‘The demonisation of gay people must end’: Why I’m taking on GB News
Liam Austen-Rondi explains why he had to speak out about the continuing unchallenged use of the offensive trope that portrays gay men as paedophiles by commentators on the news channel
Earlier this summer, I was sitting in my apartment in the south of France when I saw a clip of a commentator on the GB News channel citing false statistics in order to paint gay men like me as a danger to children.
On 20 June, right-wing influencer Syntyche Djunga (who goes by the moniker “Based and Bougie”) was part of a panel on The Saturday Five, chaired by Dr Renee Hoenderkamp, discussing the sexual abuse and murder of 13-month-old Preston Davey in 2023.
Days before the show, a gay man, Jamie Varley, 37, had been convicted of Davey’s murder, as well as child cruelty, sexual offences and indecent images relating to Davey, while his partner John McGowan-Fazakerley, 32, was convicted of allowing the death of a child, child cruelty and sexual assault. The couple had been in the process of adopting Davey at the time of his death.
I moved to France in part to escape the measurable, suffocating rise in bigotry and public division in the UK – my home country
Discussing the case, Djunga said: “We need to get back to the nitty-gritty of why people are doing this. There is no denying – and I can’t pull up the evidence now, but people can easily research this – that gay men and gay couples are more prone to not only domestic abuse amongst each other, but child sexual assault with their adopted children.”
Perhaps even more surprising was just how little opposition there seemed to be to her comment from fellow panellists. When commentator Tre Lowe interrupted Djunga to ask, “Where’s the evidence for this?”, she asserted that she didn’t “have the evidence with me now, but I’ve seen it, and hopefully when I go online after this, I will post it.”
Contributor Cai Wilshaw cast doubt on Djunga’s claims, saying: “You talk about statistics but there is no statistical evidence that gay men are inherently more sexually driven for assault than heterosexual men.” He then asked her to bring evidence before making those claims.
Hoenderkamp then interjected with: “There is actually evidence.”
I moved to France in part to escape the measurable, suffocating rise in bigotry and public division in the UK – my home country. This trope in particular – the age-old claim that LGBTQ+ people aren’t to be trusted with kids – isn’t a new one, but these days it rarely arrives as explicitly as it used to. Instead, it comes dressed as “debate”, or as “reasonable concern”, or as a valid question to be posed.
I believed, perhaps naively, that society had moved beyond commonplace homophobia
As gay men, we have heard echoes of it throughout our entire lives. That’s especially true for the generation who grew up under Section 28, which was built upon this very idea. (Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 banned local authorities from allowing schools to engage in “promoting homosexuality” or to “promote the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.)
That still didn’t alleviate the shock I felt upon hearing the claims made on GB News. I believed, perhaps naively, that society had moved beyond commonplace homophobia, especially on British TV.
I’m not a journalist. I have no newsroom to report to, no agent or producer to direct me, nor do I have a solicitor on a retainer. All I have is a phone, social media and a fervent stubbornness when it comes to defending my community – so I started documenting everything.
Sharron Davies warned of “activist teachers” with “LGBT-driven agendas” grooming children in the classroom
I made a video debunking Djunga’s claims, demanding answers and accountability from those involved and directing people to Ofcom to make their voices heard. That video touched a nerve with many, receiving 26,000 likes. I didn’t expect my compulsion to speak out to become a fully fledged campaign, nor did I expect that campaign to become the strangest and most galvanising month of my life.
That’s because it didn’t just happen once. After Djunga stated gay men are statistically more prone to “sexual assault with their adopted children”, a demonstrably false claim, Catholic activist Caroline Farrow appeared on Alex Armstrong’s GB News show, Alex Armstrong Tonight, on 5 July to allege that Pride is “not about gay rights” but is about celebrating “minor-attracted people… you know, paedophiles”.
Four days after that, on Patrick Christys Tonight, with Nana Akua presenting, former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies warned of “activist teachers” with “LGBT-driven agendas” grooming children in the classroom.
This is an excerpt of a feature appearing in the September/October 2026 issue of Attitude, available on digital platforms and in print now.