Piers Morgan

—Asserted that the word “women” is being “deliberately eradicated from common usage.”

—Repeatedly asked a trans, nonbinary interview subject about their genitals, though the guest declined to discuss it, and described the interviewee’s child as “it” and “having no identity” because the parent was choosing to raise the child without assigned gender. “Can I call it ‘it’? Is it an ‘it’?” he asked.

—Was accused by transgender author and advocate Janet Mock of seeking to “sensationalize” her biography, including asking whether she had disclosed to her boyfriend that she’d once been “a man,” and tweeting during his CNN interview with Mock, “How would you feel if you found out the woman you are dating was formerly a man?” and using an on-screen chyron for Mock that read that she “was a boy until age 18.” Mock never identified as a man and identified as a girl in high school.

—Ridiculed nonbinary and transgender people when he tweeted, “Speaking as a two-spirit penguin, I find it absolutely disgraceful that you have a assigned a gender-neutral identity to a penguin chick when it may wish to identify itself as male or female…”

—Wrote in a column, “My number one pet hate at the moment is the absurd ‘gender fluid’ movement, driven by people who don’t wish to be defined as either male or female.”

—Tweeted: “I don’t hate the people, I hate the movement. Human beings are male or female. Not whatever they fancy being.”

—In an interview, derided his interview subjects, a trans, nonbinary couple, for having a “hypothetical” gender identity. In the same interview he said nonbinary children in schools is “like a contagion,” and asked, “If I decided to identify myself as a different skin color, would you respect that?” and, “If kids can come in and say they’re not a boy or girl anymore, what else can they say they’re not? Is anything fine? Can I say I’m an elephant?”

—After calls for Morgan to be fired from Good Morning Britain due to his record of transphobic comments, tweeted: “I support those who transition, just as I’ve always loudly supported gay rights, but I don’t support the ridiculous notion of 100 genders, and most sensible people agree with me.”

—Said nonbinary musician Sam Smith would “wreck” the BRIT Awards after it was announced the award show was considering following the lead of the Grammys and the VMAs—both of which had stopped using gendered award categories. “I think it’s great that such time-honored awards should be just wrecked like this because one [person] can’t decide if [they’re] male or female,” Morgan said. Morgan questioned the authenticity of Smith’s gender identity, saying that the singer announced they were nonbinary as part of a “trend or a fad or a craze,” and they did so in order to seek “popularity.” Morgan then “joked,” “I’m now identifying as Sam Smith so I can get his royalties. It works both ways.” Smith came out as nonbinary in 2019, and had already won dozens of various awards, including a Golden Globe, four Grammys, and even a Guiness Word Record for most consecutive weeks in the UK Top 10 Album Charts. 

—Mocked trans people in 2019, declaring that he began identifying as “trans-slender,” and told his co-host: “You can’t fat shame me because I’m identifying as skinny. I am officially trans-slender and I expect to be treated with the respect that my new status and identity affords me, which is that I’m skinny.”