100% of women don't have penises: PM Rishi Sunak
In a first, Rishi Sunak becomes the first Western leader of any country to say this without any hesitation.
Total Views |
London, Apr 15: Women don’t have penises, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said while speaking with the ConservativeHome website on Thursday. The prime minister was asked about Labour Party leader Keir Starmer’s recent statement that “99.9 percent of women, of course, haven’t got a penis”.
“Sir Keir said recently that ‘99 percent of women, of course, haven’t got a penis’. What percentage would you put it at?” the interviewer asked Rishi Sunak. The prime minister laughed and said he had a “slightly different point of view to him on this”.
“Do you think it’s 100 percent?” the interviewer asked, and Sunak said, “Yeah, of course.” The UK prime minister further added, “But I think the first thing to say is we should always have compassion and understanding and tolerance for those who are thinking about their gender." "When it comes to these issues of protecting women's rights, women's spaces, I think the issue of biological sex is fundamentally important when we think about those questions," Sunak said, adding that he has been saying this regularly. Rishi Sunak's statement comes at a time when Britain is reviewing gender laws. The British government is considering making a distinction in equality legislation between someone who was born a certain sex and someone who has undergone a sex change. Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch is currently considering an amendment to the 2010 Equality Act that would specifically redefine "sex" as referring to biological sex - a move that would legalize the exclusion of transgender people from single-sex spaces such as hospital wards. Badenoch has requested guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission on the proposed modification. The UK's Equality Act permits the transgender community to be restricted from single-sex areas such as changing rooms and shelters. "They've responded with some advice about the Equality Act and how it should think about biological sex, we are in the process of looking at that," said Rishi Sunak in the interview.
"But as a general kind of operating principle for me, biological sex is vitally, fundamentally important in these questions. We can't forget that. And that's why we need to make sure, particularly when it comes to women's health, women's sports, or indeed spaces, that we're protecting those rights and those places," he added. Earlier in January this year, the British government decided to block a bill passed by the Scottish parliament that made it easier for people to change their legal gender. The move sparked a fresh argument with the devolved Scottish government, which has also been thwarted in its attempts to hold a new independence referendum.