Where does Rishi Sunak’s new government stand on LGBTQ+ issues? – Gay Times Magazine

James Cleverly

Constituency: Braintree
Position: Foreign Secretary

James Cleverly is considered to be one of the most pro-LGBTQ+ members of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet and his support for the community can be traced back as far as 2005. “Gay ‘marriage’ takes nothing away from heterosexual marriage and while there will be some civil partnerships which are done for the wrong reasons the same can be said of straight marriage,” he wrote in a blog post at the time. “Best of luck I say.” During an appearance on Question Time in 2018, he eloquently responded to a trans woman who detailed her own experiences and called for gender recognition reform: “I am a Conservative because I believe in personal choice, personal freedom, personal responsibility, and I think this is the natural evolution of those principles,” Cleverly told her. “If a sexual predator wishes to enter a toilet to attack a woman, there’s no need to have any recognition or certificate to do so, that can happen already. If that’s what we’re worried about, we should look at ways of protecting women, rather than dance around the issue and try to make an already-difficult issue even more difficult.” He did, however, recently come under fire for telling LGBTQ+ fans travelling to Qatar – a country where homosexuality is illegal – for the World Cup to be “respectful of the host nation” in order to stay safe there. “They are trying to ensure that people can be themselves and enjoy the football, and I think with a little bit of flex and compromise at both ends, it can be a safe, secure and exciting World Cup,” he told LBC.