MP says LGBT friends fought ‘five blokes’ to protect her from assault

An MP has told the Commons of how her gay and non-binary friends fought to protect her from assault on a night out.

During a debate on LGBT+ history month, Labour MP for Luton North Sarah Owen, criticised those who use terms like “woke” or “snowflake” to portray gay and trans people as weak.

She told MPs: “I was out with one of my gay best friends and my non-binary friends, we were out, we’d gone to a gay club because, unsurprisingly – and for whatever reason, I can’t possibly put my finger on it – I felt safer and able to have more fun in gay nightclubs than I did in straight clubs.

“As a 20-year-old single woman of that time, I can’t think why that might be. But we were on our way home. We wanted chips and a kebab, standard right?

“In the queue was a group of lads. They start giving abuse to me, sexual connotations and me being myself, I didn’t shut up. I didn’t take that lying down. I gave as good as I was getting.

“They went ahead and all of a sudden, when we came out with our chips and our kebabs, I could feel things hitting my head. They were throwing chips at us.

“Those chips suddenly became punches to my face, and they pushed me to the ground and who stood up and fought for me? My gay best friends and my non-binary friend took on five blokes for me. I didn’t stop fighting either, but they were there when I needed them.”

She added: My dearest friend, Helgi. He was one of the first out LGBT council members of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. I have spoken quite often in this place about the multiple miscarriages that I have experienced, I couldn’t have found myself at a more dark time than at that time.

“He was there in the surgery to hold my hand, to help me through one of the most difficult procedures, to remove two of the babies that didn’t make it out. And he was my friend when I was there and I woke up.

“That’s the strength of the community. That’s the strength of allyship. And right now, they’re the ones being attacked, they’re the ones feeling isolated, they’re the ones feeling without hope.

“So I want to plea to every ally, to everybody to use your voice to stand up for so many who have used their voices to stand up for our rights, our dignity and our future as well.”

Ms Owen also used her speech to criticise language used to imply LGBT people are “fragile”.

She said: “Powerful people, rich people, at home and abroad are punching down, referring to the LGBT community as woke, snowflake, weak, fragile, and any of us know that the LGBTQIA community is far from all of those things.

“Because fighting for who you are, to love who you want to love in the face of hatred, humiliation and persecution is one of the bravest things any one of us could ever do.

“And for the trans community, who have to live every day in a body that does not reflect who they truly are, that’s courage.

“All against a backdrop of conversations about them without them, particularly for trans men.

“Some of the strongest, least snowflake people I could ever have in my life are from the LGBT community.”

The MP for Luton North further highlighted that a trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices was in the Labour manifesto, and called for LGBT plus hate crimes to constitute an aggravated offence.

Liberal Democrat women and equalities spokeswoman Christine Jardine said debates around trans rights have become “increasingly toxic”.

She said: “Many trans people see their identities as denigrated, their experiences ignored and their lives sidelined in debates about their own rights and their own lives.

“Too many people forget that at the centre of these culture wars are real people who simply just want to live their lives, be left alone to be who they are, and it’s time we move that debate forward.”

She added: “We have to think about how we support trans people to access better support, and how we help non-binary people get recognition in law.”