Pride has always been a protest as well as a great party and a celebration, and unfortunately there is still a lot to protest about. The Government's record on trans healthcare is really shocking. It is the worst in the European Union with record waiting lists of up to 18 years for the only public gender clinic. You cannot talk about trans rights when you cannot access trans healthcare. It is eight years since the Government's own review of the Gender Recognition Act recommended non-binary recognition. Still, the Government has done nothing. I am pleased to support Deputy Coppinger who is introducing a Bill to recognise both non-binary and intersex people for the first time. I hope everyone in the House will support it. The rise in hate directed at the queer community by the far right is absolutely frightening. You see it. It is not just online. It is in the real world as well, with a big increase of homophobic and transphobic attacks both verbal and physical. All of that hate is being massively amplified by toxic social media algorithms designed to increase the profits of the big tech social media companies by pushing hate, whether homophobia, transphobia, misogyny or racism. Dublin Pride, Belong To, LGBT Ireland and TENI all want recommender algorithms to be turned off by default. They are not calling for under-16s to be banned entirely from social media, which can be a vital lifeline for young queer people who may be socially isolated. A survey of young queer people in Australia before the social media ban found that more than half felt they could more be themselves online than in person. A blanket social media ban on under-16s ignores that and lets big tech off the hook as regards cleaning up its act. This is why we introduced a Private Members' Bill months ago to require social media algorithms to be turned off by default. That now needs to happen urgently. It was a bad mistake on the part of the Government to vote it down. We need to turn off the hate against queer people that is being pushed by the likes of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the social media bosses. I will also say a word about the disgusting attempt to create a provocation at Pride this Saturday. A far-right Dublin councillor who is known for promoting racism and anti-immigrant hate is hosting a so-called "march for Ireland", coincidentally just an hour or two after Pride stops. Given his previous comments about the rainbow flag, I suspect this is designed to be a deliberate provocation. We will see, however. We will see that many more people will turn out for Pride to stand for equality and respect than those who will turn up to call for hate and discrimination against gay people, trans people, people of colour and immigrants. I believe there is a big majority on our side.

Sentiment score: -0.12