Lesbian Visibility Week
Olivia Bailey Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)
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.
The theme of Lesbian Visibility Week this year is rainbow families. It is fantastic to celebrate all the families with LGBTQ+ parents. I know from my own experience of adopting my children that there is absolutely nothing more precious than having the opportunity to be a mum. My boys are the best thing that will ever happen to me. Growing up, I could never have imagined the possibility of being a mum, but being a family that turns heads is not always easy. I should not have had to hurry my family away from aggressive shouting in the street. I should not have to monitor every turned head in the street to see whether I will be met with a smile or a frown. And it should not feel like I am staging my own small act of rebellion every time I hold hands with my wife at the school gate.
Ms Billington
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?
Olivia Bailey
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.
LGBT+ History Month
Olivia Bailey Excerpts(2 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)
It is a huge privilege to speak in this afternoon’s debate. There have been so many wonderful contributions, and I thank all colleagues for them.
The question that I think I have been asked the most since I became an MP is, “Why did you want to get into politics? Why did you decide to become an MP?” I am often asked that by groups of A-level students or by kids in schools, and the honest answer is, “Because I know that politics changes lives, because it has changed my life.” I grew up under section 28, feeling like who I was, was something to be ashamed of. When I was 16, people in this place scrapped section 28 so that my school could no longer deny my existence. When I was 17, they passed a law to allow civil partnerships and give me belief that I could have a relationship that was viewed as equal. When I was at university, they passed the Equality Act 2010, which outlawed discrimination against me, and then when I was 26, I embraced my now wife in Parliament Square as equal marriage became law. It is because of all those things that today, my wife and I have two wonderful children and the love and respect of our families, and I am able to stand here today as a proud lesbian MP.
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate for LGBT+ History Month. The debate is an important chance for us to reflect on our history and the brave pioneers who have come before us, and it has been wonderful to hear many of their stories today. However, I want to use my speech to celebrate not those who have achieved prominence, but everyday people who have persisted—who, in living their lives and having the courage to be themselves, are the reason we have made the progress we have. The real challenge for every LGBT+ person is not a battle with their career or their personal ambitions; the real battle each and every one of us faces is a battle with shame. When you are told that you are disgusting or when you are told that there is something wrong with you, it eats at you—it eats at your very sense of self.
Every time in our history that an LGBT person has steeled their nerves and held hands in the street, every time they chose to tell a colleague or friend the pronoun of their partner or chose to express their gender, and every time they chose love over fear, they showed an almighty act of strength. It is the most powerful political act there can be—an individual act of defiance, of courage —and today we stand here because of each and every one of them.
We have achieved so much as a community, but I want to conclude by reflecting on the work still to do, and the importance that this Government place on advancing LGBT+ rights, because our journey is not complete when there is still so much hate towards gay and trans people, while conversion practices still take place and while our gender recognition laws remain out of date. That is why I am so proud that this Government will deliver a trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices, make LGBT+ hate crime an aggravated offence and modernise the law on gender recognition.
The best way to honour the LGBT+ people who have, throughout history, fought for our rights, often at great personal cost, is to never be complacent, to link arms as a community and to make it our solemn mission to ensure that Pride is not just our protest against the pernicious effects of shame, but something felt freely by every LGBT person finally allowed to just be who they are.