That this House has considered LGBT history month.
It gives me great pleasure to open this debate. The beginning of this year’s LGBT history month gives the House a timely opportunity to consider the progress that we have made as a country in guaranteeing respect and freedom from discrimination for our diverse communities. It also gives us a chance to look at the progress, and sometimes the lack of progress, in the rest of the world. The all-party parliamentary group on global LGBT rights, which I co-chair with the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), who is in his place, is especially concerned with that global aspect.
Here in the UK, we have come a long way from the dark days when homosexuality was criminalised and LGBT people were forced by the prejudice in society to live their lives underground, constantly in fear of being discovered, mocked, blackmailed and punished. It gives me great pride to stand in what has been described as the gayest Parliament in the world—perhaps that is the law of unintended consequences. If I had been told on my first day in this place more than 30 years ago that we would have achieved this much progress during my membership of the House, I would scarcely have believed it, although I would have been very happy.
I am particularly proud of the role that the last Labour Government played in ridding the statute book of discriminatory anti-LGBT legislation. We did that not only in the area of outdated sexual offences, but in the workplace and in equal access to the provision of goods and services across our society. The battle to repeal the odious and harmful section 28 was particularly hard fought, but its removal was an essential requisite if we were to begin to rebuild the safety and wellbeing of LGBT+ pupils in our schools, which had been destroyed by that piece of prejudice masquerading as legislation.
This morning, it gave me great pleasure to do an interview about those doughty abseiling lesbians who dropped themselves into the House of Lords 35 years ago today. They waited until the Lords had voted to include section 28 in the Bill; they did allow the debate to go on before they made their protest. They smuggled in a washing line from Clapham market under one of their donkey jackets. People like that who fight for LGBT rights when they are under the most attack are our heroines in the liberation movement.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her personal role in many of those struggles over so many years. We all stand on the shoulders of that today, but does she share my deep concern that, despite all that fantastic progress, there is a reversion in a number of areas? There is currently a petition before this House suggesting we should go back to the dark days of section 28, we see daily attacks on the trans and non-binary community, and in last year’s figures we saw the sharpest rise in hate crime against people on the basis of their gender identity and sexuality.
I thank my hon. Friend. I am not sure about him standing on my shoulders; I am not sure I could quite cope with that, but I understand absolutely the points he made and, unlike my response to them, they are very serious. They are a serious cause for concern and should concern everybody in this House.
Returning to the transformative work of the last Labour Government in this era, I recall that we needed to invoke the Parliament Act, no less, to equalise the age of consent in the face of massively ferocious opposition and ongoing vetoes from the House of Lords. This was the heavy lifting and it was done because it was the right thing to do. These progressive gains have made our society a better and more supportive place for everyone, and they finally allowed LGBT+ people to be respected and included and to enjoy equal rights before the law.
I see the effect of these gains especially in the increased visibility of LGBT+ people and their willingness to live their authentic lives in the open at last.
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the real gains from being able to teach about LGBT people in schools is that young people—when I say “young” I probably mean those under 35 or under 40—in this country have a very low rate of problems with LGB and T people and they find many of the debates we are currently having on the roll-back completely bemusing, because for them it is just normal to have diversity in sexuality and gender?
It is almost like my hon. Friend can read my mind—which is a slightly worrying prospect—because I am going to come on to make precisely that observation.
These gains have led to the increased visibility of LGBT people and confidence among our community for them to live their lives as they wish, in the open. I also see it in the recent census returns, which show an increased propensity of young people to define themselves as LGBT+ without the stigma that that label would have presented in the past. There are those who regard this as a bad thing and call it a “social contagion,” but I regard it as a welcome freeing of our society from oppressive norms which imprisoned people and narrowed their lives, depriving them of the chance to flourish and live their lives more truthfully.
