The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) is a sovereign state north-west of mainland Europe. It comprises England, Scotland and Wales, which occupy the island of Great Britain, and Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland. It attained its current identity in 1922 after most of Ireland was granted independence. The UK, at least in part, has a separate identity from mainland Europe.[1]
In 2022, The Daily Mail published the video 'The gayest parliament in the world': MP John Nicolson applauded.
On May 14, 2015, Time magazine noted:
| “ | Following last week’s election, the U.K. now has more lesbian, gay or bisexual Members of Parliament (MPs) than anywhere in the world. The Westminster House of Commons now boasts 32 MPs who openly identify as LGB (there are no transgender MPs) out of 650, making up 4.9% of the Parliament.
The data comes from the University of North Carolina’s LGBT Representation and Rights Research Initiative, but collecting statistics on LGBT representation is always tricky because some lawmakers may not have revealed their sexuality. In fact, there could be more gay MPs in another country where people do not feel as free to state their sexual preference in public. Nevertheless, the fact that more are willing to do so in Britain than elsewhere signals more progressive attitudes, putting it ahead of countries like Sweden where there are only 12 out lawmakers (3.4% of the parliament). Elsewhere in Europe there are only two currently-serving transgender lawmakers, Belgium’s Petra De Sutter and Poland’s Anna Grodzka. There have only been two other openly transgender lawmakers in the world: New Zealand’s Georgina Beyer who won a seat in 1999 and retired from politics in 2007, and Vladimir Luxuria who was elected in Italy in 2006 but lost her seat two years later. The number of gay British MPs is not far off the U.K. proportion as a whole, which is roughly between 5% and 7% of the country according to the government’s estimate. Thirteen of Britain’s out MPs belong to the center-left Labour Party and 12 to the center-right Conservatives. It was the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron who introduced same-sex marriage in March 2014, despite significant opposition within his party. He has said this was one of his proudest achievements during his first term as Prime Minister.[3] |
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In 2021, the British newspaper The Times noted that "Britain has most gay parliament in the world".[4]
See also
References
- ↑ Hanson, Victor Davis (September 12, 2019). Victor Davis Hanson: Britain's got one last chance to reembrace free-market democratic world it helped create. Fox News. Retrieved September 13, 2019.
- ↑ The U.K. Now Has More Gay Lawmakers Than Any Other Country, Time magazine, May 14, 2015
- ↑ The U.K. Now Has More Gay Lawmakers Than Any Other Country, Time magazine, May 14, 2015
- ↑ Britain has most gay parliament in the world — use it as force for good by Crispin Blunt, The Times, May 18 2021