O’Kane, who is now the party’s education spokesman and previously held the equalities brief, told Holyrood: “There is a lot that I regret about that whole process of the gender reforms. I regret sometimes turning off my critical thinking and allowing that thing to be something that somebody else would deal with, because I've got a view and my view’s fine.
I've since tried to take time to engage and I understand that we're going to have to try and find a way through that recognises the very legitimate concerns that women have and understanding where that comes from, because very often, for a lot of women, it comes from the deep-seated place of their own trauma and I regret not recognising that at the time.”
He also admitted that as Labour’s first openly gay MSP he felt “pressure” to “act in a certain way” when it came to the debate.
He said: “I think as the only gay member of the group, the Labour group, and the first gay man for the party elected to Holyrood, I did feel that there was a whole weight of pressure on me, on a whole range of issues. I think I did come in with a set view of who I needed to be within the Labour group and candidly, I probably didn't do a huge amount of critical thinking at times on the GRR bill and perhaps didn't engage until the end.”
From https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,paul-okane-i-regret-turning-off-my-critical-thinking-on-gender-reforms