Sam Sotiropoulos is a member of the Toronto School Board who has particularly negative views on LGBT people, which he expresses openly on Twitter. When asked to address those comments by a Global News reporter, however, Sotiropoulos avoided stating his own opinion, denied the existence of tweets that are still active on his account, and awkwardly stood in silence — long silence.
He also tweeted a link to the conservative outlet LifeSiteNews, citing psychiatrist Joseph Berger, who believes there is no such as transgender people. Berger, who sits on the board of the ex-gay organization NARTH, has previously advocated that schools should let students ridicule their gender non-conforming peers until they can “draw the line between what is healthy and what is sick.” The LifeSiteNews story problematically includes many pictures of drag queens at pride parades instead of people who actually identify as transgender.
Sotiropoulos agreed to discuss his tweet with Global News, but then refused to actually provide his own views on transgender people. Indeed, as he similarly attempted to explain in a separate radio interview, — what he meant is that he simply “reserved the right” to make a decision about whether being transgender is a mental illness, but that he hadn’t yet made such a decision. He seemed to deny the implication that in the mean time, he does believe that it is a mental illness. But when the reporter then brought up other anti-LGBT tweets he has posted in the past, he became truly flummoxed. Watch the interview:
Toronto School Board Member Is Finally Called Out For Anti-Gay Rants, Is Left Speechless | ThinkProgress
He also tweeted a link to the conservative outlet LifeSiteNews, citing psychiatrist Joseph Berger, who believes there is no such as transgender people. Berger, who sits on the board of the ex-gay organization NARTH, has previously advocated that schools should let students ridicule their gender non-conforming peers until they can “draw the line between what is healthy and what is sick.” The LifeSiteNews story problematically includes many pictures of drag queens at pride parades instead of people who actually identify as transgender.
Sotiropoulos agreed to discuss his tweet with Global News, but then refused to actually provide his own views on transgender people. Indeed, as he similarly attempted to explain in a separate radio interview, — what he meant is that he simply “reserved the right” to make a decision about whether being transgender is a mental illness, but that he hadn’t yet made such a decision. He seemed to deny the implication that in the mean time, he does believe that it is a mental illness. But when the reporter then brought up other anti-LGBT tweets he has posted in the past, he became truly flummoxed. Watch the interview:
Toronto School Board Member Is Finally Called Out For Anti-Gay Rants, Is Left Speechless | ThinkProgress