Boris Johnson gets mixed reviews from U.K.'s LGBTQ community

The flamboyant, pro-Brexit Boris Johnson’s premiership may be a mixed bag for the United Kingdom’s LGBTQ community, advocates say.

The former British foreign secretary and London mayor became prime minister Wednesday, following the resignation of Theresa May.

Boris Johnson speaks to media outside Number 10, Downing Street on July 24, 2019 in London, England.Dan Kitwood / Getty Images

Leading up to Tuesday’s vote, in which he beat Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt for the Conservative Party’s leadership, Johnson, 55, told the LGBT+ Conservatives national organization that he had the community’s back.

“I will continue to champion LGBT+ equality, get tough on hate crime and ensure that we break down barriers to a fairer society,” Johnson said, according to the group.

“We must do more to ensure that trans rights are protected and those who identify as trans or intersex are able to live their lives with dignity,” he continued, noting that he was one of the first senior party leaders to support same-sex marriage.

Then Wednesday, following his meeting with the queen to officially accept the premiership, Johnson specifically mentioned the LGBTQ community in his speech outside the prime minister’s residence at No. 10 Downing St.

“[The U.K.’s] brand and political personality is admired and even loved around the world for our inventiveness, for our humor, for our universities, our scientists, our armed forces, our diplomacy for the equalities on which we insist — whether race or gender or LGBT or the right of every girl in the world to 12 years of quality education and for the values we stand for around the world,” he said

‘A CHEQUERED RECORD’

Though Johnson has often been seen as a social liberal when it comes to LGBTQ rights, there has been controversy over what he’s written about the community in the past.

“Boris Johnson has a checkered record on LGBT+ equality,” longtime human rights activist Peter Tatchell told NBC News in an email. “He’s sometimes been supportive and other times he’s been absent or abstained in parliamentary votes.”

Tatchell noted that as a member of Parliament, Johnson voted in 2003 to repeal Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988, which prohibited local authorities from “promoting homosexuality” or “pretended family relationships.” Johnson also voted in 2004 for civil partnerships.

However, a number of activists have condemned the new prime minister and have demanded he apologize over what Tatchell called Johnson’s “past homophobic utterances.” In a 2001 article in the Spectator, for example, Johnson condemned a British legislator for voting in favor of “Labour’s appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools.” In the late ‘90s, he also reportedly referred to gay people as “tank-topped bum boys” and compared gay marriage to bestiality.

source: nbcnews.com