EMBARGO: Tuesday 28 December 2021, 00:01 hrs

STURGEON “COULD FACE A SERIOUS PUBLIC BACKLASH FOR HER SELF-ID CRUSADE”

SAYS NEALE HANVEY MP IN ARTICLE FOR LESBIAN AND GAY NEWS

ALBA Party Westminster Leader Neale Hanvey MP has warned that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP “could face a serious public backlash for her self-ID crusade.” This follows the publication of three recent opinion polls which show overwhelming public opposition in Scotland to self-identification as proposed by the Scottish Government in its Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill.  Mr Hanvey, who is openly Gay, highlights the majority support, as evidenced in one recent poll, which exists for people to “freely express their transgender identity” as something which he both welcomes and has campaigned for.  However he contends that the views and actions of “proponents of gender theory and self-ID” represent “ideological oppression that is unravelling decades of civil rights progress”. 

Writing in the latest edition of Lesbian and Gay News Mr Hanvey writes:

“The First Minister has made it clear she intends to push ahead with a policy that has very limited public support and where views contrary to her position are dismissed as invalid.

“The evidence for this sits in the results of opinion polls commissioned by Scottish polling site Scot Goes Pop, Murray Blackburn Mackenzie and ForWomen Scotland.

“Each of the polls concur; Scottish support for self-ID is limited while opposition is overwhelming.   

“In the Scot Goes Pop Panelbase poll only 20% of respondents supported self-ID, Survation’s poll found only 27% believed that medical approval was unnecessary to self-identify into a gender different to that of biological sex, and the latest Panelbase data demonstrates less than a third – 29%, support for gender self-ID.

“Of course, what this absolutely doesn’t say is that at least two-thirds of the Scottish population are ‘transphobic’. Indeed, further data shows that the Scottish public are fully able to discern the difference between support for trans inclusion and visibility, self-ID and the need to recognise sex as a material reality that demands discrete consideration as set out in the Equality Act 2010.

“For example, in the Survation poll, 64% agreed that people should be able to freely express their transgender identity. This is something most LGB people not only support, but like me have previously campaigned for. However, we also know that for the nascent fundamentalist ‘allies’ this is simply not, and never will be, enough.

“According to Panelbase almost twice as many (49%) believe the natal sex of sex offenders should be recorded against 26% who believe the legal sex (those in possession of a gender recognition certificate) should be the recorded identifier, with 25% choosing not to express a view.

“What’s clear is that the Scottish Government is completely out of step with public opinion, and not by a small margin, but by a significant one. In addition, the support and acceptance of trans people dismantles the shrieks from fundamentalists that it is prejudice against trans and non-binary people that sits at the heart of opposition to self-ID.  

“However you cut it, gender identity and self-ID intersect in inherent conflict with sex as a protected characteristic of the Equality Act 2010.

“We are now in the ludicrous position where to be ‘progressive’ and ‘accepting’, fundamentalist activists’ shame and attempt to silence the voices of legions of women, gay men, lesbians, and bisexual people who place great value in their own sexual reality”.

Mr Hanvey continues:

“I didn’t anticipate that homophobic and lesbophobic bullying would not only be tolerated in the SNP, but the targeting of gender critical gay men and lesbians would be encouraged and celebrated by so-called allies.  I didn’t anticipate that Members of Parliament would actively participate in this horror-show all tacitly nodded on without a blush.

“How is it possible that we have reached 2021 where women who raise concerns about their health provision, their trauma services, or even their hygiene spaces are voices to be ignored or dismissed as not valid by a First Minister who claims to be a feminist to her fingertips? When did the aspiration of equality for everybody (including trans people) shift to exceptionalism, arrogance, and aggressive and oppressive hostility?” 

Mr Hanvey concludes:

“What these polls tell us is that Nicola Sturgeon can’t wish away public opinion and suggest she could face a serious public backlash for her self-ID crusade. Her silence on the abuse meted out by self-ID adherents is indicative of an inconsistency in her defence of women, gay men, and lesbians. Indeed, a growing number of people like me find the gender self-ID policy she supports to be deeply misogynistic and homophobic. 

While Sturgeon’s gender theory supporters may have gone uncensured for calling lesbian and gay MPs like me and Joanna Cherry transphobic bigots in the past, these polls demonstrate that it is the views of those Nicola Sturgeon has dismissed as “not valid” that are truly in-step with wider Scottish public opinion. Of course, any such implication that the nation she currently leads is riven with bigots and transphobes should rightly be regarded as equally outrageous and fallacious. 

ENDS