A FORMER Tory MP has failed in his bid to ban schools from promoting “social transition” in what was labelled a “nasty and cowardly attack” on the trans community.
Andrew Bridgen, who is now the sole MP of the fringe political party Reclaim led by actor Laurence Fox (below), was defeated on Tuesday in his efforts to bring forward a bill which would have restricted schools’ ability to teach what he called “gender ideology”.
He was denied permission to bring forward what would have been Reclaim’s first bill in the Commons by 40 votes to 34.
Bridgen, who was expelled from the Conservative Party after comparing the Covid vaccine programme to the Holocaust, said allowing children to freely choose their gender identity separate from their biological sex would “dismantle the world and pull out a foundational block of society”.
His efforts were described by the Scottish Greens as an attack on the trans community.
Maggie Chapman told The National: “This is another nasty and cowardly attack on a vulnerable community when it is under greater attack than ever.
"Young people need to know that they are safe and that they can be themselves and that they can trust teachers to listen to them in a caring and affirmative environment.
"The proposals being made by Andrew Bridgen and the Tory government he used to be part of are extreme, dangerous and totally irresponsible. They come from the exact same reactionary and bigoted mindset that led to Section 28.
“With Scottish Greens in government we will never allow these kinds of policies be implemented here in Scotland, and will stand in solidarity with our LGBTQIA+ communities and campaigners across the UK.”
Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday afternoon, the North West Leicestershire MP said: “Gender identity is the theory that though we may be biologically male or female, the more important characteristic is what we actually feel like on the inside.
“Social transitioning is the conscious act of self-rejection of our biological reality.”
To jeers from other MPs, Bridgen added: “To paraphrase [right-wing commentator and author] Douglas Murray, there is just about nothing more than formative to our grip on reality than the realities of sex.
"The first, most basic, most instinctive thing we become aware of when we’re either growing up or even meeting someone new is simply that there are boys and there are girls.
“By dismantling this, we dismantle the world and pull out a foundational block of society. Who knows where the Jenga tower may fall?
"But one thing is certain, the tower will fall and we should all be ashamed that we would doom our children to such a fate."
