Piers Morgan doubles down on anti-trans views after petition calls for him to be sacked
Piers Morgan (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty)
Piers Morgan has spoken out about a petition calling for him to be sacked from Good Morning Britain over his anti-trans remarks.
“Having a hundred genders is utter nonsense,” Morgan said on GMB today (October 14).
He continued: “And it’s going to be extremely dangerous to teach kids this kind of thing, and I speak as a father of four. And maybe I’m on my own with this, but maybe I’m not.”
He then announced that the Good Morning Britain Twitter account would be conducting its own poll asking viewers whether he should be sacked for his views.
At the time of writing, more than 50,000 people had cast a vote, with 63 percent saying he should remain in his role and 37 percent saying he should be sacked.
Piers Morgan has attracted controversy for his anti-trans remarks.
Controversy has been gathering around Morgan for months over numerous comments he has made about trans and non-binary people. Last month, he announced that he is now identifying as “a two-spirit penguin” on Good Morning Britain. Just days later, he suggested that Sam Smith had come out as non-binary to elicit a “new splurge of publicity”.
The comments led to a petition – which has been signed almost 14,000 times – calling for Morgan to be sacked over his comments. An opposing petition calling for Morgan to retain his slot on GMB has been signed almost 30,000 times.
More than 28,000 people are calling for me to stay because they see right through this disingenuous nonsense.
Over the weekend, Morgan hit out at the petition to have him removed, calling those who signed it “virtue-signalling snowflake” who are trying to “cancel & silence people who dare to challenge your often ludicrous & dangerous views”.
Morgan went on to mock trans model and artist Fox Fisher on Twitter.
Writing on Twitter this morning, Morgan quoted a tweet from trans model, artist and actor Fox Fisher about the petition and wrote: “More than 28,000 people are calling for me to stay because they see right through this disingenuous nonsense.”
He went on to mock Fisher’s identity, writing: “So pipe down ‘Fox’. And incidentally, why are you allowed to identify as a non-binary Fox, but I’m not allowed to be a two-spirit Penguin?”
He later quoted a tweet from BBC home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford about the controversy. He then suggested that the BBC wants him to be fired because his show is gaining in ratings.
Before joining GMB, Morgan served as editor of the Daily Mirror, but was sacked in 2004 for publishing fake photographs of British troops torturing Iraqi prisoners. He was also editor of the same paper at a time when articles likely to be the product of illegal phone hacking appeared in it.
He was also sacked by CNN in 2014 for “bad ratings”.