None of this was easily accomplished. None of it happened automatically as if there was always going to be an inevitable progression from less enlightening times to a more enlightened present day. This progress was not inevitable. It had to be campaigned for; it had to be fought for; it had to be won. And it was won, often in the teeth of fierce opposition from the red-top tabloids and some in the Conservative party who put section 28 on the statute book and blighted the lives of generations of children—although I am glad to see that there has been progress there too, and I genuinely welcome Conservative Members to the ongoing fight to maintain and strengthen the gains we have made, because there is no doubt that there is a backlash, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) pointed out, and a threat that we may go backwards here and in the rest of the world.
In the UK, we are approaching the 20th anniversary of the repeal of section 28, the 10th anniversary of the equal marriage Act and, incidentally, the 25th anniversary of my own coming out, but there are still things on our immediate to-do list. First, the Government must fulfil their pledge to legislate for a comprehensive ban on conversion therapy. That must include all LGBT+ people and not be rendered ineffective by either a religious or a consent loophole. For let us be in no doubt: conversion therapy is torture, it is inherently abusive and damaging, and five years after pledging action it is past time for this Government to act. I hope we can hear from the Minister in his response some indication of precisely how and when the Government will do that. I note the recent announcement of a draft Bill, which is welcome, but as yet there is no detail on when it might be enacted, or what it will actually consist of. As the delay lengthens, vulnerable LGBT+ people are left at risk of this unacceptable abuse.
I am very concerned to hear what the hon. Lady has just said; I had not heard that rumour, but many of us are already expressing grave concerns about Rwanda’s record on LGBT rights. Does she agree that this House and the Government in particular would do well to focus more on the terrible abuses of LGBT rights abroad, particularly where people’s lives are at risk in other countries?
I agree with the hon. and learned Lady about the work that the Government should be doing abroad. To be fair to the Government, they do use and are using diplomatic channels, particularly to try to further decriminalisation in those countries that still criminalise LGBT relationships. While I have to give the Minister 10 out of 10 for his tie at the Qatar world cup, I can give only five out of 10 for his Government as a whole for their work across the world, simply because there are such contradictions between doing good, progressive things in some areas and then contemplating really not very progressive things at all in others. I hope that he will be able to reassure us that sending asylum seekers to Ghana is not on his Government’s to-do list.
No fewer than 300 anti-LGBT+ laws have been introduced by the Republicans in the USA, attempting to create a new era of repression that includes, significantly, the rolling back of women’s abortion rights and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. As I have said, in the fight for equality, we advance together or not at all. If we start losing LGBT+ rights, women’s rights will not be far behind.
After all those warnings, I wish to end on a positive note. There has been an increase in nations decriminalising LGBT+ relationships, and equal marriage legislation has progressed across the world, which means 33 countries have such laws, covering 1.3 billion people. I am already taken, Madam Deputy Speaker, but 1.3 billion people is quite a big pool to fish in.
No, I certainly am not—I am making a general observation, as my hon. Friend knows.
There is progress in the world, but there is also regression. It is up to us all to put our collective shoulder to the wheel in this House and push our country and the world towards progress and liberation.
I begin by congratulating my co-chair of the APPG on global LGBT rights, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), on her excellent opening speech. It is always a pleasure to work with her on the APPG, and I look forward to all the work we will continue to do together in this space. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for making time for this debate, particularly during LGBT History Month. I know time is precious, particularly with the recess in February, so I am grateful for the Committee’s attention.
I also welcome the Minister; I am happy that it is this Minister who is responding to the debate, and I particularly want to pay tribute to him; I know he is sick of hearing it, but his bravery in wearing the “One Love” armband in Qatar sent a strong signal. I commend him and am grateful to him for that; it is important that we remember that act of bravery.
We are now 50 years on from the Stonewall riots in the United States, the first ever pride rally in London and the decriminalisation of homosexual acts in the UK. We stand here in not only the mother of all Parliaments, but what was, until recently, labelled the gayest Parliament in the world. I think that is a term of endearment and very much a good thing; while I must heap praise on and congratulate our Commonwealth partner New Zealand on recently nicking that title from us, I am sure that we will get it back before too long.
