Hull and East Riding Labour LGBT+ Network is delighted to announce that Margaret Pinder has been chosen to contest Beverley and Holderness against the incumbent Conservative MP, Graham Stuart, who is chair of the Education Select Committee.

This is singularly appropriate since in 2012 Margaret launched a campaign against homophobic bullying in schools in the EastRiding. This followed on from her discovery that when she had been a 15 year old student at Beverley Girls High School her daughter, Freya. now at university, had been subjected to severe homophobic bullying.

This, as Margaret and Freya have pointed out, follows an all too familiar pattern. Homophobic bullying is hardest to identify because victims are often reluctant to report it to their teachers who as a result are likely to severely underestimate the extent of the problem.As Margaret has pointed out, a lot of young people only ‘come out ‘ once they have left school. This is because – despite the fact that people realise that they are gay when they are younger – they are reluctant to come out because they fear the reaction. As the ‘Hull Daily Mail’ reported Freya said:

“All of my gay and bisexual friends who went to schools all over the country said they had a really difficult time—-so it is not just here.”

However it is likely that the problem is compounded in areas such as the East Riding where the LGBT Community is all but s but exists in isolation. This, belief that a community does not exist and cannot therefor be facing cruelty and discrimination rather than outright hostility is why schools have not effectively tackled homophobic bullying . If a problem is not perceived to exist then why then why waste resources dealing dealing with it. The question should be why do they not see what exists. It is in every school in the country which is why mandatory LGBT inclusive SRE should be mandatory in ALL schools.

Of course Margaret will be fighting on a much wider range of social justice. As she says: “local People are worried about the NHS ,bad choices being made about local development—and environmental issues such as flooding and local energy. The Conservatives think this is a safe seat. I’m putting them on notice -it’s not safe anymore.”

Without doubt, Margaret would be a formidable champion of the often-neglected communities of the East Riding. Should she be elected she would be not only the first Labour M.P. in the Riding but also the first woman. We pledge our support and wish her well.