A Sheffield LGBTQ+ group has slammed the Prime Minister’s “cruel and unnecessary” comments about the transgender community at the Conservative party conference.
Speaking to delegates in Manchester last week, Rishi Sunak said: “We shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t, a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.”
Sheffield Radical Pride (SRP), a group campaigning for a return to the grassroots origins of Pride which is free from corporations, the state, police, and ‘pinkwashing’, have condemned the PM’s recent comments at the Tory party conference.
A spokesperson for SRP told the Steel Speaker: “I’m cis, but I would say that his transphobic policies are cruel and unnecessary while deflecting from the fact that his government has done nothing for women’s safety.
“The Prime Minister is pretending this will somehow improve women’s safety.
“This is a populist diversion that serves as both a god whistle to transphobes and a distraction from the fact that he’s done nothing but harm marginalised people.”
A second spokesperson for the group has blamed the Tories, who have been in power for some 13 years, for the slurs aimed at them.
The spokesperson said: “When I first came out, people were curious and asked polite questions. Now I get called slurs all because people in government can’t think of a decent policy that doesn’t involve persecuting marginalised people.”
The PM also said: “It shouldn’t be controversial for parents to know what their children are being taught in school about relationships, patients should know when hospitals are talking about men or women.”
This comes alongside Health secretary Steve Barclay announcing a ban on trans women from female NHS wards and home secretary Suella Braverman vowing to forbid sex-offenders from changing sex.