Councillor Dylan Tippetts (left) with Stuart Bonar, Chair of Plymouth Liberal Democrats
Plymouth City Council has been without a Lib Dem councillor for over 20 years – until this week, when Councillor Dylan Tippetts joined the Lib Dems.
When he resigned from Labour last Friday Dylan stated that the party “has thrown transgender people under the bus and has taken us back decades.” The Guardian has the story here: Labour ‘throwing trans people under the bus’, says transgender councillor.
Dylan said:
I first got into politics to give people a voice who may not otherwise have one. For me, that means always standing up for equal rights for all.
In the face of rising far-right populism, the Liberal Democrats are not running away from the battle for equal rights for all. They are the party of fairness, even when the going gets tough. I’m proud to be joining the Liberal Democrats and joining the battle for the future of our city and the future of our country.
I meant what I said to the trans community when I got elected. Your voice matters. I will always make sure trans voices are listened to and valued in this period of turbulence and division our country faces.
In Compton ward, I am proud to have stood with residents on difficult planning issues, when the buses got cut, and when basic services haven’t been delivered. Thank you to the wonderful people of Compton, Mannamead, Mutley and Hartley Vale for your support over the past three years. I look forward to continuing to stand with you and working to make things better for you until the end of my term.
Welcome to Dylan!
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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5 Comments
Hopefully this will help persuade the leadership that there is more to be gained from supporting trans people than offering concern from the sidelines.
Imagine how many more defections and members we could recruit if we actually called for the law to be changed to undo the supreme court ruling, and openly attacked the Labour party for it’s rampant transphobia and pulled no punches in doing so!
I’m very pleased Dylan has joined us.
Here’s some polling about how the public see the Supreme Court decision.
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_transpoll_20250430.html
To quote Electoral Calculus:
“Over half of voters (59pc) [agree with the decision] compared with only 17pc who disagree.”
and
“Interestingly, while most people agree with the ruling that trans women are not legally women, 41pc accept that the outcome could increase discrimination towards transgender people compared with the 37pc who think it will be unchanged or even reduce.”
When I talk to voters, the biggest issue is alleged risk to [biological] women from transgender women using [biological] women’s spaces. Is there any statistical or other evidence that can be used to show transgender women are no more likely to assault or harass [biological] women than [biological] women are?
@Tristan Ward
You make good points. However the issue with use of women’s changing room would not appear to be about safety but about privacy. One woman who spoke to me about this (who is a Muslim) argued that should felt changing in a mixed changing-sex changing room was something she could not do as a matter of her beliefs. Somehow we must also accommodate the religious rights of Muslim women to single-sex changing rooms when we plan how to meet everyone’s protected rights under the Equality Act.
@Mike Peters
“One woman who spoke to me about this (who is a Muslim) argued that should felt changing in a mixed changing-sex changing room was something she could not do as a matter of her beliefs.”
Does it necessarily have anything to do with beliefs? Personally I would not feel comfortable changing in a mixed sex changing room and I’m an atheist.
There are plenty of people who don’t feel comfortable in a single sex changing room.