We are here to talk about LGBT History Month, and of course LGBT history stretches much further back than just 50 years—believe it or not, we have been here much longer. For as long as there has been love between humans, there has been LGBT history. In fact, throughout history LGBT love has not just been limited to humans. Historians consider that the first chat-up line ever recorded took place between two ancient Egyptian gods. It is said that the deities Set and Horus argued for nearly a century about who should be the rightful ruler on Osiris’s throne. Considering a different approach, Set turned to Horus and said, and I quote:
I am always happy to be commentated on by the hon. Member—but I digress.
Despite the absence of laws criminalising same-sex relations, many countries still impose restrictions on LGBT people in other ways. The legal position on homosexuality softened in the 19th century with the more progressive and modern move—some might say—from “punishable by death” to just life imprisonment. The lack of sufficient evidence to convict all those suspected of having engaged in homosexual activity led to the introduction of the “blackmailer’s charter”, which criminalised gross indecency between men. That was the legislation under which many people, including Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing, were convicted, and it also affected transgender people.
The prohibition against cross-dressing started to take off during the 19th century, and to this day at least 15 jurisdictions across Africa, Asia and the middle east still impose criminal sanctions against people whose gender expression does not align with their sex assigned at birth. In the early 20th century, Australia introduced legislation specifically to criminalise sexual acts between men, which directly influenced legislation in many other countries including Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda.
“Gross indecency”, as defined in law, was limited to men until the 1920s, when people discovered that lesbians existed. English lawmakers identified an anomaly in the law, and attempted to criminalise same-sex relationships between women. Fortunately those attempts failed, but the damage had already been done internationally, and many former British colonies went ahead and adopted the criminalisation of lesbianism. Today—this was a point made very ably by my friend the hon. Member for Wallasey—at least 43 countries continue to criminalise sexual activity between women. Some do so explicitly by criminalising intimacy, while others do so through other gender-neutral provisions.
The hon. Gentleman is making some extremely important points. Does he agree that it is a tragedy that countries that stood up against colonialism and imperialism are seeking to entrench what were colonial and imperialist exports of this country through the criminalisation of those very people?
I commend my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) for the important work that they do in co-chairing the APPG, but does my hon. Friend agree that there is a role for all of us, as parliamentarians, in reaching out and working with people in other countries to help them change the regressive laws that he is describing?
I agree entirely, and I commend my right hon. Friend for all the work he has done in paving the way for many of us in this place.
Let me now turn to some of the UK’s more recent history in this regard. As I said earlier, the decriminalisation of same-sex relationships in the UK finally occurred in 1967. By the turn of the century, LGBT people could serve in the armed forces and the age of consent had been equalised.
We should note, however, that when same-sex relationships between men were legalised it was due not to some euphoria about gay rights, but to a conservative view held in many quarters that we should look after these sorry, poor, gay individuals who were likely to be blackmailed. While that was a step forward, the transformation in people’s minds in relation to how to consider gay people took many more years. Are there not similarities with the way in which some people talk about trans people now? Perhaps we are on that journey as well.
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Secondly, the Government should be tackling the rising tide of anti-LGBT+ hate crime. Currently in the UK, the atmosphere is becoming increasingly hostile, with a 42% increase in reported hate crime targeting sexual orientation and a 56% increase in the targeting of transgender people. Some of this is associated with the backlash I mentioned earlier, to which I will return. Some of it, I am sad to say, has been provoked deliberately by the disgraceful targeting and problematising of transgendered people by some members of the Government and their enablers in the press.
We are currently in the middle of a full-blown hysteria which targets transgender people using many of the tropes and smears which those of us who lived through the ’80s remember only too well being used against gay men and lesbians. Trans people, especially trans women, are disgracefully being portrayed as automatically predatory, inherently dangerous to women and children and somehow responsible for all the violence against women which plagues our society. That is an offensive caricature which does not bear relation to the truth.
