Laurence Dollimore
AN investigation has been launched after a Catholic bus was emblazoned with an anti-transgender slogan.
The bus was created by a conservative group who planned to have it tour the country.
The slogan reads: “Boys have penises, girls have vaginas. Don’t let them fool you. If you’re born a man, you’re a man, if you’re a woman, you will continue to be so.”
The offensive bus was chartered by HazteOir (‘Make yourself heard’), and was part of the group’s latest campaign against the promotion of gender identity i.e. the right of a person to identify as a gender different from the one assigned at birth.
The vehicle was quickly seized before it could tour Spanish cities amid fears and official complaints of LGBT-phobia.
There has now been a probe into whether or not the bus constitutes as a hate crime.
Prosecutors have demanded the bus be immobilised, saying that failing to do so could risk ‘disturbing the peace and creating a feeling of insecurity or fear among people due to their identity or sexual orientation, and specifically among minors who could be affected by the message.’
Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias said: “Those from HazteOir may have penises and vaginas, but they clearly don’t have a brain, nor do they have a heart.”
Gay lawmaker for Partido Popular Javier Maroto , also slammed the project, calling it a ‘disgraceful campaign of hate’ against the LGBT community.
But the conservative group are trying to get the bus back, while around 20 of its members protested outside Madrid town hall.
One 71-year-old supporter – who refused to give his full name – told AFP: “We have the right to educate our children according to our thinking, why must they impose their criteria?”
“It doesn’t seem right that they teach our children this type of ideology, that anyone can choose their sex.”
Let these bigots have their bus back. It won’t travel more than a few metres before it ends up on bricks. Or worse.
A lot of fuss over nothing, just a bit of writing on a bus.