Thousands call for Piers Morgan to be fired by Good Morning Britain for ‘dehumanising’ trans people
Piers Morgan smokes a cigar whilst watching the racing at Ascot Racecourse on June 19, 2019. (Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)
More than 6,000 people are calling for Piers Morgan to be removed as anchor of Good Morning Britain for his “dehumanisation” of transgender people.
Morgan spreads “dangerous misinformation” about trans people as part of an “insidious agenda” that reduces LGBT+ people to a “mere joke”, the petition says.
The petition, ‘Remove Piers Morgan from Good Morning Britain‘, goes on to state: “This is the kind of dehumanising dismissal of transgender/non-binary/gender-fluid individuals that perpetuates those suicide rates and keeps them alarmingly high.
“What good comes from keeping Morgan as a host? Instead of providing light reprieve from the world’s horrors – or, indeed, discussing them factually and objectively – he contributes directly to them.
“Morgan dictates to his viewers that it’s acceptable to deny an LGBTQ+ person of their rights; it’s acceptable to tell them they don’t exist; it’s acceptable to call them ‘snowflakes’ when they get rightfully upset.”
I’m petitioning for @ITV / @GMB to remove Piers Morgan as an anchor, due to his dangerous dehumanisation of transgender/non-binary individuals that is quickly spiralling out of control and influencing large audiences. Sign and RT to spread the message ! ✊? https://t.co/kG7Pih7QcP
— kennedy ★ (@hotboykennedy) October 11, 2019
Morgan called those signing the petition “virtue-signalling snowflakes” on October 12.
He tweeted that those demanding ITV fire him should “drive an advertiser boycott too”.
“That’s what you virtue-signalling snowflakes are good at: trying to cancel & silence people who dare to challenge your often ludicrous & dangerous views,” Morgan said.
That would be hetero-phobic. https://t.co/uAJKgoeIct
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) October 12, 2019
On 11 September, Morgan infamously said he “identified as a two-spirit penguin”.
This came after staff at the London Aquarium said that the baby penguin of a lesbian penguin couple would not be assigned a gender and would be raised “gender-neutral”.
The London Aquarium decided that it was “more natural” to allow the chick to grow into an adult as genderless, which is normal in the wild until they mature.
Discussing this on Good Morning Britain, Morgan then went on to talk about one of the BBC Teach videos, which support PSHE in schools, in which a teacher told children there were “100, if not more, gender identities”.
After watching a clip of the video, Morgan screamed: “Shut up! Shut up, you people. Let me tell you some of these gender names: Neutrois, pangender, polygender, two spirit person, transmasculine… What’s a two spirit person?”
When his co-host tried to explain the Native American term “two spirit”, he cut her off and shouted: “What’s wrong with male and female?”
His co-host then asked: “Can’t people be what they want to be?”
To which he replied: “No, they can’t. OK, alright I’m a penguin. I’m a penguin. Identifying as a two spirit penguin.”
Morgan’s journalism career prior to hosting GMB includes being sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror in 2004 for publishing fake photographs of British troops torturing Iraqi prisoners, and being editor of the same paper at a time when articles likely to be the product of illegal phone hacking appeared in it.
He was also sacked by CNN in 2014 for “bad ratings”.
