Published
On Wednesday, Jamie Wallis, an English conservative, admitted to having gender dysphoria and not feeling well after a sexual assault.
Jamie Wallis is 37 years old.
AFP
A British Conservative MP, Jamie Wallis, revealed Wednesday to be trans, a first, attracting messages of support from his colleagues and Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “I am trans. Or to be more precise, I want to be. I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and I’ve felt like it since I was very young,” said Jamie Wallis, 37, in a very personal statement posted on Twitter.
This Tory MP for Bridgend, Wales, said he was ‘not well’ after being blackmailed and raped by someone he met online, saying it was time for him to come clean . The message was posted shortly before 3 a.m. after a rally of Tory MPs at which Boris Johnson mocked his Labor opponent Keir Starmer who had recently struggled to answer questions about transgender people. “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, or as Keir Starmer would say, people assigned female or male at birth”, launched Boris Johnson, according to the site Politico.
“Immense dose of courage”
On Wednesday, he reacted to the message from Jamie Wallis by highlighting the “huge dose of courage” it took for the MP to “tell this very intimate story”. The place of transgender people is at the heart of current ‘culture wars’ in British society, with ruling Conservatives often deeming the positions of trans rights activists to be excessive.
Jamie Wallis explained in his statement that he had “no intention of sharing” these confidences, before explaining that he was blackmailed in April 2020 by a man who revealed his sexual orientation to his father, sent photos to other members of his family and demanded 50,000 pounds (some 60,820 francs) in exchange for his silence. The deputy claimed that this blackmailer pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.
Jamie Wallis said he hoped to ‘move on’ but was raped by someone he met online: ‘I haven’t been myself since this incident and I don’t think I’ll ever get over it “. Several Conservative MPs and members of the government have expressed their support for him. Former cabinet minister George Osborne tweeted that ‘a lot has improved in politics’, pointing out that ‘if a Tory MP had said that when I was first elected 20 years ago he would have been harassed , and not applauded and supported”.
(AFP)