Jeremy Clarkson faces backlash over controversial trans comments
Jeremy Clarkson has been criticised for making controversial comments about trans children, saying that parents can "poison" their minds.
Clarkson, 55, slammed parents for “indulging [children's] whims” in his Sunday Times column titled, Transgender issues are driving me nuts.
“As far as I was concerned, men who want to be women were only really to be found on the internet or in the seedier bits of Bangkok,” the former Top Gear presenter wrote.
“They were called lady boys, and in my mind they were nothing more than the punch line in a stag night anecdote.”
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Recalling a friend whose child was born with male genitalia but identifies as female, he said: "She had been born a boy but had insisted from the age of three that she had a girl's name and wore girls' clothes and, later, that she went to a girls' school. And her parents had simply indulged this whim.
"I was horrified. I wanted to seek them out and explain that they were free to live a lunatic life, washing their armpits with charcoal and liking Jeremy Corbyn's thoughts on how ballistic nuclear submarines must be built by the comrades and then used as flower pots. But they must not, and I was going to emphasise this with spittle, be allowed to poison the mind of a child."
He continued: "It’s what kids do: dream impossible dreams. You don’t actually take them seriously. You don’t take them to a hospital when they’re 10 and say, ‘He wants to be a girl, so can you lop his todger off?’
“Because what’s going to happen five years later when he’s decided that being a man isn’t so bad after all and he’s in the showers at the rugby club?”
Readers, including Wayne Dhesi of LGBT rights charity Stonewall, took to Twitter to express their disgust at the comments.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Regarding Jeremy Clarkson's Times article about trans people... <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://t.co/8SeMEc7oDn" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3164576-https://t.co/8SeMEc7oDn" data-vars-event-id="c23">pic.twitter.com/8SeMEc7oDn</a> — WayneDavid (@WayneDavid81) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/WayneDavid81/status/691263096443248640" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3164576-https://twitter.com/WayneDavid81/status/691263096443248640" data-vars-event-id="c23">January 24, 2016</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Wow, a new low, even for <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3164576-https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson" data-vars-event-id="c23">@JeremyClarkson</a> -they say with age comes wisdom, but there's always an exception! idiotic comments on <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/trans?src=hash" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3164576-https://twitter.com/hashtag/trans?src=hash" data-vars-event-id="c23">#trans</a> issues — Dr Christian Jessen (@DoctorChristian) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/DoctorChristian/status/691572928614420480" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3164576-https://twitter.com/DoctorChristian/status/691572928614420480" data-vars-event-id="c23">January 25, 2016</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3164576-https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson" data-vars-event-id="c23">@JeremyClarkson</a> Did you really write that trans people are “only really to be found on the internet or in the seedier bits of Bangkok”? — Sarah Jones (@SarahJonestoo) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/SarahJonestoo/status/691644319795691520" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3164576-https://twitter.com/SarahJonestoo/status/691644319795691520" data-vars-event-id="c23">January 25, 2016</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Why publish that drivel from Jeremy Clarkson? He knows about cars. He clearly doesn't know about trans issues. His opinion is irrelevant. — Leonard Solms (@LeonSolms) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/LeonSolms/status/691619304312291329" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3164576-https://twitter.com/LeonSolms/status/691619304312291329" data-vars-event-id="c23">January 25, 2016</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">I'm angry about that Clarkson piece as much as I don't want to waste air on him. But he's the reason why I find the tube terrifying. — Juno Dawson (@junodawson) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/junodawson/status/691245557994672128" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-3164576-https://twitter.com/junodawson/status/691245557994672128" data-vars-event-id="c23">January 24, 2016</a>
Clarkson's comments come weeks after Ricky Gervais was accused of being "transphobic" after he made a joke about Caitlyn Jenner's transition at the Golden Globes.
Defending his joke, Gervais tweeted: "Suggesting a joke about Caitlyn Jenner is automatically transphobic is like suggesting a joke about Bill Cosby is automatically racist."
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