Laura Coryton is a British feminist activist, author and founder of the social enterprise Sex Ed Matters. In 2014 she started a petition to end the sexist 'luxury' tax rate applied to all period products which amounted to £15m every year. Her petition gained over 300,000 signatures, widespread support from politicians including Rishi Sunak MP and President Obama and coverage in every major news outlet including BBC News and MSNBC. The petition lobbied the UK Government into establishing the Tampon Tax Fund, through which almost £100m was donated to female-focused charities, and in 2021, it succeeded when the Government axed tampon tax. She now supports tampon tax sister petitions across the world in countries including Tanzania, France, Australia and Japan.
Laura is also the author of 'Speak Up', a campaign guide for rebel girls published by Harper Collins which has been translated into French and launched in the USA.
In 2019, Laura founded the social enterprise 'Sex Ed Matters', specialising in consent education, which is on a mission to make quality sex education accessible to all so we can build happy, healthy communities.
For her work, Laura has become an Obama Foundation European Leader and has been awarded Number 10 Downing Street's Points of Light Award 2022, Young Innovator Award 2023 and Women in Innovation Award 2024.
What motivated you to initiate the petition in 2014 aimed at ending the unfair 'luxury' tax on menstrual products, and how did you gather support for this crucial campaign?
Rage inspired the campaign. Rage about the sexism which underpins the stigma associated with periods; about the financial penalty so many people just for having a period and about the lack of women in parliament which led to it deciding periods were a luxury.
I gathered support for the petition very slowly over a seven year period by lots of means, including writing articles, speaking about the petition at events and on the radio, asking petition signers to lobby their local MP and to ask their friends to do the same, and many more tactics. This campaign was all about changing the way we all feel about periods so they’re not something secretive or embarrassing but rather, they’re part of the public political debate just like any human experience. Eventually, we gained over 300,000 petition signatures and the support of major global figures including President Obama.
Can you explain how your petition impacted the UK government, resulting in the establishment of the Tampon Tax Fund and the eventual removal of the tampon tax in 2021?
In 2015, the petition gained the support of backbencher Paula Sherriff MP. She was a new parliamentarian at this stage and was keen to spotlight the feminist campaigns she cared about. With her support, we were able to table an Early Day Motion about tampon tax, which gained an astonishing 75 signatures from parliamentarians. From there, Sherriff was able to table a debate on the subject where we gained the attention of other parliamentarians. At the same time, we asked our 300,000 petition signers to email and tweet their local MPs about the petition and we hosted a protest from the House of Parliament to 10 Downing Street where we handed in the petition to the Chancellor. Eventually, our campaigning worked! The Government launched its Tampon Tax Fund which gave almost £100m to female-focused charities and the tax was axed in January 2021.
How have you expanded your advocacy beyond the UK, and what role do you play in supporting global petitions addressing the tampon tax issue? Sexist taxation is a global problem, because the cause of this problem (a lack of women in parliament) is universal. Since I started the tampon tax petition in the UK, it’s been incredible to see so many other activists start similar petitions around the world! There are sister tampon tax petitions in every continent across the world and in countries such as Tanzania, France, South Africa, and all across the USA. We speak to each other and use our successes to help strengthen our case to our governments and we learn from each other’s challenges. Small acts really can change the world! As the author of 'Speak Up,' a campaign guide for young women, how has your book inspired and empowered girls and women to take on leadership roles and become advocates in their own right?
‘Speak Up’ is the campaigning guide I wish I had when I was growing up in rural Devon and what felt like a million miles away from the power that lies in the Houses of Parliament. I write this book to help anyone campaign on any issue that they feel passionate about. If we want to live in a true democracy, then everyone of any age should feel able to speak up and have their voice heard. That’s exactly what my book aims to achieve. It also reflects on my journey campaigning to end tampon tax and explores the reality of campaigning and how to bounce back from failures, of which I experienced plenty!
What motivated the creation of 'Sex Ed Matters' in 2019, and how does this social enterprise promote consent education and ensure accessible comprehensive sex education for all?
Throughout my campaign, I visited schools across the country and found students were often suffering from period poverty and stigma in silence; some started menstruating before knowing what periods were and others considered pregnancy to avoid experiencing period shame. To tackle these problems, in 2019 I launched my social enterprise ‘Sex Ed Matters’ which champions confidence-building education in stigmatised topics including periods, consent and sexuality and provides the tools necessary to become a changemaker. Today, my organisation provides Continued Professional Development training in dozens of universities, schools and workplaces to tackle homophobia, harassment and period stigma. We believe empowering sex education can build happier, healthier communities. Can you provide more details about the honours and awards you have received such as the Obama Foundation European Leader recognition and the Points of Light Award from Number 10 Downing Street?
Absolutely! It has been such an honour to join the Obama Foundation’s European Leaders cohort. The course brought together 36 incredible campaigners and changemakers from across Europe. We met online once a week for six months to build our leadership skills and discuss problems we were facing and at the end of the course, we all met in person in Copenhagen at the Democracy Summit. Here, we discussed what it meant to make sustainable and impactful change with President Obama himself who was very generous with his time. The group is still very active to this day. The biggest takeaway from this experience has been to embrace dreaming. Envision a better world and work hard to create it.
I’ve also been lucky enough to be awarded the 10 Downing Street’s Point Of Light Award with my sister Julia for our work at Sex Ed Matters.
How has your approach to leadership and activism inspired young activists and feminists to drive change locally and globally?
My favourite part of activism has been seeing and supporting the incredible campaigns others have driven forward because they’ve been at least partly inspired by my work. This reminds me small acts can change the world and the world is full of inspiring communities of people. This includes the incredible Amika George MBE who started campaigning for free period products in schools after supporting my tampon tax petition. She is such a force of nature and an innovative campaigning it was an honour to work with her as she launched her campaign, which of course succeeded in 2019 when the Free Periods Scheme was launched.
Based on your own experiences and achievements, what advice would you offer to aspiring leaders, particularly those with an interest in feminist causes and social entrepreneurship?
Be ambitious. I often look back at my campaigning journey and feel frustrated what I wasn’t ambitious enough. I was never certain if the campaign would succeed or if I was doing campaigning the ‘right’ way, when in reality, there is no ‘right’ way! To any young girl wanting to campaign and make a change for the better, dream big! Proceed as if success is inevitable. Campaign as yourself, not as a ‘campaigner’. You have the right to speak up as yourself. You can do it!
Comments