UKIP leadership candidate vows to oppose ‘militant transgender activism’
A UKIP leadership hopeful has vowed to shift the party aggressively against transgender rights.
David Kurten, one of the UK Independence Party’s two elected members of the London Assembly, is one of the candidates vying to replace Paul Nuttall as party leader.
The party, which has long been opposed to LGBT rights reforms, has courted the gay vote in recent years by playing up fears of anti-LGBT Islamic extremists.
The right-wing party even saw the emergence of an ‘LGBT in UKIP’ group, though it failed to tackle a number of homophobes standing for election.
But Mr Kurten has vowed to boster the party’s opposition to transgender rights, and LGBT-inclusive sex education in schools.
He told Buzzfeed that UKIP could take advantage of the Tories “[deciding] to start pushing gender queer theory on primary schools.”
He added: “People don’t want their children to be confused by this kind of thing.
“I will take UKIP in the direction of standing against the militant transgender activism that’s happening at the moment.”
Mr Kurten previously said the government should ban teaching about “non-reproductive sexual acts” under the age of consent, effectively banning discussion of homosexuality in the classroom.
He said: “We must protect our children from damaging and confusing fringe ideologies which sexualise children at an early age and confuse their natural development as boys and girls – both in primary, secondary and even pre-schools.
“No one would have thought 10 years ago that it would ever be considered politically incorrect to call children boys or girls, to call parents mothers or fathers, or if you say there are two biological sexes determined by your chromosomes rather than 40 or 50 or 60 different genders then this is on the way to being considered a hate crime.
“Of course it isn’t. It’s science.”
Three of the candidates in the leadership race – London Assembly member Peter Whittle, Scotland leader David Coburn, and anti-Islam activist Anne Marrie Waters – are openly gay, though not necessarily in support of LGBT rights.
Mr Whittle was considered the frontrunner in the race, though Mr Kurten has been bolstered by the backing of influential billionaire donor Arron Banks.
The struggling party has churned its way through a string of leaders in the past two years – with the reigns passing between Nigel Farage, Suzanne Evans, Nigel Farage, Diane James, Nigel Farage, Paul Nuttall and current interim leader Steve Crowther.
Another candidate in the leadership race famously claimed a gay donkey raped his horse.
Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage recently insisted that Donald Trump “had a point” when he banned transgender people from the US military.
