AN LGBT adviser has quit his post accusing the UK government of trying to drive a wedge between transgender and gay people.
Iain Anderson has resigned from his role as the LGBT business champion, telling ITV news that ministers were waging a "woke war" after planning to exclusive transgender people from a ban on conversion therapy.
Mr Anderson said there was no "strategy" for transgender people, adding: "We have a tabloid debate going on about people’s lives. It’s not a respectful debate, it's turned into a woke war.
"It's turned into a wedge issue... I was LGBT Business Champion not LGB or T, and that’s why I’m walking away."
The resignation comes after 100 leading charities and organisations pulled out of a government-run LGBT+ conference, after the news channel reported that minsiters were planning to u-turn on a pledge to ban conversion therapy entirely.
It is claimed that the goevrnment's team of LGBT+ advisers had not been informed of the plans, nor equalities minsiter Liz Truss.
The plan to scrap the ban was revealed on Transgender Visibility Day, on which Mr Anderson made commitments in public that the government had an inclusive approach to a flagship conversion therapy ban to include all LGBT+ people - "until it changed twice on Thursday".
He said: "I do feel undermined.
"This came as a complete bolt out of the blue. Not just to me but to Liz Truss and the government's LGBT envoy. It came on the very day of International Transgender Visibility. I was completely shocked."
He added that the government's LGBT+ conference - Safe To Be Me 2022 - cannot go ahead in June this year as planned after over a hundred organisations pulled out.
"Given what has happened, the conference can’t take place, trust has been eroded." he said, adding that he "took this job on the basis there’d be a policy for everyone in the LGBT community, but apparently that’s not going to happen".
"This is a matter of principle. I’ve attempted to lobby government but they don’t want to move. When you disagree with policy you step away and that’s what I’m doing," he said.
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