The secretary of a local Labour group has said he is “dismayed” by the decision to remove a councillor from a role after she shared and liked “anti-trans” social media posts.

Brighton and Hove City Councillor Alison Thomson apologised after a transgender resident in her ward said he felt uncomfortable contacting her about issues in the area due to views she had shared on social media.

Some of the posts liked and shared on her now-deleted account on X, formerly Twitter, used the hashtag #transwomenaremen, while others described trans women as “males who believe they are women”, which was criticised as a “common transphobic trope” by Brighton trans activists.

The Regency councillor, who won by just one vote at the local elections in May, said she was “deeply sorry” for “endorsing these social media posts which contain anti-trans sentiments”.

She was removed from her role on city centre renewal and pledged to undergo “training to better understand the lived experiences of transgender people”.

However, Jon Pike, secretary of the Wish and Westbourne Labour Party, said he was “dismayed” by the treatment of Cllr Thomson and said she “should not have been disciplined or forced to apologise”.

The local branch of the party covers the wards of council leader Bella Sankey and chairman of the equalities, community safety and human rights committee Leslie Pumm.

Dr Pike said: “There is a difficult debate about sex and gender going on and the Labour Party has made some progress, but the discussion is spoiled when people try to suppress views that are critical of self-ID and the moves to override sex by gender identity.”

He compared Cllr Thomson’s situation to the “terrible bullying of Professor Kathleen Stock”, who resigned from the University of Sussex after a campaign calling for her dismissal over her views on transgender rights.

Dr Pike has pledged to put forward a motion to the local branch of the party condemning Labour’s handling of the situation and said: “It is wholly wrong to suggest that Cllr Thomson needs some kind of Maoist re-education on this.

“Bella Sankey is out of line with party policy. Keir Starmer has endorsed the view that a woman is an adult female, but Bella is disciplining councillors who endorse the same view.”

READ MORE: Calls for councillor to resign after she 'endorsed anti-trans' posts

Trans activists blocked the Labour Party during the Brighton Pride month in protest at the national party’s stance on trans rights.

Protesters held a banner that said “Starmer Hates Trans People” in front of a group of the party’s members, after the Labour leader rowed back on plans to introduce a self-identification system to allow transgender people to legally identify as their chosen gender without a medical diagnosis.

Trans rights campaigners in Brighton have criticised Labour for not doing enough in their response to Cllr Thomson’s likes on social media and called upon the party to expel her from their group of councillors.

They said: “Given that Cllr Thomson remains a member of the Brighton and Hove Labour group of councillors, it’s not clear what zero tolerance means for Labour.”

Labour was approached for comment.