Lesbian Visibility Week

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Lesbian Visibility Week.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. In this debate we are considering that this House believes LGBTQIA+ women and non-binary people should be recognised for the work that they do and the joy that they bring.

Lesbian Visibility Week originated in 1990, and has been given life and observed annually in the UK since 2019, enabled by my good friend and ex-publisher of DIVA magazine, Linda Riley. I am so pleased that we are once again acknowledging its importance in a Parliament that boasts the largest number of openly lesbian, bisexual and gay women MPs in history.

Maureen Colquhoun, the first openly lesbian MP, was elected 51 years ago but was deselected by her local party the year she came out—a stark reminder of the struggles faced by lesbian politicians. It took 23 years for there to be another openly lesbian MP. Thankfully, there are now a lot more of us, including some of my brilliant colleagues who will be speaking in this debate.

Lesbian and gay women face intersecting discrimination based on their gender and sexuality, and of course, people of colour and lesbians with disabilities also face unique challenges and discrimination due to intersecting identities. But while it is crucial to address those challenges, it is equally important to celebrate the significant contributions that lesbians make in fostering solidarity and sisterhood within their communities. Lesbian women have played, and will always play, a pivotal role in not only supporting each other but leading and strengthening the broader women’s and LGBT+ rights movements.

For the past five years we have set aside this week in April to celebrate and uplift lesbians everywhere, from all backgrounds and all walks of life. We are a community that grows stronger each and every year for it. This year, the theme is celebrating rainbow families, focusing on LGBT+ women and non-binary people’s families and recognising the importance of all family structures.

On Tuesday night I was proud to host the second annual parliamentary launch of Lesbian Visibility Week. At the event, London Women’s Clinic launched its new IVF equality manifesto. As a mum of two wonderful boys, one of whom was conceived through IVF, it is a subject close to my heart. Everyone deserves the chance to start a family, no matter their sexuality or gender identity.

It was around 16 years ago that I started the IVF process as part of a same-sex couple. At that time we went through unnecessary procedures, a long waiting list and significant costs. But despite the hurdles it was achievable, and my wonderful youngest son is now 14. Since the IVF journey that I was part of, the hurdles that LGBT+ couples have to jump through have increased, with a fragmented NHS meaning a postcode lottery in provision, while the financial cost is significantly higher.

The event was attended by many MPs and guests, and I thank everyone who came. I particularly thank the Minister for Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), for attending the event and speaking, and for responding to this debate, as well as DIVA’s Linda Riley and Anya Sizer from the London Women’s Clinic for their speeches. It is disappointing that despite multiple promises there remain far too many unnecessary financial and practical barriers for same-sex couples, and a postcode lottery on IVF. I have written to the Secretary of State and Ministers on that on a number of occasions, and I will keep fighting until all barriers are removed.

I have dedicated most of my political career to campaigning for LGBTQIA+ equality. My first political activism was campaigning against section 28 and highlighting the damage it did, and continues to do, to our community. Section 28 was intended to silence the discussion of lesbians and gays. It failed. It united and energised our communities.

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Like her, my first political activism was campaigning against section 28; that is what made me join our wonderful party. I feel truly supported by her and by my other lesbian colleagues in this place. It was that rhetoric, and comments that our relationships and families were somehow pretend family relationships, that was so hurtful. Does she agree that we now need to safeguard against the risks of the rhetoric about trans people doing the same sort of harm to them as it did to us in the 1980s?

I absolutely agree, and will touch on that later. As a community, we are always stronger when we are together, and we will always have T as part of the LGBT community.

Given the global attacks on our LGBT+ community, we need to find that fighting spirit again. The attacks on our community did not just start happening again; they were driven by far-right money from America, hate in this country and globally, the media and—yes—politicians, who should know better, continuing to demonise the LGBT+ community. Last year, I spoke about the increase in the lesbophobia that I faced: from being called a rug-muncher to being called a nonce, and having pride flags in my home town of Hebburn ripped down.

We have seen a rise in hate crime, and we must make active efforts to support our non-binary and trans community, who still face unique day-to-day challenges for simply being themselves and loving who they love. Under current hate crime legislation, hate crimes based on race or religion can attract a greater penalty because they are classified as aggravated offences. Our manifesto committed to ensuring that hate crime based on sexual orientation, gender identity and/or disability would also be classified as aggravated offences. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about moves towards that happening.

