U.K. MP Dehenna Davison Comes Out as Bi, 'Overwhelmed' by Support

Dehenna Davison photo via Creative Commons

Dehenna Davison, a member of the U.K. Parliament from the Conservative Party, says she's received overwhelming support since coming out as bisexual.

Davison, 28, came out in a television interview with GB News, which aired Monday; British newspaper The Telegraph reported quotes from it Sunday. She appears to be the first female Conservative MP who's come out as bi.

In the interview, she said she's recognized her bisexuality for several years. "The reason I haven't done a kind of, 'by the way, guys,' is because I don't want being bi to be considered a big deal," she explained. "If I did a very public kind of coming-out parade, that would be me saying there's something really unusual about this and trying to make a big deal of it when to me it's not. It's just part of who I am."

She also noted, "If anyone were to explicitly ask me, I certainly wouldn't try and hide it because I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of."

Davison is in the process of divorcing her husband and is in a relationship with a man, she said. She has dated both men and women she met through an app on which she used "a kind of nickname" so she wouldn't be easily identified as a member of Parliament. "I didn't say what I did for a living or anything like that," she said. "So it was a little bit more natural. I went on a few nice dates, dates with a few nice girls and a few nice guys. And it was just, you know, fun."

Davison, who represents the town of Bishop Auckland in northeastern England, has received much support from across the political spectrum. Her party, nicknamed the Tory Party, was once overtly anti-LGBTQ+, especially under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, but went on to become much more welcoming to LGBTQ+ people and to endorse marriage equality. However, the Labour and Liberal Democrats parties still attract more queer voters.

The Tories' queer group, LGBT+ Conservatives, celebrated Davison in a tweet. She tweeted that she's been "overwhelmed" by the support she's received, and she also took on an anti-LGBTQ+ troll.