This Morning descended into chaos today when Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield took against comments made by a guest.
The segment started with mild-mannered maths teacher Joshua Sutcliffe explaining how he had been suspended from work for 10 days, after accidentally misgendering a child.
Essentially what had happened was that a child believed they were really the opposite gender to how they’d been born, but Joshua once slipped and used the wrong gender in conversation.
He apologised and thought no more of it, until six weeks later when the child’s parent complained at parent’s evening.
Joshua was then told that the incident would be investigated, leading to several days of uncertainty of his future before learning he was to be excluded from the school.
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At this point, many viewers appeared to be on Joshua’s side, with several tweets of support about how a slip of the tongue shouldn’t necessarily end in someone losing their job.
And Joshua spoke passionately about how his primary concern was for every one of his students to feel respected, and all he wanted to do was teach.
Shortly afterwards it came to light that Joshua’s other passion was religion, and he discussed how he had opened a successful bible club at the school which boasted a hundred members.
At this point, the guest alongside Joshua on the sofa began wading in, and her comments were what made Holly and Phil in particular so furious.
The guest was Andrea Williams, from the Christian Legal Centre, who was helping Joshua navigate his ordeal.
She said: “The kindest thing we can do for children who are questioning their gender is is take them aside and help them learn to live in the body they were given.”
Phil was beside himself, and asked if she didn’t believe that someone could be born in the wrong body. Andrea replied: “No, we are born male and female and we cannot change that, surgery cannot change that.”
Phil then asked the next logical question, which was: “If children are born homosexual, would you help them not be homosexual?”
To which Andrea said: “Very often when we see children identifying as homosexual, it is not good for them to live out in such a lifestyle.”
Phil and Holly could barely disguise their distaste, with Phil curtly saying: “I’m finding this utterly abhorrent.”
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The segment then went out of control with Holly, Phil, Andrea and Joshua talking all over each other trying to get the last word.
But it ended when Phil said: “Right, let’s get back to the show – in 2017, and not medieval Britain.”
Fans flocked to Twitter to praise Phil for his handling of the guest, with one saying: “Phil getting rather heated there!”
And another wrote: “Well said about the medieval attitudes shown today on #ThisMorning I applauded the TV, well said”.
Phew! Phil really held his own there, in a topic that was always going to divide opinion – but we didn’t think it would end up kicking off like this!