50 Years of Pride in the UK — House of Commons, 2022-06-30
Topic: Civil Rights
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): As a queer woman and an openly proud lesbian, it is a huge privilege to speak in this debate in the House. I warmly welcome and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on her persistence, and on being an icon in the LGBT community—I am sure many young people in our movement and across the political spectrum look up to her. We have had some brilliant contributions so far and as we mark 50 years of Pride, it is important to reflect, as many have, on how far we have come, and to look at where we are and at the challenges we face in future I want to acknowledge a member of my staff, Amy Cowan, who helped me to prepare for today’s debate. I also pay tribute to my dear friend Michelle Rodger, who passed away last August from triple negative breast cancer. She was the most wonderful ally, who supported me through many dark times after I came out, and helped me to write and prepare for the many LGBTQ-themed speeches and events to which I was invited after I came out. I miss her dearly: there is a gap in my life and my team that will simply never be filled I also want to recognise some of my dear friends—a wedge of lesbians we could call them—some of whom are here to watch today’s proceedings. They are sisters who know who they are; women who have blazed a trail in all aspects of life, and worked so hard in their many fields to further LGBTQ equality. They include our chief lesbian, Linda Riley, who has helped me personally so much since I came out, and who does incredible work through DIVA Magazine and her tireless charitable work. Many LGBTQ people have a queer family, and they are just some of mine. Among them is also Jacquie Lawrence, who this week was awarded the Iris prize fellowship for her work and contributions to the LGBTQ+ community in the media, particularly representing queer and lesbian women, who are so often under-represented The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) referred to the experience of our LGBTQ friends in the military, who have faced serious and deep discrimination. Jacquie was the commissioning editor at Channel 4 who commissioned "The Investigator", the programme with Helen Baxendale that told the true story of some lesbians’ experience in the military. She has done pioneering work in her time, and she recently commissioned, produced and directed "Gateways Grind" with her Jackdaw Media partner Fizz Milton. Presented by Sandi Toksvig, it is a crucial, funny and brilliant piece of film making about the Gateways lesbian club in London. I implore hon. Members and those watching the debate to watch it I have my own family, and I am very grateful that they love and accept me. I am proud that my fiancée Emma and I are able to be open, live our lives freely and be accepted by our families. Many both home and abroad cannot do that. That is why we need Pride 50 years on, and that is why Pride continues to be a protest For many, Pride is personal. Local Prides have been something of a phenomenon across Scotland and the UK, and beyond. In my constituency, West Lothian Pride is a fantastic event that has brought the community together locally. We should pay tribute to those Prides and the people who run them, support them and fund them. Some will be able to choose to go out and join a march, a celebration or a parade, but some, be they here or abroad, may not be able to celebrate publicly because it is illegal in their country, because they are not quite there yet or because they cannot come out I have vivid memories of my first Pride march after I came out here in London: the love, the celebration and the sense of freedom. We have come a long way since the first Pride in London in 1972, when 2,000 brave activists marched. It now attracts an estimated 1.5 million people. But Pride is, and still should be, a protest. Although, as some have observed, there is a creep of commercialisation into Pride, I cannot help but feel a superficial glow when I walk down Oxford Street and see every shop window clad in rainbows during June. We see big corporate firms talking about their Pride networks and think, "How wonderful that so many corporations are embracing us, the LGBTQ+ community." However, when we scratch the surface and look up how many of those big companies actively support, embrace, employ and promote LGBTQ+ people, we realise that perhaps it is not such a rainbow-tinted picture after all and a fair amount of rainbow-washing is going on. Do not get me wrong: clearly many great companies are doing great things, but when we consider that there are still only eight female chief executive officers of FTSE 100 companies and zero openly LGBTQ+ ones, that does beg the question of genuine diversity and inclusion It is also legitimate to ask how those companies who sell rainbow tat, or indeed rainbow-branded stuff, are actually supporting Pride and LGBT people. My favourite one recently was the M&S Pride sandwich—that, Mr Deputy Speaker was lettuce, guacamole, bacon and tomato. To be fair, M&S was genuinely donating profits to the Terrence Higgins Trust, which is fantastic, but that does beg the question of whether some companies gloss over Pride with rainbow-themed mimics and benefit financially from our oppression while not really genuinely supporting our community. That is why, 50 years on, Pride is still a protest Pride is still a protest because, in 71 countries across the world, it is illegal to be LGBTQ—I am illegal in 71 countries. In 11 of those countries, the death penalty still exists for consensual same-sex activities.