UK MP who ran sugar daddy website comes out as trans after avoiding blame for car crash due to PTSD over being blackmailed

Bridgend Conservative MP Jamie Wallis on Wednesday came out as transgender. In their coming out statement they revealed they’ve previously been blackmailed, raped, and the trauma from the rape caused the MP to crash his car.

The Guardian mentions that this is the first time the UK has had a transgender MP.

Here’s his statement (and Wallis has since said they’ll continue to use he/him/his pronouns).

"I’m trans. Or to be more accurate, I want to be. I’ve been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and I’ve felt this way since I was a very young child. I had no intention of ever sharing this with you. I always imagined I would leave politics well before I ever said this out loud."

2020 wasn’t a good year for Jamie Wallis. The MP said in April of that year someone blackmailed him, and outed his sexual orientation to his family. Police were able to bring the suspect to justice in that case.

2021 didn’t fare well either. Wallis confessed that last September he tried hooking up with someone online. But this other person ended up raping the MP after a dispute over using a condom for their planned encounter. Jamie Wallis said the trauma for this incident caused him to crash his car at the end of November.

"When I crashed my car on the 28th November I fled the scene. I did so because I was terrified. I have PTSD and I honestly have no idea what I was doing except I was overcome by an overwhelming sense of fear. I am sorry that it appears I 'ran away' but this isn’t how it happened in the moment," Wallis wrote.

The MP was arrested following that one.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson reacted by applauding MP Jamie Wallis for their bravery. It’s said that hours before Wallis coming out, Johnson made jokes about pronoun usage during a Tory MP dinner gathering.

Similar supportive messages were posted by Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran and MP West Streeting of Labour. In Streeting’s case, he’s also told colleagues "men have penises, women have vaginas."

Before the November 2021 incident, BBC notes Willis had a separate road infraction last August. In that case, he was fined £270.

Previously, it was discovered that the Conservative MP worked in the same office as a "sugar daddy" dating service. As the BBC explained, Tonia Antoniazzi called out Wallis in the House of Commons, with the Labour member accusing him of being misleading about the connection.

James Wallis was in significant control of Field Group Ltd between October 2007 to 2010, and both Wallis and the company were shareholders of SD Billing Services, which ran the sugar daddy website.

In related news, a drag queen that was also a former SNP campaign manager has been facing an ongoing trial over claims that they took nude photographs of a partner while that person was passed out.