Streeting Says He Has Faced More Online Homophobia in Three Weeks Than in His Life

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting says he has received more online homophobic abuse in the weeks since his appointment than in the rest of his life combined.

Speaking to the Iain Dale All Talk podcast at the Edinburgh Fringe, Streeting described an "unbelievable volume" of abuse from people who "cannot cope with the idea that a gay person might lead the armed forces of the United Kingdom."

The contrast he draws

Streeting noted that his becoming the first openly gay defence secretary had been "almost entirely unremarked upon in the media" — a fact he welcomed as evidence of progress, set against an inbox suggesting otherwise.

That gap is the substance of the story. Institutional acceptance and public abuse are running in parallel rather than in sequence: the appointment was unremarkable to the political press and evidently remarkable to a substantial number of people online.

The history behind the post

The context sharpens it. Homosexuality began to be decriminalised in the UK in 1967, but the ban on gay people serving in the armed forces held until 2000. Personnel dismissed under that policy are within living memory and some are still campaigning over lost pensions and records.

Streeting framed the role as a chance to demonstrate strength and "to challenge the sort of stereotype that clearly persists in dark corners of the internet." The department he now runs spent most of his lifetime enforcing the assumption he is being abused for disproving.