February 28, 2025 - 7:00am
Gender ideology continues to be the spectre that is haunting Scottish politics. The Sandie Peggie v NHS Fife tribunal has brought home the impossibility of reconciling women’s right to single-sex spaces with the “right” of men who identify as women to use such spaces. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has made sensible noises in the last week about unequivocally backing Peggie and admitting it was a mistake for his party to vote in favour of the Gender Recognition Reform bill in 2022. First Minister John Swinney, however, has opted for ideological cakeism.
During a press conference this week, when asked to clarify if he believed a trans woman was a woman, he replied: “I accept that to be the case”. This came after an exasperated, blustering performance during last week’s First Minister’s Questions where, in response to Conservative leader Russell Findlay’s grilling, he waffled on about abiding by the Equality Act. He then threw in a jibe about the subject “sowing division in our society” to much jeering in the chamber.
Given the humiliating media coverage that has followed, it might seem mystifying that Swinney is so steadfastly committed to having his party die on this hill. The most obvious answer is that he fears a SNP membership mutiny similar to the one his Labour counterpart faced. Sarwar has tried to appease ideologues in Scottish Labour by saying he regretted not pushing harder for amendments during the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill vote. Yet, his U-turn on gender reforms elicited predictable accusations of “betrayal” to trans-identifying individuals in the party. To make matters worse, a motion backed by Sarwar to protect single-sex spaces in Scottish schools was recently voted down at the party’s conference in Glasgow. In attempting a similar rollback, the SNP leader wouldn’t just be angering the trans allies in his membership, but Nicola Sturgeon loyalists who would deem it treasonous.
Swinney is also looking over his shoulder. Reform UK is gaining significant traction in Scotland. It’s predicted the party could win up to 15 seats in the 2026 Holyrood election, more than both the Liberal Democrats and Scottish Greens. In the recent local council elections, Reform received more votes than the Greens, Alba and every other fringe party combined. This is rattling Swinney’s cage, so much so that he’s called for cross-party efforts to “lock them out”. “I don’t in any way try to say that there isn’t anger in our society,” he said on Wednesday. “I think what worries me is that some of the response to that anger is to find attractiveness in the politics of Farage, of the far-Right, and I think that’s the wrong choice.”
Reform will likely poach voters in Scotland who previously put faith in the independence movement for the same reason: a thirst for radical change. In abiding by the gender doctrine, Swinney is positioning the SNP as avowedly “progressive”, the safest choice for anti-Reform voters. But it was the Isla Bryson case — as well as Operation Branchform — that brought down Sturgeon, and scepticism over transgender rights and gender reforms has increased across the board. The First Minister is currently prioritising the hard-Left in his party over the electorate.
But Swinney may be doubling down on trans ideology because, ultimately, he’s given up. He reluctantly stepped up as leader with little enthusiasm after Humza Yousaf resigned to prevent social conservative Kate Forbes nabbing the top job. Even though the SNP is expected to win the next Holyrood election, the independence movement has indefinitely stagnated and almost two-thirds of the electorate disapprove of its governance.
Proposing an almost German-style firewall from “those of us who are repulsed by the politics of Farage”, the First Minister urged those who agree with him to “work together, for decency, democracy and respect”. And yet, there is still no “decency” or “respect” for Scotland’s women.
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SubscribeLook Unherd. This is very boring. It’s the same article now written twenty times. Change the record please.
Gender Ideology is ensconced in the Law in UK. IT IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE.
It will only go away when the Law changes. And that is not going to happen without a Right wing government and that is not going to happen in Scotland.
Write about something else. Please.
Biological reality is a marker from which we can assess the credibility of any politician. If they deny what is patently true and enshrine gender ideology claptrap in law, they have no place representing us. It isn’t boring; it’s a hill to die on!
It is no hill to die on. It’s going over the top, from the trench, and being massacred again and again.
It’s not ensconced in law, it’s only ensconced in the fantasy law that Stonewall and others have pressed on organizations that don’t know any better. Witness the recent battery of legal wins in employment tribunals and so forth.
I feel a ban coming on….
It is all set down in law. Witness the innumerable appeals that go up to the Supreme Court. They never question Gender Ideology. They can’t. The Gender Recognition Act enshrines a man becoming a woman. That is the law.
No, it isn’t boring. It is serious and distressing. UnHerd must keep up the coverage of this issue until the madness ends.
Unherd is full of Leftist writers complaining about the consequences of Leftist policies.
It’s boring.
I honestly don’t understand why you subscribe to Unherd. It’s obviously not your cup of tea, as you’ve made clear daily for months.
I must be an optimist. One day Unherd will do what it says on the packet….
You really do sound like a Sturgeonite simp.
It’s perfectly possible to be ‘leftist’ and not to subscribe to every policy that comes from that direction. Ditto ‘rightist’.
Rightist isn’t a word. That’s a clue for you. There isn’t a single writer from the Right in Unherd. It’s a sham.
Had the estimable Roger Scruton still been with us, do you think Unherd would have been interested in his thoughts?
No. They carefully exclude the Right.
never interupt your enemy when they are making a mistake.
Librarian and former writer, better.
The Chinese Communist Party is fully behind nationalist Scotland’s push for men’s rights, socially divisive as it is.
Can we rebuild Hadrian’s wall?
Everyone peddling gender ideology is committing electoral suicide.Bearing in mind that most of the people doing the peddling are either cowards or useful idiots the sooner they are gone,the better,so stick with it Mr Swinney.
“I accept that to be the case” is hardly a ringing endorsement for the validity of trans ideology. Sound more like he had been bullied into the position of having to promote it. It’s not a place I would expect the leader of any party to be in
Gender ideology is dying. Thank you, Donald!
The SNP make our politicians look like titans.