Gay MP explains why we still need Pride in powerful parliamentary speech

Chris Bryant addressed his fellow MPs to articulate why Pride remains essential.

The MP representing the Welsh areas of Rhondda and Ogmore, who was one of the few openly gay politicians when first elected in 2001, participated in a debate in the House of Commons on Monday (23 June). Even among “well-meaning liberal souls,” questions persist about the ongoing necessity of Pride and the need for further LGBTQ+ rights, he noted, according to ‘MSN’.

“We have always needed Pride,” Bryant asserted. “We needed it when people lazily assumed that a short haircut meant you were a lesbian, or a lisp meant you were gay.

“We needed it when the police wore rubber gloves to arrest us, just in case we gave them Aids. We needed it when we were called queer and fa**ot and arse bandit at school. We needed it when we were sneered at, spat at, punched, kicked and beaten up.”

Now serving as the minister for data protection, Bryant continued: “We need it now, when kids are still bullied because they’re camp or butch, when families still throw their LGBT children out of the home, when many are so worn down by abuse that they take their own lives.”

He also highlighted ongoing oppression in Hungary under right-wing prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has banned LGBTQ+ marches, and mentioned police in certain regions who “deliberately entrap homosexuals,” as well as the mistreatment of trans men and women who are “treated as less than human.”

In 2023, the Labour MP expressed in parliament that he felt less safe as a gay man in the UK than he did three years earlier, attributing this feeling to rhetoric from then equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, which contributed to LGBTQ+ people feeling unsafe in the UK.