Lisa Nandy slams Piers Morgan for saying he identifies as a penguin in trans rights debate

Labour leadership candidate Lisa Nandy has gone head-to-head with Piers Morgan over trans rights.

Nandy, who is taking on Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey in the contest to lead Her Majesty's Opposition, accused Morgan of setting up a “false war” between cisgender women and trans women.

The discussion took place on ITV's Good Morning Britain, where Nandy was asked by Morgan to justify her support for trans rights. Morgan – who once changed his Twitter profile picture to a picture of himself as a penguin in an attempt to mock self-identification – took particular issue with trans people in sports.

He also asked Nandy if she agrees with a BBC educational video which states that, in different cultures and languages around the world, there's over 100 genders. Nandy told Morgan he could “do with watching one of them”. Not impressed by this, he pressed her again.

Nandy said she did not want to tell people “who they are”. She then gave Morgan a piece of her mind, calling out his apparent inability to engage with trans people or see where they’re coming from.

I don’t know what’s difficult about that for you to understand… I don’t know why this is so hard.

Morgan then gave Nandy an extremely bizarre sports analogy.

Why wouldn’t you come on Good Morning Britain to tell us whether it’s fair for Usain Bolt to self-identify as female?

It’s complete madness.

Nandy responded:

You’ve created more heat and less light.

Usain Bolt is not planning to self-identify as a woman and compete.

Next he asked Nandy:

How far do trans rights go against women’s rights?

I’m trying to defend women’s rights in a grotesquely unfair situation… What am I doing that’s so wrong?

To which she responded by suggesting he’s setting up a false war between the two groups.

You’re setting up a false war between women and trans rights.

I’m sorry, I think this is outrageous.

After Morgan once again repeated his ever-so-hilarious penguin comparison (seriously, get a new joke).

Nandy retorted:

I think you’re being trivial, because you’re talking about penguins when actually trans people are the most discriminated against people in the country.

Morgan then accused Nandy of peddling “dangerous nonsense” for insinuating he was being anti-trans by being... blatantly anti-trans.

All in all, it’s just another day in the culture war in which trans people face constant marginalisation.

Watch the full exchange here: