Katie Hopkins ‘apologised for wild insult’ against parents of trans children
Katie Hopkins at Politicon at Pasadena Convention Center on July 29, 2017 in Pasadena, California. (Joshua Blanchard/Getty for Politicon)
Katie Hopkins has apologised to the parent of a transgender child after she made a series of “wild insults”.
Speaking on her LBC radio show, Hopkins said that parents of transgender children were “too quick” to allow their child to identify as trans.
She also said that these parents were “vegan, quinoa-eating, liberals”.
One mother, Sam, of a 5-year-old trans boy, phoned up Hopkins to set her and her assumptions straight.
“I’d like to put out there, I don’t eat quinoa, I’m not a vegan, just to make that really clear,” the caller started.
“That’s a good point of clarity,” Hopkins replied. Adding that she had made “quite an assumption”.
The two began to discuss Sam’s son and his trans identity.
“He didn’t get up one day and say ‘I want to be a boy’ and I went ‘oh, ok, let’s do that’,” the mother explained.
“I don’t know that he will end up as a boy, I don’t if this is a phase, I don’t know if this has anything to do with autism which he has displayed.
“From a really young age he would say ‘why do you keep calling me a girl?’. He asked questions that I wouldn’t expect a child of that age to even think about,” she added.
The mother’s perspective spurred Hopkins into apologising for the “wild insults” she had made earlier in the programme.
Hopkins said: “I want to thank you for calling in after I made a wild insult to all people that we were talking about, the type of mum as I had decided was a vegan quinoa-eating soul.
“You’ve changed my mind in terms of how mums sound. You don’t sound at all as I expected, you don’t sound in the way that I described you, and I think I owe you an apology for suggesting that you were those sorts of mums.”
The radio presenter, who recently lost a libel case to Jack Monroe, added that the mother had made her think more rationally about the topic.
“You’ve opened my eyes to a more rational way of thinking and dealing with this where you are just allowing your child to present in the way that they feel comfortable at the moment.
“I think Hopkins may have just changed her mind slightly in the last second there. Sam, thank you,” Hopkins said.
