Nicola Sturgeon’s betrayal of women still lives in infamy

Nicola Sturgeon unexpectedly found herself face to face with her fiercest critics this weekend. She was booed and heckled by those whose opposition to her gender reforms helped to bring an end to her time as Scotland’s first minister – the kind of people she infamously denounced as ‘misogynist, often homophobic, possibly some of them racist as well’.

When Sturgeon arrived at an International Women’s Day event in Edinburgh on Saturday, she may have been surprised to see that the jeering crowd was not full of the menacing skinheads or far-right agitators of her fevered imagination. No, this was a chorus made up entirely of feminists, and mostly middle-aged women.

Feminist group For Women Scotland led the chants of ‘Shame on you’. Protesters also held up signs reading ‘Woman = Adult Human Female’, ‘Women Want Our Stuff Back’ and ‘Debate is Democracy’. Not a single hardcore ‘misogynist’ or right-wing ‘racist’ was among them.

Sturgeon has paid a heavy price for her refusal to engage with her feminist critics. Nevertheless, the fact that her crusade for gender self-identification helped bring an end to her career doesn’t seem to have deterred her successors. Humza Yousaf tried in vain to revive her doomed Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Act, after it was vetoed by the UK government. Current first minister John Swinney, who was also in attendance at the Edinburgh International Women’s Day event, says he also remains ‘committed’ to gender self-ID. Clearly the SNP has learnt nothing.

Of course, a much heavier price has been paid by Scottish women. Even though the SNP’s gender law never came into force, the SNP’s trans activism still managed to wreak havoc, as self-ID was widely adopted in practice by most of Scotland’s institutions. Most infamously, the male double rapist Isla Bryson was briefly sent to a woman’s prison, but he was far from the only dangerous man to have been housed in the women’s estate. More recently, the ordeal of nurse Sandie Peggie, who is subject to a disciplinary hearing by NHS Fife, is proof that gender ideology still reigns. Peggie’s unblemished, 30-year career as a nurse is now under threat because she doesn’t want to share the women’s changing room with a male trans-identifying doctor. Ultimately, this is what self-ID really means – it is the right of men to enter women’s private spaces, against the express wishes of women.

The International Women’s Day protest just goes to show that Sturgeon’s betrayal of women’s rights will not be soon forgotten or forgiven.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.