2 days ago
Scots MP blasts Nicola Sturgeon for refusing to say she was wrong on gender reform in book
Joani Reid said the former first minister's "deranged gender reform bill... would have endangered thousands of women."
A Scottish Labour MP has blasted Nicola Sturgeon for failing to "admit she was wrong" about gender reform in her book.
Joani Reid said the former first minister's "deranged gender reform bill... would have endangered thousands of women."
She also blasted Sturgeon's memoir - which was released last week - as "self-serving" with "all the same narcissistic traits, arrogance and moral superiority we saw from her in government."
East Kilbride and Strathaven MP Reid told the Record: "It's hard to think of a fall from grace so spectacular - Nicola Sturgeon was once hailed across the UK, including by people who should have known better, as some sort of progressive beacon. It all went to her head and she got drunk on her own hype.
"Her deranged 'gender reform' bill would have allowed creepy men pretending to be women access to our toilets and female-only spaces. She ignored legal and expert warnings and anyone raising common sense safety issues was branded as bigots.
"It was a crazy plan that would have endangered thousands of women. Fortunately, it was outside the powers of the Scottish Government, but they spent a fortune getting humiliated in the Supreme Court and yet she still can't admit she was wrong.
"This self-serving, self-regarding memoir is full of petty score-settling and reveals all the same narcissistic traits, arrogance and moral superiority we saw from her in government.
"Scotland needed a leader who would protect our rights, not sacrifice them on the altar of political vanity. Beyond the gimmicks and woke virtue signalling, she achieved little of substance during her eight years at the helm, and it all caught up with her in the end."
Sturgeon's memoir, Frankly, was officially released on Thursday. Copies of it were on sale in Waterstones shops earlier in the week.
In it, she accused JK Rowling of helping create a a "toxic" climate around Scotland's gender reform debate.
The MSP said the Harry Potter author's decision to wear a T-shirt branding her a 'destroyer of women's rights' marked the point at which "rational debate" on the issue became "impossible" and "any hope of finding common ground disappeared".
Sturgeon's Government passed a bill which would have made it possible for trans people to change gender without a medical diagnosis.
But the bill was stopped from becoming law by Tory Scotland Secretary Alister Jack, who said it breached UK Equalities law.
At the same time, there was public outrage after convicted double rapist Isla Bryson - who identified as female - was initially sent to a women's prison.
Sturgeon then refused to say if Bryson was a man or woman, but said last week that male rapists should "probably" lose the right to choose their gender.
Earlier this year there was a landmark ruling where the Supreme Court said that the words 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.
The SNP was approached for comment.
