RISHI Sunak has been caught making a joke about transgender women to Conservative MPs in leaked footage seen by the public for the first time.
The video, released by PinkNews, was reportedly taken during a meeting of the 1922 Committee – a group of backbench Tory MPs who meet weekly when parliament is sitting – on June 5.
In the video Sunak can be heard making fun of Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey for comments he made during an interview on LBC in May.
After calling for more “compassion” and “maturity” in the debate over gender recognition, Davey was asked by former News of the World journalist and LBC host Nick Ferrari whether a woman can have a penis.
Davey reiterated that because the law recognises the existence of transgender women then “quite clearly” it was the case that some women could have penises.
“You have noticed that Ed Davey has been very busy,” Sunak can be heard telling the room full of Tory MPs.
“You’ve probably seen that he’s been busy trying to convince everybody that women clearly have penises”.
The room then erupts into laughter.
He continued: “You all know I’m a big fan of everybody studying maths to 18.
“But it turns out that we need to focus on biology to 18 as well!”
SNP MP John Nicolson said the video was “both vacuous and nasty”.
Sunak has previously said that “100% of women do not have penises” and vowed to follow through on a Conservative Party pledge to legally change the definition of sex to exclude transgender people.
The current chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Baroness Falkner, has previously said that changing the definition in the Equality Act would “bring greater legal clarity”.
But LGBT+ charities say that if the law is changed it would result in a transfer of rights from trans women to trans men, allowing trans men to be considered in “women-only” shortlists.
Stonewall chief executive Nancy Kelley called on Sunak to apologise for his actions.
"No minority community should be the butt of a joke," she said.
"It is incredibly disappointing that the Prime Minister chose to mock trans people in front of his parliamentary colleagues.
"This is a far cry from his pledge to govern with compassion and would be unacceptable in any modern workplace. The PM should apologise for his actions."
Kelley has previously said that the recommendations of the EHRC regarding the legal definition of sex would “force most trans people to detransition”.
The proposal to change the definition of "sex" was opposed by the EHRC’s Committees in both Scotland and Wales.
