Gay giraffe row splits upper ranks of Labour party after Dawn Butler is ridiculed by senior advisers

Gay giraffe row splits upper ranks of Labour party after MP Dawn Butler is ridiculed by senior advisers for suggesting 99% of the animals are sexually attracted to their own gender

  • Dawn Butler is Labour’s Shadow Secretary for Women and Equalities
  • She recently gave rambling speech defending teaching of sexuality in school
  • Mr Corbyn’s senior adviser on domestic policy rebutted the claims on Twitter

It is the latest policy question to split the upper ranks of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party – are the majority of male giraffes gay?

The bizarre row started after Dawn Butler, Labour’s Shadow Secretary for Women and Equalities, gave a rambling after-dinner speech defending the teaching of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in schools, in which she told the audience that an overwhelming majority of giraffes are sexually attracted to their own gender.

Ms Butler, speaking at an awards ceremony by online LGBT newspaper PinkNews earlier this month, said: ‘Ninety per cent of giraffes are gay. Let’s just accept people for who they are and live as our true, authentic selves. Being who you are is not a disease.’ 

A row over gay giraffes has split the upper ranks of Labour party after MP Dawn Butler is ridiculed by senior advisers for suggesting 99 per cent of the animals are sexually attracted to their own gender

She added that the giraffes showed it was invalid for critics to claim LGBT teaching could turn straight children gay.

This drew an angry response from Lachlan Stuart, Mr Corbyn’s senior adviser on domestic policy, who used Twitter to cite several scientific papers that challenge Ms Butler’s claim.

After surreally declaring that giraffes were his ‘favourite animal’, Mr Stuart said the way male giraffes behaved with each other was ‘not gay behaviour’ because ‘there’s no romance. No courtship. No affection. No pair bonding’.

Mr Stuart said studies showed that while male giraffes do engage in some sexual activities with younger males, they only do so to assert authority.

Dawn Butler, Labour's Shadow Secretary for Women and Equalities, gave a rambling after-dinner speech defending the teaching of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in schools

Dawn Butler, Labour’s Shadow Secretary for Women and Equalities, gave a rambling after-dinner speech defending the teaching of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in schools

He said: ‘Is there any truth to this claim? In short, no, there isn’t. It is a ludicrous, offensive, homophobic claim… do you get why it’s completely f****** offensive? It’s akin to describing Deliverance [the 1972 American thriller film] as a ‘gay romance’ because the effete city boys are put in their place by the locals by getting beaten and then raped.’

But are claims just a tall story? 

Dawn Butler’s claim about the sexual leanings of giraffes appears to have been drawn from the book Biological Exuberance, in which author Bruce Bagemihl identifies homosexuality in more than 450 species of mammals, birds, reptiles and insects.

Bagemihl says 94 per cent of male giraffes exhibit homosexual behaviour, including necking, caressing, courting and mounting. Only one per cent of female giraffes show same-sex activity.

He writes: ‘During an exhaustive study of giraffes in the Arusha and Tarangire national parks of Tanzania, researchers recorded 17 homosexual mounts and one heterosexual mount in more than a year (and 3,200 hours) of observation… heterosexual mating appeared to be genuinely rare.’ 

But other studies dispute this, claiming the behaviour is to allow dominant males to assert themselves over more submissive rivals for the females.

One group of researchers said that male giraffes ‘seemed interested in much more coupling’ than they achieved. 

Without naming Ms Butler, Mr Stuart added: ‘I’m really sick and tired now of straight, white, male, young advisers (and that’s who they all are) delivering such foolish words into the mouths of people I’m supposed to respect. 

‘Stay in your lanes, boys, because you don’t get this at all.’

During her expletive-filled speech, Ms Butler also referred to The Mail on Sunday’s report earlier this month that the Government had shelved plans to amend the Gender Recognition Act to make it easier for people to self-identify as male or female regardless of their sex at birth, because it was so contentious.

She said: ‘What the f***? Once upon a time, being a working woman was contentious, once upon a time being gay was contentious. 

‘Who gives a s***? Just amend the Act already… trans people are not the problem, it’s the delay that’s the problem. 

‘Let’s stop the bulls***. Trying to weaponise the trans issue is so dark that it’s not even worth mentioning…

‘I don’t want anyone in this room to be tolerated. I don’t want to be tolerated as a black woman, I want to be accepted. I want everyone in this room to be accepted.’

A source close to Ms Butler said she was making the point that you cannot teach people to be gay.

But the source said Ms Butler appreciated the clarification in Mr Stuart’s tweets. 

How McDonnell reversed his EU vitriol 

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has emerged as a champion of the European Union, urging backers to support the Remain campaign.

But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the hard-Left firebrand held wildly opposing views only a few years ago, claiming the EU was an undemocratic body dominated by big business which damaged working people and calling for it to be replaced with an alternative European model. 

His revolutionary vision is set out in Another World Is Possible: A Manifesto For 21st Century Socialism, a booklet he wrote in 2007 which is jarringly at odds with his latest position.

Only last month, he insisted: ‘I can’t see we can get a better deal than Remain and I would campaign for Remain.’ 

But in 2007, Mr McDonnell – in words which could have been penned by the staunchest Brexiteer – described the EU as ‘a regional arm of the globalisation project. Its unswerving adherence to liberal markets, deregulation and privatisation is to the detriment of working people…

‘The EU is a bureaucratic, largely undemocratic organisation with a largely powerless parliament.

‘And presently constituted, it cannot and will not serve the people of Europe.’

Mr McDonnell has recently held meetings with senior City figures, attempting to reassure them they have nothing to fear from Labour in power. Being seen as pro-Remain is essential to this strategy.

One, a director of a major bank who was unaware of Mr McDonnell’s past EU views, said: ‘He was so mild and convincing, he almost won me over.’ 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk