Kim Woodburn says transphobia allegations are a misunderstanding: ‘She supports the LGBTQ+ community’
Kim Woodburn. (Getty)
Kim Woodburn has claimed that she was “misinterpreted” after being accused of transphobia over a GB News interview.
Woodburn was invited onto the station to discuss unisex changing rooms. Presenter Dan Wooton suggested Woodburn “spoke for the silent majority of women” and asked if she feared she would be “labelled a transphobe or a bigot” for opposing such facilities.
Woodburn replied that she “gives not a jot” about being labelled as such, and that she didn’t want to show “bare body to a strange man.”
“Come on don’t talk utter rubbish, my love, a man’s a man, a woman’s a woman,” Woodburn added.
After receiving intense backlash from the LGBTQ+ community, Woodburn has denied that she was referring to trans people.
A representative told PinkNews: “Kim was asked about cisgendered men not about any trans issues.
“Kim supports the whole LGBTQ+ community and the whole thing was misinterpreted.”
This echoes a statement put out by Woodburn on her Instagram .
She wrote: “During the show we never discussed trans people.
“I have always supported the LGBTQ+ community, as you all are aware, and I count each and every single one of you, my friends.
“Anyone who has twisted the interview to be something it wasn’t you should be ashamed of yourselves, and I wouldn’t want you as my friends.
“I will always be an ally to the community and would never say a bad word about any of you. I am very disappointed in those who have deliberately misinterpreted what I said.”
She concluded the message with: “You are horrible horrible people.”
Some have pointed out that the interviewer asked Woodburn to discuss unisex spaces, not trans inclusion in single-sex spaces.
“He manipulated you by asking you how you feel about unisex spaces, which is not the same as trans inclusion,” commented Danielle St James, chief exec of trans charity Not A Phase.
“We know your heart is in the right place.”
However, many have also suggested that perhaps Woodburn should “stop going on GB News” which has a track record for inflammatory anti-trans debates.
In 2021, trans journalist India Willoughby refused to return to GB News, calling it an “absolute nightmare” who “demonised trans people at any given opportunity.”
The GB News debate was referring to recent controversy around Marks & Spencers, which has unisex changing rooms.
After a social media user posed the hypothetical situation of a man opening the curtain on a young person getting their “first bra fitting”, the retailer clarified its changing rooms are private lockable cubicles.
