Formation 1988 Purpose LGBT+ Equality Main organ Executive | Type LGBT Location United Kingdom | |
Chair Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett | ||
LGBT+ Liberal Democrats is a British lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender & sexual minorities equality group of the Liberal Democrats political party. The organisation is one of several Specified Associated Organisations, giving it special status within the party, and has been referred to as one of the "most important" of such groups. The group campaigns both within the party and UK-wide on LGBT+ issues, as well as mentoring and providing advice to the party's candidates.
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Formation and early years
Initially known as Democrats for Lesbian & Gay Action, or DELGA for short, the organisation was formed in 1988 from the groups "Liberal Lesbian & Gay Action" and "Social Democrats for Lesbian & Gay Action". The parent parties of those organisations, the Liberal Party and SDP, had merged to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, known generally as the Democrats. The name was officially altered to be Liberal Democrats for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Action in 1996, including bisexual and transgender people in the title and reflecting the renaming of the party to the Liberal Democrats. However, the shorthand DELGA remained in use until 2011, when the organisation renamed to "LGBT+ Liberal Democrats".
One of the early campaigns by the group was "16 or bust". Started in 1991, it pushed to lower the age of consent for sex between gay men from 21 to 16, equal with heterosexual couples. This was in contrast to the approach of organisations such as Stonewall who were in favour of lowering the age to 18, seeing it as an achievable compromise. Although the first round of votes in parliament only lowered the age of consent to 18, it was finally brought in line with opposite-sex couples in 2000.
Fringe events
LGBT+ Liberal Democrats runs a series of fringe events discussing various topic issues at Liberal Democrat conference each year, including regular joint fringes with LGB campaigning organisation Stonewall.
Events at a joint 2011 fringe received widespread coverage after then Stonewall Chair, Ben Summerskill, stated that his organisation did not support equal marriage and that he believed it would cost £5 billion to implement. The statement resulted in critical comments from prominent campaigner Peter Tatchell and openly gay Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Gilbert, who stated "it should not be up to me as a member of parliament to lobby Stonewall on equal rights. It should be Stonewall lobbying me." The controversy later caused a split within Stonewall itself, following further criticism from founder members Ian McKellen and Michael Cashman.
2013 apologies
In 2013, both G4S and Talk Talk were forced to apologise to the organisation, following separate incidents. In the first incident G4S, who provided conference security, had insisted on checking banners being carried by members of the group for "potentially offensive campaign material". Three months later, TalkTalk issued an apology after their web filter classified the organisation's web site as pornographic.