Belgium’s transgender deputy prime minister has slammed Rishi Sunak and told him not to “join the bullies” following his “hurtful” speech on gender issues at the Conservative conference.
Petra De Sutter, Europe’s most senior transgender politician, accused Sunak of “stoking transphobia” after saying “a man is a man and a woman is a woman.”
Sunak told an audience in Manchester on Wednesday: “We shouldn’t be bullied into believing people can be any sex they want.” They can’t, a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.
Ms De Sutter condemned Mr Sunak’s comments on Thursday, calling them “hurtful and very disappointing”.
“These words are fueling transphobia and endangering the lives of many people around the world,” De Sutter wrote on Twitter. ‘Trans women are women. And in no way a threat to others. Don’t join the real bullies Rishi Sunak.’
His comments came as it emerged that hate crimes against transgender people have reached a record level in England and Wales, with police recording an 11 per cent rise in the last year.
Petra De Sutter, Europe’s most senior transgender politician, accused Sunak of “stoking transphobia” after saying “a man is a man and a woman is a woman.”
Sunak told an audience in Manchester on Wednesday: “We shouldn’t be bullied into believing people can be any sex they want.” They can’t, a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.
While the total number of hate crimes recorded by police in England and Wales has fallen year on year for the first time in a decade, those motivated by religion and hatred of transgender people have increased.
4,732 hate crimes against transgender people were recorded in the year ending March 2023. In accompanying notes published alongside the statistics yesterday, the Home Office said the increase could be because transgender issues are “deeply discussed” by politicians, the media and social networks. media.
Indeed, Ms De Sutter accused Mr Sunak of “stoking transphobia and endangering the lives” of transgender people following his speech.
Mrs. De Sutter herself has been the target of transphobia. Just days after her historic appointment as Belgium’s deputy prime minister in October 2020, her politics came under attack online by a far-right politician.
Bart Claes of the nationalist Flemish Interest party said the deputy prime minister wanted to “destroy and replace all the cornerstones of our Western civilization.”
Meanwhile, during Sunak’s speech on Wednesday, the Prime Minister also weighed in on debates over sex education.
He said: “It should not be controversial for parents to know what their children are taught at school about relationships; patients should know when hospitals are talking about men or women.”
Her comments follow a conference in which several Cabinet members have used their own speeches to mention transgender issues, with Health Secretary Steve Barclay announcing a ban on trans women on NHS women’s wards and the Home Secretary , Suella Braverman, saying she would ban sex offenders from changing their gender.
The issue has been increasingly important to right-wing Conservative Party activists, with two stands at the Manchester conference center focusing on the issue.
It has been an issue for the ‘New Conservatives’ faction led by MPs Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger, who have also expressed concerns about sex education and claimed that parents are being prevented from knowing what their children are being taught. children.
But party members are not united on transgender issues.
Pictured: Rishi Sunak with his wife Akshata Murty during the Conservative party conference on Wednesday.
Ms Braverman’s speech a day before the Prime Minister’s, in which she attacked “gender ideology” and a “privileged, woke minority”, sparked boos that led to the expulsion of Conservative London Assembly member Andrew Boff , from the conference center.
Boff said after his dismissal: “This Home Secretary was basically vilifying gays and trans people with this attack on LGBT ideology or gender ideology.” It’s fictitious, it’s ridiculous.
“It’s a signal to people who don’t like LGBT+ people.”
If the Prime Minister echoed Braverman’s language about “virtue signalling” and transgender people, Sunak appeared to distance himself from the Home Secretary on the issue of multiculturalism.
In his speech on Wednesday, the Prime Minister celebrated the UK’s multiculturalism and described the country as “the most successful multi-ethnic democracy in the world”.
He added: “I’m proud to be the first British-Asian Prime Minister, but you know what? I’m even prouder that it’s no big deal.”
In a speech in the United States last week, Ms Braverman attacked the “misguided dogma” of multiculturalism, saying it had “failed”, comments the Prime Minister refused to endorse.
