Tory MP Penny Mordaunt’s gay brother says the Conservative Party is ‘pushing LGBT+ rights backwards’
Penny Mordaunt (L) and her brother, James Mordaunt, at Pride in London in 2019. (Instagram/@jayhammer101)
The gay twin brother of British Conservative Party MP Penny Mordaunt has condemned the Tories for “pushing LGBT+ rights backwards”.
James Mordaunt, the former equalities minister’s 48-year-old brother and a Virgin Atlantic steward, skewered the ruling party lawmakers for being “complicit” in anti-LGBT+ bigotry.
Mordaunt took aim at remarks made by Conservative Party chair Oliver Dowden, who decried “painful woke psychodrama” in a recent speech to anti-LGBT+ US think tank The Heritage Foundation.
“I’ll say this as clear as I can,” James tweeted 15 February, “Oliver Dowden is just one in a very long line of Tories that are pushing LGBTQI+ rights backwards at an alarming rate.
“If you are a member of the Conservative Party, a Conservative MP, part of this homophobic, transphobic government, you are complicit.”
In creating a “hostile environment” for LGBT+ people, seemingly echoing remarks made by the government’s outgoing LGBT+ advisory board, James drew attention to a trans teenager in Milton Keynes, a town 50 miles northwest of London, who reportedly died by suicide earlier this month.
More than one in four trans youth in Britain have attempted to take their own lives and nine in 10 have thought about it, according to figures from Stonewall.
All people in my community want is to live their lives as themselves. Without having to hide who they are. @OliverDowden @trussliz @GEOgovuk – DO BETTER
— JAY HAMMER (He/Him) TRANS ALLY ?️⚧️ (@JayHammer101) February 15, 2022
“It doesn’t matter what your voting record is,” James added, “you are now very clearly working in a system that makes the lives of LGBTQI+ people drastically worse off.
“All people in my community want is to love their lives as themselves. Without having to hide who they are.”
James concluded by calling on Dowden, equalities minister Liz Truss and the Government Equalities Minister to “do better”.
Only recently did the Council of Europe, the continent’s largest human rights organisation, condemned Britain for launching “virulent attacks” against the queer community, putting it in the company of Hungary, Poland, the Russian Federation, Turkey.
“The rising hatred we are witnessing today is not simply an expression of individual prejudice,” a resolution voted by delegates said, “but the result of sustained and often well-organised attacks on the human rights of LGBTI people throughout the European continent [by] highly conservative movements.”
In Britain, life-saving reforms to gender recognition law were watered down in what activists compared to “Section 28”, trans people are routinely hounded, dehumanised and demonised by the mainstream media on a regular basis, anti-LGBT+ hate crimes have surged for years and the government has repeatedly delated plans to ban conversion therapy. Seemingly inuring a nation to haunting scenes of a trans teenager being too terrified to leave his home after months of bullying in Manchester.
A report by the European Commission placed the UK’s legal recognition of trans people among the very worst in Europe.
The same holds true for ILGA-Europe’s equality index – something British leaders once boasted about ranking high on. But last year, Britain tumbled down to tenth place.
Nevertheless, Dowden said in his speech that the true “crisis afflicting the West” amounts to “woke warriors” with their “form of Maoism, determined to expunge large parts of our past in its entirety”. Yup, that’s the real problem we’re sure, Dowden.
“The significant advances achieved in recent years are today under threat,” the Council of Europe concluded.
“It is crucial to react quickly in order to prevent further backsliding and work actively to promote full respect for the rights of LGBTI people.”