I sit on the Council of Europe and its committee on equality and non-discrimination. Part of my brief is reporting on the ban on so-called conversion practices across Europe. As part of that, I visit and speak to people in other countries about their legislation. One country was Italy. Outrageously, the official visit request was rejected, and I was unofficially told that this was because they did not want more of our finger-wagging critique. Thankfully, the very nice Maltese Government have offered us a visit instead.

Just last month, as I got off a train at King’s Cross, I was verbally abused by a man who shouted at me that I was obviously a lesbian, that I was a sexual deviant and that I was going to hell. I am frequently misgendered. I do not mean occasionally—it is a weekly occurrence. In January, I was misgendered three times during one two-hour train journey. I have been misgendered by staff of this House. I was misgendered while buying some jeans last week. This is genuinely a frequent issue for me and a number of my lesbian friends.

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and for securing debate. I know that she has spoken passionately about these issues over many decades and that, like me, she will have received lots of correspondence from concerned trans and LGBT+ constituents over the last few days. Does she agree that it is for the Labour Government to get on with advancing the LGBT rights in the manifesto—things like the trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban, modernisation of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and making LGBT hate crime an aggravated offence?

Yes, I believe that only now, with a Labour Government, will we see the continued advancement of LGBT rights, as we have in the past.

While we are on the topic of the judgment, let me say that it does not offer clarity. I believe that it has sown division and caused contradictions in legislation. The ruling was made without a single contribution from trans people and leaves them legally and practically at a huge disadvantage. I believe that the judgment raises many more questions than it answers, and I will be writing to the Secretary of State to set that out.

As a woman, a lesbian, a feminist and a proud dyke, the Supreme Court judgment, for me, is a step backwards. The court should not be telling me what a lesbian is or is not or how I should identify. We need empathy in finding ways to support people and let everyone live their own lives. Of course, we need to protect single-sex spaces in the very limited situations that they are needed—which is, and was already, covered in legislation and has never been disputed—while maintaining clear protections for trans people, especially trans women.

To see an already marginalised community attacked even more and the use of the law to increase discrimination, not prevent it, is deeply upsetting. Those celebrating the impact the decision has on trans women—that of curtailing their protections—should not be surprised when the same people that funded and supported their attacks then push for rights to be rolled back for all women. Research from Just Like Us clearly highlights that young lesbians are more supportive of the trans community than any other part of the LGBTQIA+ community. They are most likely to know a trans person—92%—and to say that they are supportive or very supportive of trans people—96%.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. In the light of what she is saying about young lesbians, I want to champion the work of Schools OUT, which is led and was founded by one of my constituents, Sue Sanders. The organisation educates people in school about the importance of LGBT diversity, challenges prejudice at exactly the important moment in young people’s lives when they will be exploring who they may want to be as they grow older, and increases the tolerance and respect that everybody deserves.

In this as in so many other ways, young people can often teach us a lesson or two. I am pleased that my hon. Friend referenced Sue Sanders, as I did in my speech last year, and all the great work she has done over the years with Schools OUT, and indeed across the whole of our movement.

Contrary to the narrative being heard at the moment, most heterosexual women agree with young lesbians. We need to be clear that lesbophobia, homophobia and transphobia are driven by attacks from a far-right, hateful minority. Feminism has to be intersectional, recognising that all women, including trans women, deserve the same rights, safety and respect.

I thank the Minister for giving up her time today, and for all her work. Having an out lesbian Minister responding to a debate on Lesbian Visibility Week is something that we can all be very proud of.

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I congratulate my hon. Friend and sister the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) on securing this debate. I am a proud trade unionist, a proud Black Country MP and a proud lesbian MP—out for 26 years and now out here in this place. I rise to add my voice and my visibility to the debate. I could talk about the advances made by Labour Governments or the advances we hope for from this Labour Government, but instead I want to talk about a subject very close to my heart, the subject of this year’s Lesbian Visibility Week: being a mama.

There have always been lesbian mums. So many of us feel the urge to parent and to mother, often—sometimes in the past, sometimes today—in the face of huge homophobia and abuse, as well as practical obstacles. Indeed, a Radio 4 documentary in December, “The Lesbian Mothers Scandal”, set out how homophobic judges removed children from their mums simply because they were lesbians and sometimes gave custody of the children to abusive fathers. These women, who are now in their 70s and 80s, deserve an apology for the actions of the courts and the family court system. I hope the Minister will look at giving it.

