Sturgeon: SC ruling risks making trans lives "unliveable"

[SidewaysOtter]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/06/transgender-peoples-lives-at-risk-of-being-made-unliveable-says-nicola-sturgeon

“It certainly doesn’t make a single woman any safer to do that because the threat to women comes from predatory and abusive men.”

You don't get it, do you Nic love? I don't have enough eye-rolls for the idea that trans-identified men are never predatory or abusive, especially in the face of so much evidence to the contrary.

"The former first minister and SNP leader added that it is not “inevitable” that the judgment will make the lives of transgender people “impossibly difficult”, but there was a “danger” that certain interpretations could put transgender rights at risk."

What rights? The SC ruling clarified the law as it is and always has been, which is that trans people don't have the right to treated as if they were the opposite sex. Or does she just mean "It's really unfair that they're going to have to abide by the same rules as everyone else rather than demanding special privileges"?

It used to really piss me off during Covid when people in England would go on about how lucky we were in Scotland to have Nicola Sturgeon in charge rather than Boris!
Err no! Have you actually tried living under her “regime”? It’s not a race to the bottom, just because less waffle came out of her mouth when she stood in her wee podium every day didn’t mean Scotland was faring any better

Ah, the wistful stare into the middle distance, the gently-wringing hands...the sound of my blood pressure whooshing past an acceptable level...

I have always disliked NS so can only imagine how it must feel for those that did see her as a positive force, once upon a time. Betrayed probably doesn't even begin to cover it.

I also can't look at a picture of her let alone hear her speak before the rage takes over.

As for those she fears may find their lives "unliveable" because they can't get something that was never theirs to have in the first place, I think they should take some advice from Mridul Wadhwa and "reframe their trauma".

Supposed "allies" like Nicola Sturgeon who are pushing the victim narrative and whipping up panic about "life won't be worth living" and "everyone hates trans people" instead of trying to support a rational and practical response to the Supreme Court judgement and EHRC guidance are a big part of the problem.

Sorry, Otter, should have put a wee warning on.

It’s testament that we’re in such a dire state of affairs that my first reaction on hearing her speak on this was “well, at least she didn’t lie about what the law says” like lots of elected politicians have.

How insane that the standard we’ve come to expect from our parliamentary representatives is so utterly, utterly low.

Regarding the threat to women being from abusive men, I would argue that the only reason NS feels able to distinguish between transwomen and other men is because she is giving them what they want and agreeing with them that they should be allowed to trample women’s rights.

The majority of women who’ve said “no” to transwomen can obviously see that transwomen fall squarely into the category of abusive men, as they’ve been on the receiving end of their abuse.

Shrodinger’s penis. Or perhaps Shrodinger’s pink leggings.

It hurts. A lot. The betrayal is off the scale. And it's the fact she has no shame either and refuses to go away or even apologise. It's the worst thing about her. No humility, no introspection, no empathy for women, actual women, who she has betrayed over and over again. I have friends who gave so much of their time and energy campaigning for her and doing all the groundwork, talking to people on the streets, building up hope for a better future. They did all this FOR FREE and all that time she was pandering to a small subset of men intent on destroying women's rights to privacy, dignity and safety. She's beyond appalling. It destroyed the independence movement too. I'm actually glad about that now, as that horrible self ID law would be law now and we'd be as bad as or worse off than Canada.

Obviously the first thing she would have done if the bill had actually been implemented would to install magic force fields in all female space that sound an alarm when a male predator tried to enter… REGARDLESS of how he identified…because as I’m sure she know…per capita of males…the trans identifying ones are very well represented in the sexual predator category!!!

I still still don’t understand why she’s in such thrall to TW (let’s face it she doesn’t give a toss about TM) I mean why would any politician, any sane person, self immolate over men who like to present as women?

According to Nicola it was appropriate to put rapist Isla Bryson in a women's prison, whereas it would have been inappropriate to put Adam Graham in a women's prison. How come? How come, Nic, you think that Isla Bryson should have more rights than Adam Graham?

I think she's confused by kilts. Does she think a huge dollop of her voting population is trans?

Nicola; in the immortal words of Germaine "I don't care!"

There is a (very weak) script to dismiss VAWG, which is largely to pretend that no men with trans identities have ever exploited or committed such VAWG while identifying into their spaces, and when shunted from that position and the obvious evidence of the court cases to whinge about NAMALT and how mean women are to exclude men on the grounds that some of them have been rapists, sex offenders etc. That oddly doesn't seem to apply at all when it's men wailing that they cannot use men's spaces because men might hurt them, but there's never any logic or equality of standards.

