We live in a world of perpetual reinvention. Tory MPs can become eager supporters of Sir Keir Starmer, it seems, and men can turn into women. But surely there must be limits? I’ve certainly reached mine now that one of the most divisive women in contemporary politics expects us to believe she’s been transformed into a champion of tolerance and free speech.

Yes, I’m talking about Nicola Sturgeon. In the last few weeks, Scotland’s former first minister has emerged from a period of lying low with a newly minted set of concerns: the need for civilised debate and, er, calling out misogyny. “The culture, at times, in politics is downright unpleasant,” she said in a speech at the University of Edinburgh last night.

According to Sturgeon, politics is now a more “toxic, hostile environment”, particularly for women and minorities. She should know, after smearing women who disagree with her on gender ideology as “deeply misogynist, often homophobic […] possibly racist as well”. After I picked my jaw up from the floor, I realised that the new, “kind” Sturgeon was up to her old tricks.

In her conversation yesterday evening with Lord Wallace, she raised the spectre of opposition to same-sex marriage, saying she doubted whether it would be legalised in Scotland today. Gay marriage became legal in Scotland 10 years ago, with huge public support, and I’m not aware of anyone suggesting it should be repealed.

But conflating opposition to gender woo-woo with homophobia is a core tactic of trans activists. Linking causes that have nothing to do with each other, and which are actually opposed in many people’s eyes, is not an honourable way to conduct politics. It’s one of many reasons why Sturgeon’s reinvention of herself, after a bruising year in which her successor Humza Yousaf has had to resign and her husband Peter Murrell has been charged with embezzlement, is about as shameless as it’s possible to imagine.

Reviewing Salman Rushdie’s memoir Knife in the New Statesman last month, Sturgeon argued that abandoning concerns about free speech “in favour of the protection of the sensibilities of vulnerable groups has allowed its weaponisation by the far Right”. Hmm, “sensibilities of vulnerable groups”: I wonder who she might be referring to.

Trans activists in her own party and in the Scottish Greens, perhaps, who refused to listen to women who wanted to explain the disastrous impact of allowing men charged with rape to “identify” as women. I’ll give a shout-out here to the newly-appointed equalities minister, Kaukab Stewart, who claims she didn’t notice when she was standing in front of a banner with the legend “decapitate terfs” at a protest in January last year.

But Sturgeon’s most brazen piece of reinvention is as an opponent of misogyny. Earlier this month, at the launch of Val McDermid’s latest book, Sturgeon complained that women’s rights are under threat and “misogyny seems to be on the rise again”.

She’s right about that, if nothing else. But much of it is inspired by gender ideology, which has unleashed the biggest wave of woman-hatred I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. She may have forgotten the events that forced her out of office, but the rest of us haven’t.

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Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.

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