16/01/2021
Gay television personality and one of the UK's top chat show hosts, Graham Norton has given a rare political interview in which he defends transgender people and speaks about the sacrifices made by LGBTQ campaigners in his native Republic of Ireland. Mr Norton told reporters for the Sunday Times that trans people are a small group which needs defending, noting “I feel like trans people are a very vulnerable group and a tiny group, and it’s been conflated into this thing, as if there are trans armies coming over the hills.” He explained that activists are needed to push progress into the mainstream and said that he had taken what he described as “the easy way out” by leaving seventies Ireland for the bright lights of London, where a thriving if somewhat underground gay and lesbian scene gave people love, support and a common identity. Pink News says that Mr Norton has recently published his book Home Stretch, in which he says that he has nothing but admiration for Irish LGBTQ people who fought for the changes that the country has seen. “I don’t want to be glib about it, because those people who stayed, who went on the marches and did the petitions, are nameless and faceless and I’ll never get to actually thank them, but they did the hard work”.