The Prime Minister spent his leadership election campaign pledging to save, and I quote him, “our women” from the supposed threat of trans people, and we currently have an Equalities Minister—not the Minister opposite, the right hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), I hasten to add—who feels able to use the term trans women and predator in the same sentence, as if the two were somehow inherently the same. Although she appears to have lost the battle, it was reported that she wished to exclude trans people completely from the proposed ban on conversion therapy even though they are more likely than anyone else to be subjected to it.
For the record, I believe that the cause of equal rights best advances when the interests of all those who have suffered discrimination in the past advance. We advance together. There is no contradiction between LGBT+ rights and women’s rights that is not adequately covered in the Equality Act 2010. Trans rights which grant them respect and dignity are not a threat to anyone, and I say that as a lifelong feminist and a lesbian.
It is obvious that we are now in the midst of a well-organised global backlash against LGBT+ rights. It is well-funded, ferocious and potentially deadly for LGBT+ people. Its adherents range across the globe, from President Putin to Steve Bannon, from Viktor Orbán to ex-President Trump. Its aim is to reverse progress and, sadly, our own country is by no means immune to these global issues. The Government’s announcement of a review of those countries whose gender recognition certificates they will recognise is ominous, with rumours circulating that the Government are seeking to delist as many as 18 countries whose gender recognition certificates we currently accept. That is so that they can justify their use of section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to strike down the recently passed Scottish law on gender recognition. Surely the best way forward would be to have, not that confrontation, but a sensible discussion to find a way through. I urge the Government to reconsider their confrontational stance. I hope the rumours of delisting are not true and that the Minister can reassure us on that point, because such a move would take away existing rights.
Many countries are at risk of going backwards on LGBT+ rights. Russia legislated for a modern version of section 28 and then extended its so-called anti-LGBT+ propaganda laws across society. That follows the vicious persecution of LGBT+ people in Chechnya; legislation has been passed in Hungary, with so-called LGBT-free zones appearing across the country, and anti-LGBT law is also being passed in Ghana, accompanied by open persecution of LGBT+ people.
On that point, I wonder if the Minister might be able in his response to scotch persistent rumours that the Government are in the middle of trying to negotiate a Rwanda-style deal with Ghana. The implications of that for LGBT+ asylum seekers are too horrendous to contemplate, so I hope the Minister will be able to put all our minds at ease that that is not currently on the Government’s agenda.
“How lovely are your buttocks! And how muscular your thighs…”
One thing led to another and, as they say, the rest is history—I promise that was not from the Grindr profile of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant).
In ancient Mesopotamia, the priests and priestesses of the goddess Ishtar were bisexual and transgender. One of the aspects of the goddess that was considered most awe-inspiring was her ability to turn men into women and women into men. Her father-god Enki is said to have created a third gender, neither male nor female; what today we would refer to as a non-binary gender was first recognised more than 3,000 years ago and a third gender was created by divine will.
We have come a long way since dodgy chat-up lines from the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians—[Interruption.] The point bears repeating that we can find evidence of LGBT people and LGBT history across human history for thousands and thousands of years. Same-sex relationships and gender fluidity were considered very common in many parts of the world, and distinctions concerning sexual and gender identity and prohibitions on such relationships and identities only appeared in recent centuries.
The first recorded criminalisation of homosexuality in England appeared in the 13th century, when sodomy and sorcery were considered punishable by being buried alive. Henry VIII’s Buggery Act 1533 reinforced that, and he exported it across the world. For hundreds of years, that led to the promotion of long-lasting discrimination against LGBT people, which in many places can be seen today.
I do not often praise Napoleon, but the French were way ahead of us: in the early 19th century, the Napoleonic code effectively decriminalised homosexuality for many countries. Despite the absence—[Interruption.]