Nadia Whittome to British Parliment: ‘There is no LGB without the T’

Nadia Whittome, Member of Parliament in the U.K., gave a powerful speech last Thursday denouncing the anti-trans “hysteria” being circulated by media outlets and government officials. Whittome is an openly queer woman of color, and though currently the youngest serving MP, she has already proven herself to be a true-and-tried, strongly driven activist. She was one among several cross-party MPs projecting their support for the protection of LGBTQ rights on February 2, denoting the beginning of LGBTQ History Month in the U.K.

“As I stand in Parliament as an openly queer woman,” her speech begins, “I’m standing on the shoulders of giants. Our rights were not just given to us; they were won. Won by people who were rejected by society, ridiculed, and demonized by the media and criminalized by governments. Our movement has faced resistance at every step of the way, and as the current backlash threatens to roll back the progress we made, we must not give an inch but keep fighting for more.”

Whittome went on to compare current plagues of anti-trans sentiments to Section 28, a law which banned U.K.’s national curriculum from teaching the “acceptability of homosexuality” and effectively expunged LGBTQ history from the classroom. The law was enacted in 1988 and not lifted until 2003.

“It’s thanks to years of tireless struggle, including by people in this room, that people of my generation could grow up without (Section 28),” Whittome told the collective. Whittome also worries that the next generation of LGBTQ youth are growing up in a “climate of dangerous hostility,” and that the attacks on the transgender community are opening doors to wider discrimination.

“We must not give an inch to anti-trans bigotry. Like our movement won then, we will win again” Whittome calls out on her Twitter account.

She closed her speech by saying, “Our community will never be divided,” followed with the profound statement: “There is no LGB without the T.”