I was privileged to speak about the threat posed to LGBT liberation at the Unite Against Fascism fringe at Annual conference alongside others, including Henry Guterman, a survivor of the holocaust, who really brought home the reality of where intolerance and hatred can lead. My speech is below:

“I’m going to talk about the threat that the BNP poses to LGBT people. And I’m going to talk particularly about some recent incidences of outright homophobia and transphobia from the BNP.

The LGBT community has made some huge steps towards legal equality during the past 6 months, through the passing of the new Sexual Orientation Amendments to the Goods and Services Act. From the date this Amendment comes into effect at the beginning of April, it will no longer be legal to refuse a lesbian couple a room in a hotel, a gay man a drink in his local pub, or for a printing firm to refuse to print flyers for an LGBT-friendly HIV/AIDS support group.

But if we’ve made unprecedented gains in recent months, we’ve also come under unprecedented attacks from the newly ignited religious Right – and the BNP has been at the centre of these attacks. Amid their cries for an All-White Britain, the BNP also want an All-Straight Britain.

But when they attack the LGBT community, they claim THEY’RE the ones being persecuted and oppressed, in some kind of state-sponsored attack on their civil liberty.

Apparently THEY’RE the ones whose private lives are being handed over to ‘an unreasonable, vociferous, intolerant minority.’

They claim that they provide a charter for a ‘protected group’ of LGBT activists to threaten, persecute, intimidate, silence and maliciously sue ‘moral minded’ people.

The Sexual Orientation Regulations do nothing of the sort – they provide the long-overdue protection from intolerance and discrimination from people like the BNP that LGBT people need in order to live their lives as equals with everyone else.

But the idea that everyone should be treated as equals appears too much for the BNP.

LGBT people aren’t just the victims of discrimination, who need legal protection to ensure that they can live in equality with everyone else, but are also people with a rich and varied community and history – a history which until recently was written out of our history books.

LGBT History Month, a fantastic initiative which aims to make schools, colleges and universities safer places for all by discussing diversity and issues associated with sexuality, has recently come under attack as ‘promoting gay sex to children’, in a pathetic attempt by the BNP to stick a paedophilic label on a fantastic community event. Further schemes, like the No Outsiders project, which brings LGBT friendly books into primary schools, have also been twisted by BNP propaganda as ‘selling gay sex to four year olds’

But is hugely important that LGBT History Month receives the recognition that it deserves, and that our community is well represented in the books we give our children.

There is much to celebrate – LGBT people have a proud history of innovation and creativity. But the LGBT community has also been subject to systematic persecution – under the Nazis.

Education is the only way to challenge prejudice and intolerance. Young people and students must be educated to accept others as equals. Homophobic and transphobic bullying, so rife within our education system, are merely symptomatic of our society which doesn’t celebrate difference, and contains fascists like the BNP who cannot tolerate that LGBT people exist.

It is crucial that the homophobia of modern-day fascist groups, like the BNP is challenged, and young people are educated about where homophobia, hatred and bigotry lead, so that history does not repeat itself. LGBT HM celebrates LGBT history, but also challenges fascism in all its forms – and demonstrates that by uniting against fascism with others, we can together fight the prejudice, intolerance, and outright hatred of the BNP.”

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