Culture

This Morning guest torn apart for anti-gay and anti-trans comments

  • Jul 26 2018
  • Written by Josh Jackman

(this morning/youtube and twitter)

A guest on This Morning has been slammed for seemingly suggesting that transgender people, same-sex marriage and unisex toilets are three of the biggest problems facing society.

Jamie Richardson, a tradesman, was on the ITV show to talk about whether it was socially acceptable to allow men to take off their tops in public – but somehow ended up attacking LGBT people in a variety of ways.

Viewers were angry at Richardson (this morning/youtube)

The comments were a far cry from Rylan Clark-Neal emotionally praising 14-year-old drag queen Lewis Bailey on yesterday’s show.

With little to no context for his words, Richardson told fellow guest Liz Brewer: “I’ll be honest with you.

Clark-Neal teared up at Lewis’s story (this morning/youtube)

“In this day and age now, you’ve got transgender people, you’ve got men marrying men, you’ve got men going to the same toilet as women, and we’re talking about a man after he’s been at graft all day.

“If I want to walk down the street and I want to take my t-shirt off, I work hard, I pay my taxes and I’m English. I’m proud to be English,” he added.

It’s not clear why Richardson felt it necessary to emphasise his nationality (this morning/youtube)

The tradesman, who later revealed that he had a tattoo reading “England 2018 World Cup Winners” despite England having not won the tournament, did not have to justify his remarks to hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, who simply moved the conversation on.

Viewers took to Twitter to voice their surprise and outrage, with one writing: “Why r @thismorning letting people like this moron on tv. His comments about transgender and gay people is ridiculous.

“If u work that hard u prick u can afford to buy a top and maybe buy urself an education while ur at it #ThisMorning.”

Another angered member of the audience said: Hi Jamie! What’s your f**king point re: men marrying men, gays trans when we are talking about you walking about with your tits out divvy #thismorning @thismorning.”

One person tweeted: “What is with this shirtless man on #thismorning trying to bring trans, gays and enbys into this argument???

“Leave us out of this I don’t wanna take my shirt off no matter how I’m presenting :(.”

The presenters said nothing about Richardson’s views (this morning/youtube)

This Morning is usually better at holding people to account for their views.

In April, a man who said his painkillers had turned him gay was gently but firmly corrected by NHS doctor, presenter and author Dr Ranj Singh.

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