Shona Robison urges ‘tolerance' after gender-critical row at Fringe

Times

2 days ago

One of the SNP's most senior figures has urged 'tolerance' of other views after a series of censorship rows.
Shona Robison, the finance secretary, was speaking after it emerged her cabinet colleague Kate Forbes was banned from a Fringe venue over her stance on trans issues.
Speaking to LBC Radio, she said: 'I don't agree with that. I think we need to be tolerant of each others' views. She is the deputy first minister of Scotland and I don't think it sends out the right signal over freedom of speech.'
Forbes, who is a member of the socially conservative Free Church of Scotland, was interviewed at publicly funded Summerhall last Thursday at a festival event.
Summerhall staff set up a 'safe zone' to protect themselves from the 5ft 2in politician after staff were 'terrified' by her presence and managers have since apologised for allowing her on site.
Forbes has previously said she had significant concerns about Nicola Sturgeon's gender-ID law and would have voted against it.
She has also suggested sex outside marriage is wrong and said she opposed same-sex marriage.
Robison was also asked about moves by the National Library to block a gender-critical book from an exhibition.
'I don't want to get into criticising a whole range of individual organisations,' she said. 'I am not sure that would be helpful. What I would say we need to be tolerant of each others' views. I know there has been a polarisation of this debate and that has not helped anyone. We have to try and create a more respectful environment. That is easier to say and harder to deliver.'
• Kate Forbes: I'm standing down because I want more children
The National Library, a public body, has banned a volume of gender-critical essays called The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht, from an exhibition this summer after an LGBT staff groups equated its contents to racism. Library chiefs said the book had passed a sensitivity test but was not featured because of fears over stakeholder relationships and reputation.
Stephen Kerr, a Conservative MSP wrote to Robison's cabinet colleague Angus Robertson, the culture secretary, calling for a statement in support of freedom of speech.
He said that the exhibition ban was 'deeply troubling on multiple levels' and that a public body like the library 'must never become — an arena where political or activist factions dictate what the public may see'.
He added: 'The fact that works expressing opposing viewpoints on gender identity have been included in the same exhibition, while this particular book was excluded, highlights a glaring inconsistency which amounts to viewpoint discrimination.'
Kerr also picked up on what he called the 'extraordinary episode' involving Forbes at Summerhall. He said: 'We are told that some artists were 'terrified' by the presence of a democratically elected government minister — a claim which, on any objective reading, is absurd.'
This week it also emerged that a gender-critical group, Let Women Speak, was refused service in Glasgow University Union, a student-run venue, after staff said their banners, including one that said 'We are all Sandie Peggie', made them feel unsafe.
Peggie is the nurse taking her health board to an employment tribunal after having to share a changing room with a transgender doctor, Beth Upton.