The House | LGBT History Month allows us to reflect on how far we’ve come, but hate crime is on the rise again

5 min read19 min

When I stood for Parliament in 1997 my Conservative Party opponent put out leaflets claiming local young people would be in danger if “bent Ben” won.

I had expected my opponents to exploit the fact I was gay. Homophobia was still rampant in much of the media. Chris Smith was the lone openly gay man in Parliament. Gay people were still subject to a raft of discriminatory laws. 

This was the era of “Section 28”, the law passed by the Thatcher Government in 1988 banning the “promotion of homosexuality’. It originated from a backlash against the growing visibility of gay and lesbian people that followed the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Stonewall was founded to campaign to repeal Section 28 and to pursue LGBT rights more generally.

I had been lucky to enjoy an easy coming out for someone of my generation when I was 18. My family and friends were supportive, and I was convinced the public was further ahead on LGBT rights than the media or the political parties. 

This seemed borne out when I won Exeter from the Conservatives with the biggest swing in southwest England and became the first person selected and elected to Parliament as openly gay. 

This was a hopeful time for LGBT people. The new Labour Government had a modest but encouraging set of proposals for reform, including the repeal of Section 28.

By the end of its time in office, it had scrapped Section 28, equalised the age of consent, ended the ban on gays in the military, approved gay adoption, banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, introduced Civil Partnerships and passed the Gender Recognition and Equality Acts. 

All these reforms were hard fought, and the Government had to resort to the rarely used Parliament Act to force the equal age of consent through the House of Lords. Stonewall’s pragmatic but principled campaigning was key to achieving all these reforms.

Prejudice did not disappear overnight. I struggled for some time to get a parliamentary “spouses pass” for my husband, so we could have the occasional dinner together during late night sittings. Colleagues received invitations to events for their wives and husbands, while the gay MPs didn’t, and when the MPs’ expenses scandal broke, a newspaper carried a full page of outrage at the fact that MPs in same sex partnerships were subject to the same rules as straight ones. 

But protection and equality under the law were preconditions for the rapid improvement in media and public attitudes. When I became the first Minister to have a civil partnership in 2006, there was hardly a ripple of hostility; instead, an outpouring of love and good wishes. 

When David Cameron took up the cause of LGBT equality and then legislated for Equal Marriage, it seemed progress was secure and a broad political consensus had been achieved. 

But, as we come together again to mark LGBT history month in 2026, it is clear that confidence was misplaced.

Hard-won rights are under threat of being rolled back and some already have been. The UK has fallen from the top position it enjoyed in the European LGBT Equality Index in 2015 years to 22nd today. Social media has often provided a platform for bigotry and abuse that we’d hoped had become a thing of the past. 

The ban against conversion practices has been promised for seven years, by four Prime Ministers but has yet to materialise. This Government has promised time and time again; it will be delivered by the end of this parliamentary session.

Hate crime affecting LGBT people is rising again and trans people are feeling particularly vulnerable after last year’s Supreme Court ruling and the uncertainly that continues in its wake, as we await the statutory guidance from an EHRC that has deeply damaged its relationship with the public.

Many of the current tropes peddled about trans people remind me of those spread about gay people in the 1980s. That they are a “threat” to women or young people, or that giving them same rights as everyone else, simply to be themselves, diminishes everyone else’s rights. 

The changes put forward this month by Government to change the law and put LGBTQ+ hate crime on an equal footing with racial and religious hate crime, although long overdue, is another step forward on the journey to equality that Stonewall has campaigned for relentlessly. An appropriate way to mark LGBT History month, it will be the first legislative change since Same Sex marriage was passed, and is another important step in the journey to LGBTQ+ equality.

Generations of queer people, like me, have benefitted from the work of Stonewall and other human rights and equality organisations. With our freedoms and protections under threat, it is now time to give something back. 

That is why I am delighted to have joined the Stonewall Board. The arguments we thought we had had, need making afresh and winning again. 

Stonewall’s task is to once again turn this tide of hate, defend our rights and secure those not yet won for the generations to come. 

Sir Ben Bradshaw is a former Labour Minister and current Stonewall Trustee