Warwickshire Pride

A registered charity for the organisation of LGBT+ services and events

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Transphobic comments from Reform councillor Wayne Briggs

simonWP

We have received the email you see in the image below that was sent by Reform Warwickshire county councillor Wayne Briggs to the Chairman of Warwickshire County Council.

In the email, Councillor Briggs, who is responsible for children, families, education and SEND at Warwickshire County Council, stated:

“I’m disappointed however that you seem to have bowed to concerted pressure from a coalition of left-wing councillors and agreed to their request to put the ‘pride flag’ up. Personally, I’m all for live and let live, but this movement has been hijacked by groomers and mentally ill men in dresses gyrating in front of children and pushing a delusion that you can somehow change from male to female and vice versa if you’re unhappy with your own body. This is a dangerous ideology.”

Councillor Briggs is clearly being transphobic in his email. It is hate speech. From a sitting councillor, this is completely unacceptable, a clear breach of the code of conduct and principles of public life, and a hate crime that must be dealt with.

Therefore, we have taken the following actions:

  1. We have submitted a code of conduct complaint to Warwickshire County Council.
  2. We have reported Councillor Briggs to Warwickshire Police.
  3. We have submitted a freedom of information request to Warwickshire County Council for all emails from Reform councillors that mention the pride flag, pride month, Warwickshire Pride, individual members of our team, and the words “trans”, “transgender” and “gender ideology”.

We call on Councillor Briggs to apologise and resign from his position. He has demonstrated why he is unfit for the role he currently holds.

We continue to stand with trans people and the wider LGBTQ+ population. We stand against people like Councillor Briggs, Councillor George Finch, Councillor Mike Bannister (currently under police investigation for an LGBTQ+ hate crime), Reform’s political assistant Jack Parker (also under police investigation), Reform generally, and anyone else who holds hateful views about the communities we serve.