Mick Hartley

A man in a Manchester hotel was overheard saying that men are men and women are women, and there’s no in between. He was, of course, reported:

A performer says he was ‘shocked’ to hear an alleged transphobic conversation at the hotel hosting Manchester Pride’s media accreditation suite.

Dev Mistry was staying at the Malmaison Hotel in the city centre on Friday (August 25) for Pride weekend, where he was performing burlesque. The 30-year-old says he was having a coffee while wearing headphones in the hotel lobby when he overheard the alleged conversation.

“I picked something up and I took my headphones out to confirm that I could understand what I heard over the music,” Dev told the Manchester Evening News.

“It was [a staff member] talking to others about trans people. It was not necessarily malicious but it was that ‘men are men’ and ‘women are women’ and there’s no in between.

“It felt like a one sided conversation with the others. It was in the coffee shop, that’s shocking.

“If you have those beliefs, that’s on you. To voice them out loud is one thing, but to do so while hosting accreditation for Manchester Pride felt very reckless and ignorant and disrespectful, for me.”

Absolutely. Manchester Pride used to be about celebrating same-sex attraction, but of course now it's all about celebrating trans joy, and the delights of pretending to be the opposite sex. Someone daring to suggest that changing sex is not possible would be very unwelcome. 

Dev says he complained to a receptionist, and the individual who allegedly made the comments spoke to him. Dev went on: “[They] said I misheard the conversation and apologised for any offence..

“They said it was about everything changing and they/them. It felt like an apology to get out of jail scot-free..

“It made me uncomfortable having that conversation. Even if I got it out of context then it should not be in public.”

Since then, Dev says he contacted the hotel's head office. They said the hotel has ‘launched an HR investigation’ and ‘agreed they needed more formal training around LGBTQ+ issues.’