Don’t let Liz Truss partying in a gay club distract from her abysmal failures on LGBT+ rights – Yahoo Eurosport UK

On Wednesday (6 October), the UK woke up to a “deeply grim” sight: minister for women and equalities Liz Truss partying in a Manchester gay club.

To mark the end of the Conservative Party Conference, Cruz 101 in Manchester hosted the LGBT+ Conservatives Closing Party on Tuesday night, and welcomed a notorious guest.

Like a twisted version of Cinderella, just before midnight Truss arrived at the club. Quickly, clips of her dancing to “Simply the Best” by Tina Turner, described as “satire at its greatest“, began circulating on social media.

While the image of the newly-appointed foreign secretary necking a Smirnoff Ice while encircled by gyrating gays might at first seem darkly hilarious, the LGBT+ community refused to let it distract them from her horrific failings when it comes to equalities.

Some on social media called for a boycott of the Manchester venue, and Manchester drag superstar Cheddar Gorgeous tweeted: “Dear Liz Truss, prancing round to Whitney Houston surrounded by gay men is not the same thing as supporting trans rights… If you can’t be there when the most vulnerable members of our community need you to speak out you shouldn’t come to the after party.

“And that goes for some of you aforementioned gays out last night.

“Your world would be diminished without the words and deeds of trans and gender-non conforming people. You owe them a share of your rights, the music you love and the night life scene you enjoy.”

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“No rush on banning conversation therapy then,” added one Twitter.

Another wrote: “After a long day of platforming and supporting anti-LGBT+ hate groups… you can’t make it up.”

Liz Truss insists trans people must be subject to invasive ‘medical checks’ for legal recognition

Just two days before she rocked up at an LGBT+ club, Liz Truss launched into an anti-trans tirade about women, cervixes and self-identification at the the Conservative party conference.

Speaking to The Telegraph’s Chopper’s Politics Podcast live event, Truss said trans people shouldn’t be able to declare their own identity, and should instead be subjected to invasive “medical checks”.

Truss also said that she agrees with Labour MP Rosie Duffield that “only women have a cervix”.

But her positioning of herself as a defender of women didn’t quite hold up, as during her first week as foreign secretary she approved £183 million in cuts to women and equalities aid.

The Government Equalities Office has has disappointed the LGBT+ community time and time again under Truss’s leadership.

Earlier this year, it was confirmed that the government’s LGBT+ Advisory Panel was disbanded after its members supported for self-ID for trans folk.

It has also been reported that Truss has pressured all government departments to withdraw from the Stonewall Diversity Champions programme, a major employment scheme promoting LGBT+ acceptance.

Last month, Truss was accused of treating her equalities position as a “side hustle”, after a damning report by the Women and Equalities Committee revealed that the Equalities Office engages “often” with just two of 41 stakeholders who gave evidence to the committee – one of which is the anti-trans LGB Alliance.

The same report seemed to confirm that the government’s own LGBT Action Plan has been scrapped, and that neither Truss nor her two junior equalities ministers at the time, Kemi Badenoch and Baroness Elizabeth Berridge, could figure out how often they actually met.

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