What are the big issues that need fixing for the LGBTQIA community over the next four years? This Labour MP has her say
BY NANCY KELLEY, IMAGE BY UK PARLIAMENT
As we walk to her office, Charlotte is telling me her advice to all the new MPs. It’s funny, smart and very practical: make sure you’ve got someone to put out your bins in your constituency, buy three times as many pairs of pants as you think you’ll need (doing laundry between homes is apparently a nightmare) and work hard to eat fruit and veg: “the rest will come naturally”.
It sets the tone for our whole conversation. Charlotte is an experienced MP, who has thought a lot about the mechanics of driving change from the back benches. “The cabinet and the ministerial teams will be getting on with the big picture restructuring of public services, going for growth, all of that stuff. I think my job is to find those areas that might be [fixable with] little policy tweaks and using the political space I’ve got to tackle those.”
Some of Charlotte’s “little tweaks” are actually very big. She is passionate about mental health, and in particular new treatments, rightly pointing out that “there’s been no new drug discovery since the 60s/70s, but for a lot of people the existing treatment paradigms don’t work”. Throughout the life of the last parliament, she worked to build support for introducing trials of psychedelics, particularly psilocybin (magic mushrooms) in the treatment of mental health conditions. Today, there are live trials, and “we are very close to getting sign off on rescheduling”, which would allow these compounds to be used in mental health care.
Charlotte thinks about public policy squarely through an intersectional lens. It’s clear that she sees the work of a backbencher as being about finding ways of ensuring better outcomes for underserved and marginalised communities. “It’s great to have public services that are working, but can everybody access them?” From unacceptably high mortality rates among Black women, bi+ women and smoking cessation, to PREP and PEP access in straight communities, health inequalities are clearly a driving force for her when it comes to thinking about national policy. “A lot of people are ‘underserved’ by the NHS. We talk a lot about waiting times in A&E and for cancer treatment, and those things are hugely important. But I don’t think there’s a single trans person in this country who is being referred to a specialist within the 18 weeks that the NHS contract says that they are entitled to be.”
She’s thoughtful and direct about the experience of being an out-bi+ MP. “I think being bi+ is more difficult in many ways than being a lesbian MP or a gay MP, because… most people have quite a clear understanding of what those things [being lesbian and gay] are!”
She describes a lack of understanding leading to her bi+ identity being erased at the “nastier end of my mailbag… where my sexuality is determined by whoever I’m dating at the time”. Charlotte also talks about the way in which her identity can be “used as a cudgel” when she speaks out in favour of trans inclusion. “I’ve always believed there’s no LGB without the T. I’m very unapologetic about that, and certainly within my constituency, there is strong support for trans inclusion, particularly in the wake of what happened to Brianna [Ghey], because that was a real wake up call for a lot of people that this isn’t an abstract debate. The toxicity has real-world consequences.”
Overall, Charlotte is keen to emphasise the positives, whether it’s the self-acceptance and self-confidence she has found – “I think getting into my 30s has just made me more comfortable and at peace in myself” – or the welcome she experiences in her constituency, where being an out bi+ MP can also mean being trusted and welcomed into communities and spaces where a straight MP might not be able to go.
When it comes to what the LGBTQIA community as a whole needs from the new government, Charlotte is focused once more on addressing inequalities. “Lots of work is going to need to be done to take the heat out of the discussion around trans inclusion, given the way that it was whipped up in the last parliament.” She wants to see a clear focus on health and mental health “because we do see massive disparities in health outcomes, particularly mental health outcomes for LGBTQIA people”. In drugs policy, she’d like more focus from the government on issues like chemsex, and better addiction and recovery support, particularly for LGBTQIA communities at higher risk of harm.
“Everything we’re doing – in terms of trying to grow the economy and give everyone a good standard of living – [it’s about] making sure that everyone shares in that journey, not only in every part of the country (the levelling up stuff) but also in every part of those communities. That’s going to be the key.”
With that, this funny, smart and very practical MP is off – to take one of her new colleagues to find food. Hopefully with some veg.
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