I can't believe how deeply misogynistic the scottish governments position was

[MixTapeMel]

Apologies if this has been raised already. Having followed some of the threads since the judgement I've finally got round to reading the judgement in full. I've got to say initially I found it a bit confusing with all the references to other legislation however once I got over that I found it eye opening.

I can't quite believe how deeply misogynistic the Scottish Government's position was. When you get into the detail and legal ramifications it's verging on unfathomable to me how any women can support that position.

The judgement lays out the legal background from the 1975 Sex discrimination act and subsequent legislation, that personally as a 50 year old women I benefitted from but have been woefully ignorant of. It then goes on to carefully lay out how the only reasonable interpretation of the word 'sex' is biological sex. Yada yada yada.

What blew my mind is that if the term sex is taken to mean anything other than biological sex, a whole group of people lose the very rights that the Equalities Act was intended to implement. I wonder who that group is? It's biological women.

In particular women who identify as anything other than their biological sex lose all their rights regarding pregnancy and maternity protections. The judgement lays out the Scottish Government's arguments to try to smooth this over are pathetic and legally do not hold water. It also lays out that there are broadly the same number of transmen as transwomen. So under the Scottish Government's position half of trans people lose their rights. But i guess that doesn't matter as it's women right?

This is only one example, but to me it was profound. There are lots of other examples in the judgement that clearly demonstrate that any interpretation other than biological sex reduces the Equality Act to absurdity and they are really quite clear. So it is also stunning to me that a government, who are elected to do the best for and protect their population (half of whom are women) and are paid to understand the detail can take such a profoundly misogynistic position.

This only became clear to me reading the detail - which I guess says shame on me.
Speaking personally, it's really easy to bob along vaguely aware of what's going on not really paying too much attention and not understanding the profound implications. I can only be thankful and grateful to the people who are paying attention.

Oh I feel the same way. I used to really admire Nicola Sturgeon, and as someone who used to vote SNP I feel betrayed by ScotGov. I also feel quite guilty for not cottoning on to it earlier! I was a fool for trusting them, and for thinking BBC and Guardian were reliable sources of information. The truth was out there, in papers like The Telegraph, that I wasn’t reading because I was a complacent Leftie. No more! I’m now listening to all the people who got cancelled, and realising how right they were. I’m so grateful for everyone who’s been standing up for women all these years, and I’m embarrassed for how oblivious I was!

I am exactly the same. Ashamed that I my eyes were only fully opened in the last few years. I’ll never vote snp again.

The thing that opened my eyes to distrust the SNP was the Named Person scheme that was going to give a 3rd person the same rights as parents to your kids.
I think that was so open to abuse it was unbelievable. It was stopped by the UN and the Right to a Private Family Life.

I thank again every single person who out voted me in the Independence Referendum.

Remember the bill that protected everyone's rights except women, and Humza said that was because there would be a separate misogyny bill? I saw somewhere this weekend that this has been quietly dropped, so women are not protected at all. Anyone else heard this?

They apparently thought that companies would not be so churlish to not give trans men maternity leave, so it wouldn't matter.

They were doing that thing where the law isn't important - what matters is giving as many trans people whatever they want through loose interpretation of the law with a massive dose of "Stonewall law" input on top (see also NHS Fife ).

The Scottish government tried to argue that “woman” could refer to gender for some provisions of the EA and to biological sex for other provisions, despite the fact the EA (or any of the debates, etc at the time) never indicated which definition should be used where, or even that there were two definitions being used, resulting in no-one having any idea what the law was supposed to say, and/or whether or not an organisation is breaching it or not.

It was batshit and obviously untenable, so it beggars belief that so many people are speaking out in favour of that mad, incomprehensible legal position now.

I'm English but during Covid I admired Nicola S and her firm decision making, which so often set the way that the government in Westminster eventually followed.

How did she get so wrong afterwards?

Sturgeon fooled a lot of people,a lot of the time. Concerns around the GRA raised by women in Scotland were dismissed as " not relevant". Very few Scottish politicians raised their voices against her..Douglas Ross and Joanna Cherry being two who did and who joined us at demonstrations outside parliament. Many Scots were/ are so fixated on the promise of Independence from the SNP that they accept everything they do.
Sturgeon is vile,divisive,and no loss to Scotland.

Oh the COVID briefings were sturgeon's usual smoke and mirrors. She fooled so many.

The Scottish response was just as bad as the rest of the UK. She sent elderly people with Covid into care homes

She even stood up in Holyrood and suggested chopping the bottom off all the doors in schools!! 🙈🙈

100%, OP.

We've had raging and wailing over the weekend because men have lost what they said was their right to use women's spaces and services.

Meanwhile, women have had their maternity rights protected, but nobody has even mentioned that. And lesbians are able to form groups that exclude men. But again, that's not mentioned.