I say again what I said in my maiden speech a few months ago:

“I grew up in a world where people like me could not get married, but now our beloved daughter has both her mothers’ names on her birth certificate.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2024; Vol. 754, c. 194.]

One of the proudest achievements of our last Labour Government, but one that people sometimes do not speak of, was the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008. For the first time, it recognised lesbian parents with both our names on birth certificates, and it opened fertility treatment to us, as well as to single women. Sometimes I think it is missed off the list of achievements of the last Labour Government, because it was an achievement for women in particular.

I recently spoke to a constituent who wanted to have a baby with her partner. She was told by her ICB that because of her partner’s situation—her partner already had a child—she would not qualify for any rounds of IVF. I looked into it and found that to be the case in other ICBs too. This needs to be taken into account as people enter new relationships. That is so important for our community.

My hon. Friend and sister is absolutely correct. There are a load of stupid barriers that do not reflect modern families and how we form our relationships nowadays. People do form second partnerships, and people do have existing children. Frankly, when many people are delaying childbearing and when fertility problems are on the rise, although in many cases they are completely soluble with medical treatment that we know very well how to do, the fact that these barriers continue to exist is absolutely outrageous. Too many women are navigating a postcode lottery and unfair rules, piling costs on their credit cards—I know about that—and worrying about money when they should be concentrating on the medical process.

In this place, books for children depicting all sorts of families were once decried as depraved and were used as justification to deny that lesbian families existed, to silence us and to call our families pretend. No longer. Heather does have two mummies, and so do Sam, Sanjay, Jessie, Aaron, Lily, Albie, Clementine and so many more, because it is love that makes a family.

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.

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.

No problem. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) for securing this debate: she is a fantastic champion of our community and I thank her for all that she does.

It is a wonderful privilege to speak in this debate today as a proud lesbian MP. I am an historian by trade and I particularly enjoy learning about the social history of our country and of the everyday people who organised, agitated and persisted to deliver the enormous social change that we have witnessed over the past few centuries, but it has always struck me that there was something not quite right about the books that I have pored over, which is that lesbians are completely missing. Women who we might now look back on and suggest may have been lesbians or LGBTQ+ are brushed past. There are pages of unwritten sentences and of unheard stories. In the words of the historian Rebecca Jennings, lesbian history

“has frequently been associated with silence, invisibility, and denial”.

Her excellent book “A Lesbian History of Britain” contains many examples that I will draw on today.

Throughout our history, lesbians have been forced to hide their love and their relationships out of fear, and it is no surprise that so few records exist. But I will admit to being somewhat surprised by the pains to which historians have gone to explain away what seems quite obvious. Two women in the late 1700s who eloped to Wales, shared a bed and addressed each other as “my beloved” in their correspondence were described by historians as having a “romantic friendship”, but not one that was intimate. I do not dispute the power of a friendship between women, but that seems a stretch.

The discovery of Anne Lister’s diaries in the 1980s, which were carefully written in an ancient Greek code, were a turning point. She had the courage to document her relationships with women. The discovery of her diaries shattered the historical conspiracy to erase us. When I think about the women throughout our history who might now be stood proudly with us as lesbians but who did not have the power that we do of rights, an identity and a community, I think the most important thing we can do is tell our stories and be proud of who we are. We must never underestimate the power of being seen.

In the context of my hon. Friend’s experience as a lesbian mother, will she consider the experience of lesbian mothers in their 70s and 80s, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance)? Does she agree with me and my hon. Friend that there is an argument now for an apology to those mothers, who experienced not just shouting in the street but institutional attacks on their right to family life as a result not of the law, but of the prejudice of the courts?

Absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend very much for that intervention.

I am very proud to be an out lesbian MP, and I am prouder than words can describe of my family. With the privilege of the position that I have in this place, I will do my best to be seen to be myself, because that is the best way to honour those who have come before us and to ensure that, for those who come after, being a lesbian, being LGBTQ+ or being a rainbow family is finally non-remarkable. When the historians pen the books about our small window of time, it is not just that our whole lives will be documented but that it will be possible to read about them without a single sign of shame or controversy, because we deserve nothing less.