Conservative Party leadership announced Monday that Liz Truss was elected head of the party and will become the U.K”s new prime minister, replacing her fellow Tory, Boris Johnson, who announced his resignation this past July following a slew of scandals and resignations from his government.

In her acceptance speech the Tory leader pledged to “govern as a Conservative” by delivering a “bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy.” Truss will occupy 10 Downing St. as the U.K. grapples with looming cost-of-living crisis, rising inflation and soaring energy bills. 

Britain’s LGBTQ advocacy groups greeted the news with mixed reactions ranging from Nancy Kelley, the chair of Stonewall saying “this is a time for leadership, and we hope that our new prime minister will stand up for a world in which all LGBTQ+ people can live our lives to the full.” 

However, the Stonewall chair also urged the incoming prime minster to “build bridges with the LGBTQ+ community” by delivering on her promises to ban conversion therapy in the U.K.

Other groups including Gendered Intelligence were alarmed by Truss being elevated to the post. Pink News UK reported that Truss takes office after a leadership race “marred by transphobia,” according to Cleo Madeleine, communications officer for Gendered Intelligence. 

Madeleine told Pink News UK that Truss as minister for women and equalities oversaw an office “that often worked to support trans people and she vocally committed to banning conversion therapy.”

Pink News also noted that Truss was reportedly blindsided by Johnson’s decision to press ahead with a transgender-exclusionary ban.

Madeleine said it’s time for Truss to “show that she can keep her promises by pressing ahead with the ban,” to put an end to “political point-scoring” and to address issues that matter, including the cost-of-living crisis, fuel poverty and climate change. 

“The government has an opportunity to stop the campaign of discrimination and hatred towards trans people that has led to international condemnation and skyrocketing hate crime. Let’s not waste it,” she added.

Trans Britons have been under siege for the past three years with transphobic attacks launched by various anti-trans special interest groups as well as court actions that has made trans healthcare difficult to receive in the U.K.

This past June transphobic policies were endorsed by Johnson.

During a break in-between sessions during the first summit meeting of the Commonwealth nations since the coronavirus pandemic in the Rwandan capital in June, Johnson was asked by a reporter about the FINA ban on trans women athletes.

The prime minster’s response was that there were “particular problems” around “issues of gender.”

Johnson told reporters, “Look it’s very, very important that as a society we should be as understanding of everybody else as possible. I’ve always stood for that. When it comes to, when you start to move from issues of sexuality to issues of gender, you start to raise particular problems,” he said.

In a follow-up question the prime minster was also asked whether women can be born with a penis, he replied: “Not without being a man.”

Additionally there has been a sharp uptick in violence against the U.K.’s LGBTQ community.

This past January, a report released by Galop found that that 1 in 4 LGBTQ respondents to a sexual violence survey experienced sexual assault intended to convert or punish them for their identity.

Galop asked 935 LGBTQ survivors of sexual assault: “At any age, have you experienced sexual violence that you believed was intended to convert you to heterosexuality or your assigned gender at birth, or to punish you for your gender or sexual identity?,” and almost 1 in 4 (24 percent) reported back that they had.

While serving as the U.K. minister for women and equalities Truss did away with reforms to the Gender Recognition Act which critics charge has severely limited trans youth to be able to receive proper healthcare.

A spokesperson for trans youth group Mermaids told Pink News that the Tory government must urgently “reframe trans healthcare as a public health issue,” with the system in “dire need of funding, specialist resources and expertise.” 

It added the government cannot “pick and choose” which members of the LGBTQ community are protected by legislation banning conversion practices. 

“Trans people deserve the freedom to be ourselves as much as the next person,” the charity said. 

Other high priorities for the LGBTQ advocacy groups are ending new cases of HIV by the end of the decade and addressing the monkeypox outbreak of which there were as of Aug. 26, 3,389 confirmed and highly probable cases of monkeypox in the U.K. 3,239 of those are in England itself.

Ceri Smith, the head of policy for the Terrence Higgins Trust, called on Truss to appoint a “monkeypox tsar” to oversee the “response and finally show the leadership in tackling the outbreak that the government response to date has been desperately lacking.”

Truss will travel to the Queen Elizabeth’s summer residence in Balmoral, Scotland, on Tuesday to be officially appointed prime minster by Her Majesty and asked to form a government.

Liz Truss selected as new U.K. prime minister: