Medics back transgender people after AM storm
DOCTORS’ groups have backed transgender people following negative comments made about them in the Senedd by Ukip AM Gareth Bennett.
Earlier this week Mr Bennett told fellow AMs: “There is only so much deviation from the norm that any society can take before that society completely implodes.
“If we carry on down this road of appeasing the nuttiest elements of the transgender movement then what we will face as a society, within a very short space of time, is total implosion.”
The South Wales Central AM was speaking about a UK Government proposal to make the process of changing legal gender easier.
Presiding Officer Elin Jones has called on Mr Bennett to apologise for his “hateful” comments and said that he will not be allowed to speak in Senedd debates in 2018 unless he does so.
Mr Bennett has refused to apologise and Ukip Wales leader Neil Hamilton has criticised the Presiding Officer for stifling free speech.
Dr Sophie Quinney, Wales representative of the campaign group GP Survival, said: “GP Survival (Wales), the British Medical Association, and the Royal College of General Practitioners are united behind the transgender community in light of the densely discriminatory remarks from Ukip’s Gareth Bennett during a plenary session on Tuesday.
“What Mr Bennett seems not to have grasped is that belonging to a minority group does not make an individual any less human and therefore no less entitled to rights. There are biological, genetic and environmental factors that influence gender identity and while society prefers a binary arrangement this does not always fit with the way in which hormones are expressed.”
Dr Rebecca Payne, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners Wales, said: “As GPs we are committed to giving all our patients the best possible care. RCGP colleagues in Northern Ireland have developed a useful tool kit for caring for trans patients which we will be sharing with GPs in Wales.”
Andrew White, director of LGBT campaign body Stonewall Cymru, said: “Gareth Bennett has singled out trans people as somehow less deserving of human rights than others. It is particularly worrying that he chooses to demonstrate such narrow-minded bullying behaviour in the chamber of our National Assembly.
“Our recent report, LGBT in Wales, shows hate crime against lesbian, gay, bi and trans people has risen dramatically. In the last 12 months, more than half of trans people in Wales have been the victim of a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity.
“Mr Bennett should be aware that some of the people he is in the National Assembly to represent will be trans.”