Sturgeon finally breaks her silence over Supreme Court gender ruling... but STILL refuses to apologise
Nicola Sturgeon yesterday refused to apologise to the women wronged by her failed gender ideology despite a crushing defeat at the Supreme Court.
The former First Minister caused more outrage by insisting she had always campaigned for 'the protection and the enhancement of women's rights' and recognised 'different views'.
She was branded 'snide' after describing the successful court challenge brought against the SNP Government as 'purportedly' about protecting women and claimed twice as many women backed her views as opposed them.
The Scottish Conservatives said she had 'betrayed women' and must say sorry.
Former SNP MP Joanna Cherry KC, who was ostracised by party colleagues for resisting Ms Sturgeon's gender crusade, accused her of 'trying to rewrite history.'
For Women Scotland (FWS), the campaigners who won in Court, said it was 'laughable' for the ex-SNP leader to claim she had listened to views she infamously trashed as 'not valid'.
Giving her first response to last month's landmark judgment, Ms Sturgeon said she feared the ruling could make 'the lives of trans people almost 'unliveable' and even hinted existing UK law might have to be changed.
Former lawyer Ms Sturgeon said she accepted the Court ruling was 'the law of the land' but said it 'remains to be seen' if it can be put into practice fairly for trans people.
She said: 'I've spent my life campaigning for the protection and the enhancement of women's rights, and I bow to nobody on that. But I also think it's really important that the tiny, tiny number of people who are trans in this country get to live with dignity and in a way that they feel safe and accepted in society for who they are.'
Asked if she owed FWS and Ms Cherry an apology, given they felt their views were ignored over the GRR Bill, she said: 'On both of those I fundamentally disagree, fundamentally and respectfully disagree.
'I've always recognised the different views on this. But I think it's important that respect runs in both directions.
'For any group or any individual, me included, to say that their view is the only view that carries weight, or the only view that has support, I just think is fundamentally [wrong].'
Talking to the media at Holyrood, she also attacked interim guidance on how public bodies should respond to the ruling issued by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
She would be 'very concerned' if the advice, which says trans women should not use toilets intended for biological women, was confirmed as the final guidance in the summer.
The UK's highest court ruled unanimously that 'biological sex', not gender choice or a gender certificate, determines a person's rights under the UK Equality Act 2010.
The decision puts women-only spaces off limits to biological males who identify as women.
If followed FWS challenging a 2018 Holyrood law about gender balance on public boards.
SNP ministers argued transgender women should count towards a 50:50 target.
But the Court said this was 'unworkable' and declared sex was 'binary' and a person was either a man or a woman, according to biology.
Critics said the ruling proved the SNP's failed Gender Recognition Bill (GRR), which would have let men legally declare themselves women through self-ID, was deeply reckless.
Asked about SNP ministers delaying a new law to tackle misogyny following the ruling, she said archly: 'There would be an irony if a court action [by FWS] that was purportedly - and I use that word deliberately - purportedly about protecting women, ends up seeing a halt to a Misogyny Bill that is actually about protecting women.'
FWS co-founder Susan Smith added: 'Nicola Sturgeon never cared for the women whose lives she upended by allowing any and all men to self-identify their way into women's facilities.
Women in prison, in hospital, in domestic violence shelters said the policies championed by the SNP made their lives unliveable and unsafe while lesbian women were bullied and harassed, including by men feted by Sturgeon and her MSPs.
'We aren't surprised by her refusal to apologise but it's laughable to claim that our views were listened to.'
Scottish Tory deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: 'Nicola Sturgeon betrayed women and divided Scotland with her reckless gender self-ID policy, yet she still can't bring herself to apologise.
'Gender self-ID was always nonsense - and now the Supreme Court has declared it unlawful too.
'Nicola Sturgeon needs to hold her hands up and say sorry to the women of Scotland.'
Ms Cherry said: 'To say that The Supreme Court judgment means we are 'at risk of making the lives of trans people almost unliveable' is the sort of fatuous hyperbole that she has indulged in in relation to these issues from the outset.
'It's a simply not true to say that all opinions were taken account of in this debate.
'She branded the views of those of us who pointed out the implications for the rights of women, including lesbians, as 'not valid' and she called us transphobes bigots, racists and homophobes.
'Her snide suggestion that the supreme Court judgement has stymied the Misogyny Bill has no basis in fact.
'Nicola Sturgeon is trying to rewrite history in relation to these matters, but those of us who fought her every inch of the way in her attack on the rights of women and LGB people will not let her do so.'
Former Tory Scottish Secretary Alister Jack, who stopped the GRR Bill becoming law, told ITV Border both Ms Sturgeon and John Swinney should apologise to the women who fought the legal case.
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