It has been nearly two years since Justine Greening announced she was in a same-sex relationship in a tweet sent during London’s Pride celebrations in 2016.
The tweet, which has been liked more than 20,000 times, made her the UK’s first out gay woman cabinet minister.
In an interview with BuzzFeed News, the former education secretary has spoken about her happiness since coming out and is encouraging others to do the same.
Greening said she had long been reluctant to reveal she was in a same-sex relationship because it was “very personal” and she was worried about a negative reaction.
But she said the response had been “overwhelmingly positive” and she hoped she had made it easier for other people in the same situation.
She pointed to a national survey of over 100,000 LGBT people, published on Tuesday, which found that 70% had avoided being open about their sexuality for fear that others would react badly.
“They’re worried about a negative response – that’s exactly how I felt,” she said.
“So I just felt I had a responsibility not only to myself to be frank, but as somebody in a really senior position in public life to say, well, actually I think this is fine – and if I can do that then I hope it makes that a bit easier for everyone else.”
Today's a good day to say I'm in a happy same sex relationship, I campaigned for Stronger In but sometimes you're better off out! #Pride2016
“I just thought it was time to be frank about the fact that I was in a really happy, same-sex relationship and I didn’t have a problem with that, I didn’t think anyone else should, and I wanted to be open about it,” she said.
“And rather than feeling like I was somehow admitting something that was negative, I thought I’d do it on the day which is the biggest celebration of LGBT rights in the UK, which is London Pride.
“The response to it was fantastic and will be something that I always remember. LGBT rights really matter to me and it got to the point in my own mind where I just thought, Look, if I’m not prepared to become part of the solution and say I actually think this is OK, then actually I am part of the problem.”
Greening, who also served as equalities minister before leaving the cabinet in the January reshuffle, said coming out as gay had changed her outlook on life.
“I feel happier in myself because I don’t have this really important relationship that I don’t feel I can talk about,” she said.
“So while it was quite a hard step to take on a personal level ... in the end the response was overwhelmingly positive and I would say to anyone else: Go for it, because as hard as it might feel at the time, actually in the end you can’t be you if you can’t be honest about who you are.
“You shouldn’t have to feel like something so important is something that you can’t be open about – that’s wrong. You’re not the problem; it’s the rest of society that has attitudes to change.
“I would say be open about it and actually what you’ll find is that not only have you made it easier for yourself, you’ll be making it easier for the next person, and all of these steps are little stones on a path leading forward, making it easier.”
The MP for Putney, who will celebrate Pride in London this weekend, said a number of young people had approached her to say that her tweet had given them the confidence to tell their parents they were gay.
“I had lots of parents write to me as well, parents of LGBT children, who felt it was really good that there was another person saying that this was OK, because it made it easy for their child,” she said.
But she said many young people across Britain still struggle to be open about being gay, and told how one young man in Leicestershire had said “he just felt totally different and because of that he just wanted to become invisible”.
She said: “When you hear a story about that, about someone not being able to be themselves, it really breaks your heart and there’s no place for that in modern Britain.”
Greening said she was not surprised that the survey had found that more than two-thirds of LGBT people avoid holding hands in public.
“I think that is the reality of life in Britain, even today, even in a country where same-sex marriage has been legalised now for several years,” she said.
“I think it’s a wake-up call, perhaps not for the LGBT community because they know how far we’ve got to go, but for lots of other people to say this is the day-to-day reality that people experience and that’s why the survey was so important.”
Shining a spotlight on these statistics means prejudices are “more likely to be tackled”, she added.
“I think things are changing for the better, but there are people across the country who think LGBT rights have gone too far. And I think on any issue of human rights, unless you keep fighting those battles to move things forward, there will be other people who want to take you back, and that’s why it matters so much.”
Greening declined to say more about her own relationship but said she had no regrets about telling the world she was in love with a woman.
“It’s ridiculous that if you’re in a relationship with the opposite sex there’s no need to do a tweet, but somehow if you’re in the same loving relationship with someone who happens to be the same sex, there’s a need to make a formal announcement about it,” she said.
“I think for a long time I almost didn’t accept that that was the premise of how things work, but actually I realised that whether or not I liked it, that was indeed the reality of Britain.
“And if it was going to change, actually all of us in that position needed to say, well, we are in these relationships and I think that’s fine and we should celebrate the fact that people are different.”