Free To Be Who You Are

The freedom to live your life as the person that you are, secure in the knowledge that their fundamental rights will be protected is not a lot to ask.

But in our country there are still too many people for whom that is an aspiration.

Our  LGBTQ+ community face prejudice, discrimination and hostility simply because of who they are. 

Their health care, their housing, even their education can all be affected. 

But today I believe  we have taken an important step forward in protecting vital rights and setting out how our government should deliver a positive future for everyone in the LGBTQ+ community.

Our policy paper: 'Free To Be Who You Are’  sets out how we will continue to pursue that Liberal Democrat goal of a society where nobody's life chances are limited or constrained because of who they are.

Liberal Democrats have been at the forefront of  each of the great strides the UK has made towards LGBTQ+ equality. It was Ed Davey in 2003 who proposed the clause which finally repealed “Section 28”, the Conservatives’ law which prohibited the "promotion of homosexuality" by local authorities. 

Lynne Featherstone – the first ever Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister – was the driving force behind the legislation that made Same Sex marriage happen. 

And it was the former Liberal Democrat MP John Leech who spearheaded the campaign to pardon Alan Turing and Lib Dem peer Lord Sharkey, tabled the amendment to the Policing and Crime Act 2017 which posthumously pardoned thousands of gay men who had been criminalised for their sexuality.

Our party had been pushing to lift the ban on men who have sex with men's ability to donate blood for over 15 years by the time it finally happened in 2021. 

That is the proud tradition of which we are the keepers.

We know there is still a lot to do but each step is important to progress in achieving that free and fair society.

The measures we voted through today will mean:

• Ensuring LGBTQ+ survivors of domestic abuse and hate crime get the support they deserve, including by delivering training for police and support services
• Ending anti-LGBTQ+ abuse in social care, by commissioning an urgent investigation into anti-LGBTQ+ abuse in social care with recommendations on how to prevent it.
• Banning medically unnecessary, non-consensual treatments or surgeries for intersex infants and children.
• Pushing for all integrated care boards in England to immediately remove the requirement for lesbian couples to pay for artificial insemination before accessing NHS-funded IVF services.
• Banning all forms of conversion “therapies” and practices.
• Implementing a new LGBTQ+ Action Plan to coordinate cross-government work on delivering LGBTQ+ equality.

As liberals, we believe that true equality is achieved when individuals are not only free from prejudice and discrimination, but also free to fulfil their potential. So fighting for LGBTQ+ rights is not a choice Liberals make. It is who we are. 

This comprehensive new policy readies our party to continue that fight. There is much to do, let’s get to it.