Today is the last day of LGBT History Month. As Plymouth’s first out MP, I try to use my platform to speak up about LGBT+ issues. Equality matters to me. There’s three things I’ve thought about a lot over the past month:

1. LGBT history is British history. Gay people didn’t just rock up in the 1980s. We’ve been a part of Britain since the first people stepped onto these shores. Telling the story of LGBT people in history is hard as we’ve often been marginalised, persecuted or removed from stories. But if you look hard enough, we’re there (http://voicesandvisibility.org.uk/).

2. Visibility matters. You can’t be what you can’t see and that’s true of leading an authentically honest life as much as it is about careers and society change. We now have more openly LGBT athletes, politicians and celebrities than ever before. But where are all the men who play football? It’s time for us to create a safer environment in footy for people to be themselves. We have some amazing trailblazers in Beth Mead, Jill Scott and Fran Kirby from the women’s game, but there’s more to do. Clubs taking steps to root out homophobia and transphobia is welcome but there’s more to do.

3. Equality is not inevitable. It happens when we fight for it. I’ve spoken in the Commons about my view that equality isn’t a one way street. It can go backwards. We can see that in the USA where attacks on trans people led to attacks on gay and lesbian people.

Folks who don’t like LGBT equality are finding allies in the public space and building cases in plain English about why bigotry and hate should continue, or laws restricting it opposed. Just look at the arguments against banning LGBT conversion therapy and you’ll see all the discrimination not too far under the surface.

In Parliament I’m proud to speak up about LGBT issues. I’ve been vocal about the need to ban LGBT conversion therapy and make sure that ban is trans-inclusive. I’ve spoken about the need to reform the Gender Recognition Act while still protecting same sex spaces and about I’ve spoken about LGBT role models including the brilliant case of Netflix’s Heartstopper.

We have a long way to go until every young LGBT person can be themselves. That’s why LGBT History Month matters because telling our story, both nationally and locally, matters. Let’s keep visibility up and remember that the way we win against hate is with love and compassion not a big stick.