a day ago
Now Nicola Sturgeon takes aim at prison bosses over toxic gender reform chaos
Nicola Sturgeon has tried to blame prison chiefs for trans rapist Isla Bryson being sent to a women's jail.
The former First Minister hit out at the Scottish Prison Service for the way it handled the case and said she 'lost the dressing room' over the issue.
In her autobiography the SNP MSP, who had just a month earlier had pushed through controversial gender reform legislation, claimed she was 'completely blindsided' when the Bryson case sparked a public outcry.
She said: 'I had no advance warning that the case was pending. To this day, I don't understand how it could be that no one in the Scottish Prison Service or Scottish government officialdom thought it important to flag it up to me.
'It isn't for a First Minister to decide which prison an individual goes to, as this is an operational matter, but with some advance warning I could have been ready to explain, and hopefully calm, the situation. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered, the damage might have been done anyway, but at least I could have tried.'
She said the story 'went nuclear' and left her 'on the back foot, fighting a fire that was already out of control'.
Ms Sturgeon also admitted her 'communication skills deserted me' over the issue and she was 'like a rabbit caught in the headlights' when confronted by questions over whether Bryson, a male-born double rapist, formerly known as Adam Graham was a woman.
She admitted that saying Bryson was a rapist did not 'cut any ice' and made her look 'weak and evasive' and unable to 'stand behind the logical conclusion of the self-identification system we had just legislated for'.
'In football parlance, I lost the dressing room,' she wrote. 'From then on, I was on the defensive.'
She hit out at feminist JK Rowling and tried to suggest that the Harry Potter author's attacks 'resulted in more abuse, of a much more vile nature, than I had ever encountered before' and also 'made me feel less safe and more at risk of possible physical harm'.
But Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said: 'Frankly, Nicola Sturgeon must be delusional if she thinks the women of Scotland will swallow this drivel.
The SNP MSP went on to claim the controversy around her attempt to force through controversial gender reforms as 'one of the most bruising episodes' of her political career.
While she said she should have paused the legislation, she also stepped up more attacks on those who opposed it.
The SNP Government's Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill had proposed removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria for those applying for a gender recognition certificate, and lowered the minimum age to 16.
It triggered a major backlash amid concerns about the lack of protection for women's single-sex spaces like changing rooms and toilets, triggered the biggest rebellion of SNP MSPs during her leadership and was eventually struck down by the UK Government because of concerns about its impact on UK-wide equalities legislation.
Claiming some had another agenda, Ms Sturgeon said: 'There are many examples I could cite, but the one that attracted most attention, not surprisingly, was JK Rowling's donning of a T-shirt bearing the slogan 'Sturgeon, destroyer of women's rights'.
'I obviously don't know what her intentions were, but it seems blindingly obvious that a stunt like that was never going to elevate the debate or illuminate the issues at the heart of it.
'The trans debate was one of the most bruising episodes of my time in politics.'
She claimed that she received so much vitriol, which she said is often 'deeply misogynist', over gender reform,
She said: 'it was deeply ironic that those who subjected me to this level of hatred and misogynistic abuse often claimed to be doing so in the interests of women's safety, to be the standard-bearers of feminism. Nothing feels further from the truth than that.'
She also claimed that it 'resulted in more abuse, of a much more vile nature, than I had ever encountered before' and 'at risk of possible physical harm'.
Ash Regan, who resigned her ministeral post for community safety over the issue, said last night the ex FM had been well warned.
Ms Regan said: 'I, along with others, warned Nicola and her government advisors privately, publicly and repeatedly that the GRR Bill, as drafted, carried serious risks for women and children. Those concerns were not rooted in prejudice, but in evidence, safeguarding principles and the lived realities of vulnerable women. Instead of listening, she chose to ignore those warnings, press ahead, and frame all dissent as bad faith.
'I resigned my ministerial role on principle because I could not, in good conscience, support legislation that opened the door to lobby-led ideology over robust safeguarding. Yes, my ministerial resignation put a target on my back; from that moment on, 'I faced relentless isolation and hostility - not only in politics but in the public sphere, particularly online.'
During an interview on ITV News broadcast last night, Ms Sturgeon claimed that anyone like Bryson who rapes a woman 'forfeit' the right to be a woman.
When pressed about the comment, she admitted it 'was not the best phrase to use'.
Looking back to the gender reform debate, she said: 'We'd lost all sense of rationality in this debate. I'm partly responsible for that.'
Scottish Conservative leader Mr Findlay added: 'She arrogantly ignored all warnings that gender self-ID would be a gift to male predators like Isla Bryson. And she ordered her SNP MSPs to vote down my attempts to block rapists and other sex criminals from being able to legally change their gender by self-declaration.
'Her absurd ideological belief in self-ID collapses with her belated mealy-mouthed admission that this rapist is a man, but she still can't bring herself to say sorry for all the pain and misery she has caused.'
