The panellists were asked the question "What is a woman?" but judging by the answers of the panellists I soon began to wonder if I had misheard the question, because it was all about transwomen are this... transwomen are that...
The responses of Lorna Slater (Scottish Greens) centred transwomen and dismissed any concerns of anyone who does not agree with her "transwomen-are-women" opinion. She gave me the impression that second in her hierarchy of priorities are men who clean women's toilets - how bad it is that they could (allegedly) lose their jobs if gender-critical people succeed in preserving any single sex spaces for female people. Slater gave me the impression that, for her, female women come a distant third in her priorities.
The response of Ivan McKee (SNP) was along the lines of: people identify as trans, it's complicated and transgender people have a very tough time. He didn't even bother to link being transgender to being a woman. He mentioned people and trans people but he did not mention the word woman. He just gave a list of buzzword comments about transgender people. In his world, defining what a woman is seems to be more difficult than his job as a Scottish Government Minister.
I think the only panellist who came close to answering the question was Jackie Baillie (Scottish Labour) who said "There are women who will identify as being a woman based on their sex and there will be trans people who may be born as a different gender who will identify as women". Unfortunately, she went for quantity of words instead of clarity of thought; I think her answer is just a longwinded version of "transwomen-are-women". She centres feelings not facts. Also, what is the meaning of "identify as a woman"?
Christine Jardine (LibDem) believes the debate about "same gender" toilets is "hilarious" because she claims that we all have "same gender" toilets at home. (The toilet in my home is "mixed sex" or even "mixed gender", not "same gender"). She also seemed very proud of herself for pointing out that self-identification of gender is wonderful because it was the three women on the panel who were most comfortable with throwing women's rights under the bus allowing people who are not biologically female the right to access female spaces, implying that female believers of the "transwomen-are-women" mantra are the best protectors of the rights of female people. I think "the best betrayers of women's rights" is more accurate.
Murdo Fraser (Conservative) opposes self-identification of gender but I think even he did not actually define "what is a woman" although his comments do seem to suggest that, for him, self-identified transwomen are not women.
I am tired of politicians answering the question "What is a woman?" by centring transwomen with variations of "transwomen are the most oppressed people ever".
If the question had instead been "What is a transwoman?", I think there would have been zero chance of the SNP, Labour, LibDem and Green politicians centring biologically female women.