‘Sturgeon resigned over fallout from gender self-ID Bill’

Nicola Sturgeon resigned because of the outcry at her failure to recognise that men cannot be women, commentators have said.

Scotland’s longest-serving First Minister announced her resignation earlier this week, citing the toll on her health. She did not mention her blocked Bill that would have allowed 16-year-olds to change their legal sex by self-declaration without a medical diagnosis.

But political commentator Iain Macwhirther, former SNP MSP Joan McAlpine, and others argue that championing the unpopular ‘self-ID’ law lost her support in her party and in the country.

‘Chernobyl’

Macwhirter, a former BBC journalist, stated: “Sturgeon’s policy of gender self-declaration is, of course, the proximate cause of the First Minister’s misfortune.”

He said that when convicted rapist Adam Graham was initially placed in a segregated unit in a women’s prison it caused a “moral and political Chernobyl”, which intensified when Sturgeon refused to admit whether he was a man or a woman because “affirming his biological sex might undermine her Gender Recognition Reform Bill”.

Under the Bill, Graham would have been allowed to legally identify as a woman. When the legislation was debated in Holyrood, the majority of MSPs rejected an amendment that would have prevented sex offenders from changing their legal sex.

Former SNP MSP Joan McAlpine said that Sturgeon’s resignation shows that she lost the war against an “army” of gender-critical women and “many party members, MSPs, and ministers” who warned her that the Bill endangered women and girls.

Prison

Writing for The Scotsman, columnist Susan Dalgety stated: “Nicola Sturgeon may deny it, but rapist Adam Graham, aka Isla Bryson, played a part in her downfall.”

Last week, the Scottish Prison Service announced that male prisoners who claim to be women will be initially placed in a men’s jail pending a long-term assessment.

In an unreleased report, the prison service said the new policy would remain in place until it has the findings from its 2019 Gender Identity and Gender Reassignment review.

Until then, no man currently in jail with a record of violence against women will be transferred to a female prison, and only in “exceptional circumstances” could a new convict with such history be placed in a women’s jail with ministerial approval.