You can have any rights you like, love, so long as men get what they want.

Yes, Sturgeon was good at spin.

Meanwhile, her government has presided over an unbelievable amount of incompetence, arrogance, and fuckery. Branchform is one tiny sign. The Salmond stitch up was another. The ever tightening circle of people with power in the party is another. The blurring of government and the legal system. The genderwhang was just one McGuffin - an indication of very deeply rooted problems within power.

The SNP are very comfortable with their swish parliament building, good salaries and pensions, thank you, and they're not inclined to rock any boats.

Rotten from the head down.

She was wrong during covid.
She eventually admitted their was no science to what she did. All trying to be different flag waving.

She destroyed businesses that have never recovered. Softplays and nightclubs were closed for over a year.

Glasgow had the longest restrictions of anywhere in Europe, no visitors from March 20 to about June then again from Sept - May 21.

Scotsnet pages had Railing threads pointing out the illogical batshittery. Along with the school doors, which had been discussed in a committee BEFORE she suggested it in parliament.

Covid can tell the time - lunch is safe but dinner isn't?
Covid knows if you have alcohol in your glass , cola was safe but vodka and cola wasn't.

Tons and tons of illogical nonsense

She also suggested 3 categories of men,
Men, transwomen and rapists like they are a seperate breed.

Same. The GRR opened my eyes- before that I was a proud SNP voter.

Also agree @rebmacesrevda abput so much of mainstream media not being a reliable source of information. We see the same on Israel where it is constantly demonised to a ridiculous extent. A few years ago I thought people saying things like this about mainstream media (or even using the term “mainstream media”) were conspiracy theorists and nutters. It’s shocking to see society so polarized and our media so unreliable

A misogyny bill separate to a universal rights bill would likely have set up the same sort of clash of conflicting rights that the GRA has done. Doesn't mean that a misogyny-excluding rights bill is a good thing!

Incredible, isn’t it? NHS Fife really thought that any bloke who wanted should be allowed into the women’s changing room and that it was ok for them to take notes on which women didn’t greet them nicely and strip.

There's still so much blind dedication towards the SNP from independence supporters. They still think Sturgeon, Humza and co can do no wrong. 🙄

I wouldn’t be too hard on the populace for the almost febrile adoration handed out to Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP when she became leader and during Covid.

The media and political commentators used the SNP to leverage against Boris Johnson: easy, lazy journalism and criticism. Their actions and words were never analysed and picked apart. They have never been held accountable. But thankfully folk are finally starting to wake up. Journalists could be better though.

Although not untrue, I think you are overlooking the impact that having to pair up with the Scottish Greens had on the SNP, at least some of the blame lies with them - I would say most, from the ones I've met. Their last election leaflet didn't even pretend to care about the environment any more.

Sturgeon did some things well and some things badly, like most politicians - it doesn't help anyone to go as tribal as US politics. It would be more helpful to push for changes in the parliamentary set-up, so a tiny coalition partner can't have so much power and the parties don't have to vote in chunks rather than being allowed any in-part discussion.

Me too

Voted Lib dem last time. Despite Davey, our local MP is pro woman so I gave him my vote.

This sums up how I feel quite nicely, I would have always called myself a “leftie” and did used to read the guardian a lot. Last year or two I’ve stopped just being vaguely aware of the trans debate and in a live and let live mindset, and started actually reading stuff and the more I read the more horrified I become about the absurdity of it all.
A lot of my friends and family are completely captured still (although I have a couple of allies!), but I just don’t understand how anyone especially women can be against the SC ruling once they read it all properly.
I live in Wales where there’s unfortunately still work to do - feeling quite politically homeless at the moment too, don’t want reform in power here and will never vote for them but also don’t want to vote for any of the other parties.

It's hard to believe anyone admired Sturgeon and fell for the bullshit she spouted. Just shows how powerful spin is when you control the media

Me too @rebmacesrevda I was the same as you. I feel embarrassed as well now. They've sunk so low. And they did it stealthily. Thank god for FWS and all the women who were paying attention. I only started to realise 2 years ago.

I also feel betrayed and also by the BBC and the guardian. Claiming to be left wing and "right" in their opinions but actually just as misogynistic if not more so, than the right wing. At least the right wing own their conservative views and their sexism against women. The left do not; they claim to care whilst stabbing women in the back. I feel now being so naive to it for so long that they have betrayed women more.

The Scottish government are vile.

So under the Scottish Government's position half of trans people lose their rights. But i guess that doesn't matter as it's women right?

This is the first rule of gender ideology, @MixTapeMel.

Every single aspect of it is beneficial or at worst neutral to people who were born male, and detrimental or at best neutral to people who were born female.

This rule applies regardless of how any of those people identify or what they choose to call themselves.