training for healthcare professionals on aspects of healthcare such as LBT motherhood, and we need a fully operational gender identity clinic. Belfast’s clinic has the longest waiting time of anywhere in the UK, with some individuals waiting as long as five years. We must have a system that is based on self-identification, to protect trans people from being forced down the dangerous path of self-medicating.

To make matters worse, Northern Ireland’s only LBT women’s organisation, HERe, is at risk of closure due to funding ending in June. The local Health Minister has rejected several requests for meetings and instead has lumped them in with a general roundtable on LGBT issues, rather than focusing on the immediate looming consequences. That is unacceptable and needs to be addressed and reversed as a matter of urgency.

Those are some of the particular challenges facing us in Northern Ireland. There is a commonality, to an extent, in terms of the issues. But I trust Members appreciate that we are coming from a further starting point in Northern Ireland, where we have not had the same equality in law, at least in theory, while we share common concerns in terms of equality in practice. I am very grateful, on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland, to all the Members of this House who have shown leadership over the past 12 months in trying to address some of those outstanding issues in our society.