Cardiff hotel refuses to hold campaign group's event because of 'bigotry'

A Cardiff hotel has cancelled a debate organised by the campaign group, A Woman’s Place.

In a tweet, which has now been deleted, the Mercure Cardiff Holland House said it is because it does not tolerate any "racist, sexist or bigoted behaviour".

The event had been organised to discuss proposed changes to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act to make the process of legally changing gender more simple.

A Woman's Place said it planned to have a "respectful and evidence based discussion about the impact of proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act".

The group also said, "The accusation of transphobia should not be used to shut down women's voices".

This led to calls for the event to be cancelled from transgender support groups.

One of the founders of A Woman's Place described the Tweet from the Mercure Hotel as "defamatory".

The Mercure Cardiff Holland House has since issued a statement saying that the original tweet was "unauthorised", and that the decision to cancel the event had been taken "in the best interests of hotel guests and staff after concerns were raised about their safety, which is our priority, due to potential disruption and protests."