Coronation Street actor Charlie Condou has been handed the unpaid role helping Labour’s shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues (file pic)
Labour faced fresh embarrassment over its gay rights advisory panel last night after it emerged that one of its members had joked online about ‘trannies’.
Coronation Street actor Charlie Condou has been handed the unpaid role helping Labour’s shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.
But it has been revealed the 45-year-old, who is gay, previously posted offensive social media posts about transgender people.
In 2012, Mr Condou mocked the members of pop band Union J on Twitter.
He wrote: ‘One of them is verging on tranny!’
It comes after transgender model Munroe Bergdorf, 31, resigned from Labour’s LGBT advisory panel last week over offensive tweets.
She was appointed by Miss Butler despite being fired by L’Oreal last year for saying all whites were racistl
She has also labelled suffragettes ‘white supremacists’ and dubbed gay Conservative activists ‘a special kind of d***head’.
Last weekend it emerged that she called a Twitter follower a ‘hairy barren lesbian’ in 2012 and also said she wanted to ‘gay bash’ a TV star – comments she has apologised for.
When Miss Berdorf was sacked by L’Oreal, Mr Condou wrote online that he supported her.
He tweeted: ‘I stand with Munroe. If you can’t see that white privilege is part of the problem, then I’m afraid you’re a bit racist.’
Mr Condou last night said: ‘Sorry, no comment.’
A spokesman for Miss Butler said she is standing by the Coronation Street star despite the offensive tweet.
It comes after transgender model Munroe Bergdorf, 31, resigned from Labour’s LGBT advisory panel last week over offensive tweets (file pic)
He said: ‘Dawn values diversity of experiences and opinions from a wide range of stakeholders.
‘Dawn is committed to challenging all forms of discrimination and will continue consulting her LGBT+ stakeholder group because she believes it is crucial to hear from those with lived experience of prejudice and to develop closer links with the LGBT+ community in her role as Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities.’
A party source said: ‘This is an informal stakeholder group being set up by Dawn Butler, which does not have a role within the Party’s structures or policy-making processes, and its members are not paid.
‘The purpose of the group is to develop stronger links between Dawn Butler and the LGBT+ community.’