British former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expressed his views on gender identity during a speech on Wednesday. He stated that “a man is a man and a woman is a woman,” which received criticism from transgender rights activists and applause from attendees of the Conservative Party Conference. Sunak also promised to introduce legislation to ensure that “sexual and sadistic” killers would spend their lives in prison. He mentioned other positions that he believed “shouldn’t be controversial,” such as parents knowing what their children are being taught in school about relationships.
Sunak emphasized the importance of patients knowing when hospitals are referring to men or women and rejected the idea that people can freely choose their sex, asserting that “a man is a man and a woman is a woman — that’s just common sense.”
Back in April, Sunak had made headlines for agreeing with a conservative interviewer’s suggestion that all women — rather than 99 percent — “haven’t got a penis.” He took a softer stance, mentioning the importance of compassion, understanding, and tolerance for those considering their gender, but also highlighting the fundamental importance of biological sex to women’s rights and spaces.
In June, a video purportedly of Sunak joking about trans women was published by PinkNews, a British news outlet that covers the LGBTQ+ community. The video showed a man, believed to be Sunak, joking about Liberal Democrats party leader Ed Davey’s attempts to convince everyone that women have penises.
The Metropolitan Police Service in Greater London reported over 2,800 potential transgender hate crimes between September 2001 and February 2022. The number of reported incidents has significantly increased since the mid-2010s, rising from 75 incidents in 2013 to 428 in 2021.
Credit: REUTERS
