Olivia Bailey

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.