So some of it is about which issues should we focus on and how should we unify? So what would be, I guess, your advice to people who want to make a difference, who want to campaign or whatever on mediating the difference between let's not brush off issues and example of misgendering but also let's unify and and deal with the more important things and tackle the more important things together there's sort of a tension now i think to some extent maybe yeah i think you know we do

need to set priorities what are the pressing issues that are damaging and harming our community it doesn't mean to say the other issues are not important they are but we should focus on the ones that really hit home hard you know there are still hundreds of thousands of lgbt plus people who don't feel able to come out because they live in families or communities or faith spaces where doing so would result in a huge attack on them personally not necessarily a physical attack but a verbal attack and rejection and ostracism that to me seems a huge problem and you know there is not a serious attempt by any LGBT plus groups in this country to do things effective and supportive for LGBT plus Muslims and not all LGBT plus Muslims are having a hard time in their families or communities but a lot are most are in the closet because they fear verbal and perhaps even physical violent attack now why aren't we doing something about that It's because a section of the community thinks, oh, you can't attack Muslims because they're an oppressed minority.

That is bullshit.

Muslims are an oppressed minority.

We should never attack Muslims, but we should call out Muslim homophobia in the same way that we call out Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Judaist homophobia.

Homophobia is wrong, and we have to stand with those in our community who are under attack.

And Muslim LGBTs are under the biggest attack of all.

Yeah, I think there needs to be

So what? I mean...

I think for Derek also, he didn't buy the mainstream LGBT plus agenda, which was about equality, mere equality within the status quo.

He wanted to go beyond the status quo.

He didn't want LGBT plus people to assimilate, to accommodate, to compromise.

So for him, the use of the word queer was a defiant affirmation that he had a vision of something bigger and better.

which would not only benefit LGBT plus people, but also straight people as well.

So his idea of queer was beyond equality, equality plus, a transformation of society rather than a fitting in to it.

Do you agree with it, with these thoughts?

Mm

... repeat a- assaults and threats and violence.

And the psychologists and so on, they, they say they've never, ever met anyone who's experienced such sustained violence over so many years.

And you know, they've said to me, "It's, it's amazing you haven't committed suicide.

You know, it's ama- amazing that you haven't had a mental breakdown." But I've gotta say, there have been moments when I've been, have been on the edge.

I've also, of course, it's, you know, abuse and threats and, you know, insults from the far right are like water off a duck's back.

Mm-hmm

... like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Russia, and so on.

Peter Tatchell arrived at a very different approach to dealing with religious opposition.

Well, when George Carey was appointed the new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1990, he made it very clear that he thought homosexuality was inferior to heterosexuality and therefore it followed that the law should discriminate against against LGBT plus people in certain circumstances.

So we obviously, in outrage, we don't always go for direct action first.

We tried to have a dialogue with him.

We wrote to him and requested a meeting.

We kept on writing, phoning Lambeth Palace.

No meeting.

And what was the kind of upshot of that? What do you think you achieved from that stunt?

having a Labour trans meeting and they can debate trans issues there, away from the Women's Conference?

Well, of course, the Women's Conference has a special place in Labour's policymaking, whereas the Trans Conference wouldn't.

So the Labour Women's Conference has direct input into Labour policy.

So that's a big difference.

The Trans Conference would just be a bit of window dressing and PR, nothing more.

But, you know, at the end of the day, We've got to find an understanding that women are understandably concerned about safety and welfare and well-being.

That's absolutely valid.

Peter, over to you.

And yet if they do come out on top, then Ben would argue that, well, the British public deserve to know that.

Well, yeah, at one level, I totally agree.

But I'm just saying we have to think about the potential consequences.

We're all familiar with the terrible, hysterical, vicious, violent riots that took place last summer when, based on false information, people sought to burn down asylum hostels and kill people, kill refugees in those hostels.

Um, that was profoundly shocking.

And that's the kind of thing that could result from the publication of these figures because surely they will be manipulated and used or abused by far-right extremists to further their political agenda.

And that would not be good for community relations.

So why do you think that the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, wants to do this? What do you th- what do you think is her motivation for doing this?