TV and radio presenter Rylan Clark has called for there to be more stories about transgender people amid a “mass wave of hate”.
In an appearance at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Clark, 36, who has presented on This Morning and Big Brother’s Bit On The Side, spoke about the adversity LGBT+ people can face, as well as his own experience growing up gay.
He said: “I feel that there is a mass wave of hate just sweeping the community, especially trans people at the moment.
“There’s a lot of people that are talking about bathrooms and spaces and things like this and people are just being tarnished with the same brush.”
The presenter explained there is a mindset that because one transgender person does something bad “that means all trans people are awful people”.
He said: “Trans people … they’re going through a wave of hate at the minute, and I think there is space to show real stories, real trans people.
“A lot of people out there think trans people are the enemy, f*** me.
“I’d like you to walk a mile in their shoes and see who the real enemy is out there to people, because the stories that I know of friends of mine and people that I’ve grown up with, transitions are awful, absolutely awful.”
Over the Easter period, the Supreme Court declared that the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
The Equality And Human Rights Commission’s interim update on the implications of the judgment said transgender people should not use toilets and other services of the gender they identify as.
Trans rights protests took place across the country following the ruling and celebrities showed their support by signing an open letter in solidarity with transgender people.
At the end of July, the London Trans Pride saw a record-breaking turnout of about 100,000 people, making it “the largest Trans Pride event in history”, according to organisers.
Clark said he does not want or need Pride but added that the annual celebratory event is needed because of the way LGBT+ people are treated.
At the Scottish TV event, the BBC Radio 2 presenter spoke to actor Russell Tovey and the two reflected on their respective experiences growing up gay in Essex.
Speaking about a nightclub he would go to as a young man, Tovey said: “It was a really important safe space, which I didn’t realise at the time how important that was.
“And now you hear about so many safe spaces disappearing for so many queer people, and the importance of that, of somewhere where you can relax and be amongst the people who understand you.
“The disappearances of those is dangerous.”
