Marking Pride Month 2025

Pride Month 2025 will feel different to previous Pride Months lately, we think.

This month, LGBT+ Lib Dems want to set out to the community what it is we mean when we say we're pushing our party to ‘do better’.  The party leader Sir Ed Davey referred to some of this in his own post marking Pride Month, including the ‘Free to be Who You Are’ policy passed in Harrogate in March.  While we were pleased with this policy and were delighted it passed as overwhelmingly as it did, we felt it could have gone further by encompassing some or all of the points below.

Unfortunately, we don't think it is possible for LGBT+ folks, and especially trans+ folks, or for gender non-conforming women to be able to coexist safely with the recent Supreme Court ruling.  As the UK Supreme Court can only interpret legislation by Parliament rather than strike it down, the solution is new primary legislation that amends the Equality Act to clearly set out trans-inclusive definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, as the original writers of that Act have said they intended.  This would be a good opportunity to recognise non-binary, intersex and agender folks, who deserve equal recognition and protection under the law as well.

We believe any Equality Act reform should go further, however, to protect trans+ rights more fully, and to more fully protect disabled rights which were unintentionally rolled back by the Equality Act's passing.  In the current climate, we think it's vital to fully protect medical and bodily autonomy for all, including LGBT+ folks, the disabled, the pregnant, kids, and prisoners.  As soon as bodily autonomy, Gillick competence, and medical consent is undermined for one group, it is undermined for us all.

We have long argued for the technical process of obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate to be de-medicalised, and to enshrine Self-ID in law, as it is in Ireland, New Zealand, and Argentina - about twenty countries in all, all without incident.

While we are extremely proud of the Lib Dem achievement of Same-Sex Marriage in the last decade, that legislation pre-dated the existence of no-fault divorce in the law, so that Act should now be amended to remove the Spousal Veto for married trans+ folks transitioning.  LGBT+ couples deserve fair and equal access to IVF treatment, and this should be provided for in law as well.

We strongly feel that the ban on puberty blockers should be scrapped at once, as should plans for so-called ‘chemical castration’, which surely have no place in a civilised society.  On the other hand, we welcome announcements for a trans-inclusive ban on so-called ‘conversion therapy’ and expect to strongly support proposals that actually do that.

We remain convinced that Kishwer Falkner and Bridget Phillipson should resign as EHRC chair and Equalities Minister respectively.  The EHRC in particular requires reform followed by a period of retrenchment so it can once again be a world-leading advocate for everyone's rights, rather than a global embarrassment attracting concern from the United Nations.

Finally, the current climate makes it clear that LGBT+ expression in public life needs to be protected in law too.  We are already hearing reports of ‘book bans’ being attempted in the UK as they have in the USA - this needs to be resisted at every level.  Every LGBT+ adult was once an LGBT+ kid, and the majority of LGBT+ adults alive grew up when there was precious little representation of people like them in the media available to them.  We must ensure that we never go back to that world.

There are other aspects on which we will push, of course.  While little of what we've set out here is uniquely Lib Dem, we feel that each is very Lib Dem: each point chimes with our party's values particularly strongly.  We are delighted to be working with so many Liberal Democrats at all levels, both elected and not, to fight for a better world in which no-one is enslaved by poverty, ignorance, or conformity.