It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for securing this important debate and for the words he put so well.
In just over a month, on 20 November, we will mark Transgender Day of Remembrance. It is a moment for communities around the world to honour the memory of transgender people whose lives have been lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. In 2021, that was 375 people. We are facing a crisis. As we have heard today, LGBTQ+ hate crime is rising at a terrifying rate. The figures are startling, but what is worse is that they do not even represent the full picture. In the Government’s national LGBT survey, more than 91% of respondents said that the most serious incidents they had experienced in the preceding 12 months had not been reported. Those incidents included sexual assault and physical violence. That evidence is supported by Galop, which has said so much in the last year. It has seen a 65% increase in LGBT victims coming forward for its support.
As mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth, we have slipped down the charts in terms of being LGBTQ+ friendly, and that should shame us all. Instead of taking steps to address the crisis, reduce hate and ensure that those who experience it can access all the support they need, our politics is focused on fuelling it:
“Transgender issues have been heavily discussed by politicians, the media and on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in these offences”.
Those are not my words, but the words of the Home Office. Filling the public domain with toxic language that dehumanises LGBTQ people has real, life-threatening consequences, and it is telling that those in this place who often spread hate are not here to listen to those consequences. When the Prime Minister suggests to his Conservative conference that transgender identities are not valid, his words do not go into a void: they have repercussions.
What must we do? We must get the hate crime action plan back and ensure that we bring in a total ban on conversion therapy. It is incredibly important that this issue is taken as seriously as it can be. We should stamp out hate as much as we can.
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