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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Entertainment
Maya Oppenheim

Jeremy Clarkson's comments about transgender people stir controversy

Jeremy Clarkson has sparked controversy with remarks about transgender.

Writing in the Sunday Times, the former Top Gear presenter argued that the problems faced by trans people had been overstated. 

“As far as I was concerned, men who want to be women were only really to be found on the internet or in the seedier bits of Bangkok," he wrote. 

“They were called ladyboys, and in my mind they were nothing more than the punchline in a stag night anecdote.”

In his column titled ‘Transgender issues are driving me nuts’, the 55-year-old also criticised the parents of trans children and trans prisoners.

He referred to the parents of a child of some “friends of friends”, saying “her parents had simply indulged this whim” when she expressed doubts about her sexuality.

Clarkson added: “But they must not, and I was going to emphasise this with spittle, be allowed to poison the mind of a child."

He was condemned for his comments on social media.

The former presenter, who was sacked by the BBC last year, also discussed the plight of trans prisoners in the Isle of Wight.

“Can’t anyone see, I wailed, that this is what’s going on in the Isle of Wight nick?” he asked. 

“They tell the screws they want to be women, they get a bit of make-up and some breasts to play with and they are then transferred to a women’s prison, where they can spend the rest of their lives being a lesbian. It’s every man’s dream”.

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