Another party split... this time over gay giraffes
IT IS the latest policy question to split the upper ranks of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party – are the majority of male giraffes gay?
The bizarre row started after Dawn Butler, Labour’s Shadow Secretary for Women and Equalities, gave a rambling after-dinner speech defending the teaching of l esbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in schools, in which she told the audience that an overwhelming majority of giraffes are sexually attracted to their own gender.
Ms Butler, speaking at an awards ceremony by online LGBT newspaper PinkNews earlier t his month, said: ‘Ninety per cent of giraffes are gay. Let’s just accept people for who they are and live as our true, authentic selves. Being who you are is not a disease.’ She added that the giraffes showed it was invalid for critics to claim LGBT teaching could turn straight children gay.
This drew an angry response from Lachlan Stuart, Mr Corbyn’s senior adviser on domestic policy, who used Twitter to cite several scientific papers that challenge Ms Butler’s claim.
After surreally declaring that giraffes were his ‘favourite animal’, Mr Stuart said the way male giraffes behaved with each other was ‘not gay behaviour’ because ‘there’s no romance. No courtship. No affection. No pair bonding’.
Mr Stuart said studies showed that while male giraffes do engage in some sexual activities with younger males, they only do so to assert authority.
He said: ‘Is there any truth to this claim? In short, no, there isn’t. It is a ludicrous, offensive, homophobic claim... do you get why it’s completely f****** offensive? It’s akin to describing Deliverance [the 1972 American thriller film] as a “gay romance” because the effete city boys are put in their place by the locals by getting beaten and then raped.’
Without naming Ms Butler, Mr Stuart added: ‘I’m really sick and tired now of straight, white, male, young advisers (and that’s who they all are) delivering such foolish words into the mouths of people I’m supposed to respect.
Stay in your lanes, boys, because you don’t get this at all.’
During her expletive-filled speech, Ms Butler also referred to The Mail on Sunday’s report earlier this month that the Government had shelved plans to amend the Gender Recognition Act to make it easier for people to self-identify as male or female regardless of their sex at birth, because it was so contentious.
She said: ‘What the f***? Once upon a time, being a working woman was contentious, once upon a time being gay was contentious. Who gives as ***? Just amend the Act already… trans people are not the problem, it’s the delay that’s the problem. Let’s stop the bulls***. Trying to weaponise the trans issue is so dark that it’s not even worth mentioning…
‘I don’t want anyone in this room to be tolerated. I don’t want to be tolerated as a black woman, I want to be accepted. I want everyone in this room to be accepted.’
A source close to Ms Butler said she was making the point that you cannot teach people to be gay. But the source said Ms Butler appreciated the clarification in Mr Stuart’s tweets.