The TV personality has addressed the backlash (Picture: E4)
Kim Woodburn has spoken out after being accused of ‘transphobia’ over remarks she made about unisex changing rooms, stressing her support for the LGBT+ community while lambasting her ‘horrible’ critics.
Last week, the professional cleaner and TV personality appeared on GB News, where she and presenter Mark Dolan discussed a campaign by the Women’s Rights Network calling for high street stores to provide ‘female-only’ changing rooms.
When asked whether she was worried about being ‘labelled a transphobe or a bigot’ for her views, Kim replied: ‘Look, if I’m going to be labelled that, then get on with it. I give not a jot. If I don’t want to show a man, accidentally, my knockers, or my bottom half, dear, which could easily happen, then I’m being labelled? Because I don’t want to show my bare body to a strange man? What?’
The 80-year-old then added: ‘A man’s a man, a woman’s a woman. And women who say they don’t mind sharing a dressing room with a man, they must be sexually frustrated and need to see something naughty!’
Several of Kim’s fans called her out for her comments, with one person tweeting: ‘All you’ve done is show no understanding on the question, the issue, or the struggle that actual trans people face. Sometimes it’s okay just not to speak.’
In a lengthy statement shared on her Instagram Story, the former Celebrity Big Brother star said she will ‘always be an ally’ to the LGBT+ community and expressed her anger over ‘those who have deliberately misinterpreted what I said’ amid claims of ‘transphobia’.
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‘To all my LGBTQ+ followers I would like to address my appearance on The Mark Dolan Show. The conversation was about male and females sharing dressing rooms. During the show we never discussed trans people,’ she wrote.
‘I have always supported the LGBTQ+ community, as you are all aware, and I count each and every single one of you, my friends.’
‘I will always be an ally,’ the TV personality stressed after backlash (Picture: Instagram/@kimwoodburn)
Kim said that if anyone had ‘twisted the interview to be something it wasn’t’, then in her opinion, they should ‘be ashamed’ of themselves’.
‘And I wouldn’t want you as my friends,’ she quipped.
‘I will always be an ally to the community and would never say a bad word about any of you. I am very disappointed in those who have deliberately misinterpreted what I said. You are horrible horrible people.’
In 2019, Kim shared how ‘honoured’ she felt to be impersonated on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, when drag queen The Vivienne delivered an impression of her on the BBC Three show.
She was impersonated yet again during a recent episode of Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs the World, this time by queen Victoria Scone for the Snatch Game gameshow.
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‘I will always be an ally,’ the TV personality stressed after backlash.Â
