by Jo Bartosch, spiked
This year’s winners include an asexual, a butt-plug hawker and India Willoughby.
At last year’s British LGBT Awards, actor David Tennant picked up his gong for ‘Best Celebrity Ally’ and fantasised about a future when ‘we wake up and Kemi Badenoch doesn’t exist anymore’. In response to Tennant wishing non-existence upon a black female politician, the achingly right-on, rainbow-brained audience members cheered and whooped their approval.
This year’s LGBT Awards offered a similarly unedifying spectacle. Once again, a parade of charmless celebrities and shameless self-publicists were seen vying for relevance. The LGBT Awards has proven once again that in the realm of corporate campaigning, the more ludicrously PC the cause, the louder the applause.
At the Tesco-sponsored bash on Friday evening, those who have truly shown bravery in the battle for gay rights were studiously ignored. There were no gongs for the lesbians who, just two months ago, intervened in the landmark Supreme Court case on the meaning of the word ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 – their submission helped secure the right of lesbians to meet and organise without men turning up. In fact, there was no reference to the real-world, grassroots issues confronting gay and lesbian people in the UK at all – although there was plenty of champagne, generously donated by Moët & Chandon.