Very sloppy reply for a politician she should have either declined to answer or answer it properly.
She did answer it properly. A clear unequivocal answer that reflected material reality and respected the right of an individual to identify however they wish without committing everyone else to accept that identification.
As it's stands her answer is transphobic by the code she signed up to represent.
She didn't sign up to that code. It was foisted upon the SNP membership by its National Executive Council on 22 February 2021. Kate became an MSP in 2016.
Now the NEC is another object lesson in SNP failure. There's been much criticism of its handling of important issues (complaints, party democracy, policy, finance) and various critics believe it is controlled by the First Minister and the party's CEO in ways that it shouldn't. When the membership attempted to rectify the issue, and elected new NEC members, to restore party democracy and deal with the several years long complaints backlog, these democratically elected members were sidelined by unelected members put in place by the party leadership.
There was no debate about the code. The party membership had no say. The NEC foisted this code and this definition upon the membership, and none of them were ever asked to sign up to it. Furthermore, after the Forstater ruling it is extremely unlikely that this code would survive a legal challenge (IOW, it is probably unlawful because it rides roughshod over the protected characteristic of belief).
It should have been phrased to acknowledge gender identity even if she wanted to rock the boat and add biology to the end of it.
Why? Gender identity ideology is - at most - supported by a third of SNP voters and unlikely to be any more popular amongst the membership. And why should she lie?
Something like I do believe a trans woman is a woman as an individual has the right to identify as whichever or non gender they wish, this principle is the corner stone of gender identity.
You're confusing two things with that phrasing. An individual does indeed have the right to identify as they wish, but that does not make the individual whatever they identify as if it conflicts with material reality. Nothing can do that. That's the eternal conflict between desire and reality. To make desire reality is difficult, often impossible, but never more so when we desire reality to change when that cannot be done. Human beings are not clown fish. We cannot change sex.
And you are misunderstanding or ignorant of freedom of belief, a cornerstone of human rights and equality legislation. No one is obliged to espouse a belief they do not share. You can try to force people to do it, it's certainly happening on this issue, but I would never recommend that over an individual's right to espouse their own beliefs. That is illiberal and intolerant.
This shouldn't be confused with biological genotype which is usually assigned at birth and can be different to someone gender identity
Oh dear. Sex is determined at conception and observed either in utero or at birth. No one hands out sex assignments like sweets at a birthday party. And your genotype is the entirety of the genes in your body, not just those relating to sex chromosomes, so it doesn't even make sense for you to use this expression.