A complaint of transphobia lodged against a young member of the Conservative Party has not been upheld.

In March, Ethan Pugh, then 19, was suspended from South Durham Conservative Party as he was gearing up to stand in Darlington Borough Council’s local elections, following criticism of comments he made on social media.  

The comments were interpreted as transphobic at the time, with Mr Pugh suspended from the Party and banned from standing in the election. Upon his suspension, he issued an apology and agreed to attend diversity training.

Read more: Darlington Council Tory candidate investigated for Facebook comment

But following an investigation by the Conservative Party, the complaint against Mr Pugh was not proven, and no sanctions were levied against the young Tory.

Mr Pugh left a comment under a news story from the London Evening Standard, which reported on a Green Party councillor from London storming out of a council meeting after being repeatedly misgendered.  

Mr Pugh's since-deleted comment said: “Wet wipes, the lot of them. Councillors are meant to stand for the greater good. Forget all this gender bender c**p, think of the constituents you are meant to represent.”

Read more: Ethan Pugh banned from Darlington election after transphobic comment

He apologised for his comments at the time, saying his “inappropriate phrase 'gender bender' was insensitive, unnecessary, irresponsible, and down to a lapse in judgement.”

In the Party’s case against Mr Pugh, they identified that “the term ‘gender-bender’ is crass, highly inflammatory, and likely to cause offence to those who identify as transgender.”

But Mr Pugh’s defence was that the screenshots of evidence of the material posted “do not include a significant amount of the context involved,” and that he was not making a “direct attack” on the LGBTQIA+ community, the councillors in question, or the Green Party.

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Additionally, the defence outlined that Mr Pugh had engaged in his own research, noting that the phrase is “coined by the community in question and still widely in use.”

The Tories’ Social Media Complaints Rules Panel said: “The Panel considers that the Respondent’s remarks were unsatisfactory, and the choice of words used were crude and unwise. However, the panel takes the view that notwithstanding this, it does not amount to sanctionable conduct.”

Though no sanctions were levied by the Panel, Mr Pugh was ordered to undertake social media training so he can “better manage his social media presence and conduct himself properly when using social media”.