Rishi Sunak, UK Prime Minister
United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pledged to stop people being “bullied” into accepting trans arguments as he used his conference speech to take on Labour over gender.
The Prime Minister said it “shouldn’t be controversial” to ensure parents were informed what their children were being taught about sex and relationships at school.
He insisted it was “common sense” to say that “a man is a man and a woman is a woman” in his most strident intervention yet on the highly charged subject.
Mr Sunak made the remarks in an hour-long address to his party’s grassroots in Manchester, during which he cast himself as a defender of Conservative values.
The speech drew a clear dividing line with Sir Keir Starmer, who has struggled to explain his stance on trans rights, ahead of Labour’s own conference this weekend.
Here are his views on gender and family:
The Prime Minister has sometimes seemed reluctant to get stuck into “culture war” issues, but he shook off those inhibitions for what was the punchiest part of his address.
Mr Sunak fired up the audience when he insisted that voters must not be “bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be”.
His remarks on gender drew the loudest applause of the afternoon and followed an announcement that trans women will be banned from female-only hospital wards.
He said: “We shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want to be. They can’t – a man is a man and a woman is a woman. That’s just common sense.
“It shouldn’t be controversial for parents to know what their children are being taught in school about relationships. Patients should know when hospitals are talking about men or women.”
Mr Sunak also spoke about the importance of family, saying that Conservatives should “never be afraid” to champion its importance to a stable society.
'We shouldn't be bullied into believing people can be any sex they want to be, they can't. A man is a man and a woman is a woman', says Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.https://t.co/xItZsH7tea
— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 4, 2023
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