New Health Secretary Yvette Cooper’s stance on LGBTQ+ issues
Yvette Cooper has been appointed as Health Secretary (Getty Images)
New Prime Minister Andy Burnham has appointed former Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper as his Health Secretary.
Cooper, who is married to politician turned Good Morning Britain host Ed Balls, is the UK’s third Health Secretary in as many months, after Wes Streeting resigned in May, and James Murray took over the role.
While Burnham has largely been a vocal ally to the LGBTQ+ community, many eyes will now be on Cooper after Streeting came under fire for a number of policies during his time as Health Secretary, including the puberty blockers ban.
Yvette Cooper on same-sex marriage
Yvette Cooper supports same-sex marriage, and was a sponsor of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013.
In 2012, she argued that changing the law to allow same-sex marriage “should be straightforward” and criticised the pushback against it, writing for the Independent.
While writing for PinkNews the same year, while she was Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, Cooper pushed to legalise same-sex marriage, while also adding that religious opposition to performing them should be respected, while allowing churches who did want to perform them to do so.
After same-sex marriage was passed to Royal Assent in 2013, she told PinkNews: “It’s time to celebrate. This is time to celebrate, not discriminate, is what we’ve been saying throughout.”
Yvette Cooper on trans rights
In 2015, Cooper said that Labour would look into the possibility of issuing gender neutral passports – using Gender X – for those who did not identify as male or female, if the party won that year’s general election while in conversation with PinkNews.
She said: “There’s a whole series of issues around the way the law currently affects intersex and trans people… the Gender Recognition Act which is now about 10 years old and we are in an area where things have moved on a lot.”
Cooper added: “This will be one of the issues that we will look at as part of the trans review that we would introduce, so I’m not saying we will just review it… This will be a specific review that we will do in government.”
The Conservatives won the 2015 general election, and gender neutral passports are currently not issued in the UK.
Then, in March 2022, Cooper refused to define what a woman is.
The conversation, with Times Radio, came after JK Rowling criticised the Labour party’s stance on transgender rights.
Speaking on International Women’s Day, Cooper said: “I think people get themselves down rabbit holes on this one. I think let’s just celebrate International Women’s Day and amazing women all over the country, amazing women all over the world, but also challenge inequalities and say what it is we need to be doing for the future.”
She refused to “get into rabbit holes”, branding it “pointless”, adding: “I think there’s still all kinds of inequalities, I think we will still see problems around violence against women and girls where there needs to be action.”
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