A Conservative politician has criticised a session on gender identity at the Conservative Party Conference as “curated hatred”, after he heckled the panel including former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies.
Andrew Boff, who has been a Tory assembly member since 2008 and led the party in the body for three years, had shouted from the front row that the views being presented were “one sided” and the discussion had wrongly been billed as a “debate”.
Mr Boff, who wore a T-shirt which said “Trans Rights are Human Rights”, told the PA News agency afterwards: “It was curated hatred.”
He added: “It wasn’t really a debate; it was curated hatred. There were no voices from trans people on stage, there were no voices from the other side of the argument, and I felt I needed to address the imbalance in that debate.
“I commented throughout, ‘where are the trans people?’ ‘Why aren’t they on stage?’ ‘Why aren’t you hearing their voices?’ ‘How are they going to be included’. You ‘re talking about just exclude, exclude, exclude, what about including trans people and understanding that they have rights too.”
He continued: “It’s getting more and more, and worse and worse, and I wish they’d stop it. It’s not just trans people, it’s immigrants, it’s asylum seekers, it looks like they’re going through a list of the most vulnerable people and blaming them for the problems of the world.
“Well they are not problems, they are human beings and they deserve respect, and they deserve their voice to be heard. And unfortunately at this conference, their voice has been shut out.”
The session, “The meaning of sex: Gender Critical Debate”, was chaired by shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho.
In response to Mr Boff’s heckles Ms Davies said she would not apologise for defending the rights of women and girls.
The panel claimed that others had “silenced” the debate previously and those with gender critical views had not been able to discuss them without being criticised.
Mr Boff had previously heckled a session on gender identity before, during the Conservative Party Conference in 2023.
He was ejected from the event after he interrupted a speech by then home secretary Suella Braverman when she described “gender ideology” as “poison”.
Mr Boff had said the comments were a “homophobic rant”.
Speaking to PA on Wednesday, he said he would not leave the party despite its shift on gender identity policy. He said he was attending his 48th Conservative Party conference.
“It’s my party,” he said. “Of course I’m not quitting.
“I’ll be here switching the lights off when all these buggers have gone off to Reform.”
He said he believed the party would again shift its policy back to being more supportive of trans rights.
He said: “They will. I’ve been long enough in this party to know that there are troughs and there are peaks. We are in a trough at the moment.”
“Both in terms of its representation and the quality of the leadership.
“We will come out again, and will discover that one nation Conservativism which talks about bringing people together, that talks about fiscal responsibility, that talks about not lying to people about what we can and cannot do.
“That’s the Conservative Party I joined, and that’s the Conservative Party that’s going to return.”
