Exclusive: Transgender firefighter says union official’s transphobic remarks ‘incited hate’

Exclusive

A trans firefighter who used to be in the Royal Marines has said that the senior Fire Brigade Union official who made a series of “transphobic” comments has “incited hate.”

Katie Cornhill, who was nominated for the service’s Woman of the Year award in 2016, told PinkNews that Paul Embery’s remarks constituted “a hate incident that should be investigated by the police.”

The Metropolitan Police have informed PinkNews that Embery’s tweets do not appear to have been reported via Twitter or directly to the police.

Embery, an executive council member in the union, tweeted in response to the government’s move last month to reform transgender laws.

He wrote: “Coming next: short people may identify as tall, fat people may identify as thin, and ugly people may pretend to be George Clooney.”

Embery also said that “forcing society to recognise someone as one gender when he/she maintains the anatomy of another is ludicrous,” later calling the concept “Orwellian”.

Cornhill, a station manager for Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, said she was “disappointed” with the FBU’s response to Embery’s “very harmful” comments.

The FBU did not condemn the remarks, saying that Embery’s views “as expressed on his private Twitter page are his own, and are not those of the Fire Brigades Union.”

Cornhill rubbished this claim, saying: “Social media is not private.