It's harder to dismiss the privacy, dignity, autonomy, right to not be a non consenting participant in a man's sexual experiences or identity validation, equality of access for all women etc etc without openly taking the mask off and admitting that this political viewpoint doesn't see women as equally human or entitled to the right to say no to men. Or entitled to such things when inconvenient to men.

That, plus the sexual aspects, needs much more exploring in the eyes of the general public to get the full picture. But then news stories are all over the press constantly, and in court, and it never seems to make any difference, VAWG is so boringly normal.

I think women have absolutely pointed out the risk of vawg if we are made to share female only spaces with men who describe themselves as women.

The problem is that women who talk about vawg and point out that men are the ones doing the violence are punished for it, are we saying all men are rapists etc, so we've had to take a different route.

But vawg is why I won't share single space spaces with men who describe themselves as women. The vawg I've experienced and the vawg I know those men have and will do in female only spaces.

Thinking on it, perhaps the response to men who describe themselves as women saying they can't use the male changing room because men might harm them is

Are you saying all men are rapists/violent/transphobic

The basic question to demand of these idiots is ok, how do we make these men happy without destroying women and gay people's legal rights and protections for them?

And force the admission they they in fact are looking to destroy women and gay people's rights in law. And in fact those of women with trans identities. For the enablement of men on a sexed basis. Any men in fact, as the judgment makes clear there is no way to separate one such man from all men.

I have always disliked NS so can only imagine how it must feel for those that did see her as a positive force, once upon a time. Betrayed probably doesn't even begin to cover it.

I wanted NS to be a positive force because I found her relatable. In many ways, she appeared to be like me (Scottish, working class background, state educated), and of a similar age, and I see myself as honest and straightforward and intelligent in a practical rather than abstract sort of way. That apparent relatability probably deceived me for a while. I didn't feel so much betrayed as naïve and cross with myself for having made an elementary error of judgement based on spurious factors and, maybe, some personal vanity. Other people with clearer sight seem to have recognised her for what she was a lot sooner than I did.

I feel similarly about Jacinda Ardern. There were posts I'd made on social media that later made me cringe when I discovered that she'd supported the blatant travesty of "Laurel" Hubbard being allowed to compete in women's Olympic weightlifting.

This is potentially dangerous. She needs to look at Samaritans guidelines on suicide. You absolutely must not infer that ‘x’ will lead to people killing themselves. She needs to chose her words extremely wisely.

2ndly she is wrong on toilets.
“I would be very concerned if that interim guidance became the final guidance and I hope that is not the case because I think that potentially makes the lives of trans people almost unliveable.
“It certainly doesn’t make a single woman any safer to do that because the threat to women comes from predatory and abusive men.”

Of course it makes women safer. It makes children safer. It makes those with invisible disabilities safer.

Single sex toilets are safer because they are the designs with door gaps. Mixed sex toilets are always private. Everyone is safer with safety gaps under the doors (it’s likely to prevent all sorts of undesirable things happening to the occupant).

Where do you end up if you feel sick? You go to a toilet. If that leads to worse, like a heart attack or stroke or prolonged seizure, then your chances are much higher in a single sex toilet that’s designed with a door gap at the bottom so you can be seen to be rescued in time.

Oh FFS

“It certainly doesn’t make a single woman any safer to do that because the threat to women comes from predatory and abusive men.”

Nicola love you invented "rapist gender" to avoid calling a man a man. Please fuck off.

In the event that the polis ever dug up evidence that sent her to prison, I think it would be reasonable to ask her to share a cell with the fragrant Isla. I wonder which of them would come off worse… 🤔

She's an absolute disgrace.

I can only assume that she's got some financial grift going.

It wouldn't be the first time would it !!!

She isn't. She never was. She was in thrall to the idea of herself as the leader of a new civil rights movement and going down in history as a leading visionary like Attlee. Because she was focused on her ego and self image and not what was actually right, she brushed away all the obvious problems and tried to force it anyway. It's all come up a complete turd and since she lacks the humility and grace to be a stateswoman, she can't accept what a huge balls up she made and the damage she's done, so she's doubling down and always will.

Horrendous woman. But she's far from alone.

Guilty as charged! Well, a few years ago anyway. And as PP pointed out, similar with Jacinda Ardern.Tbf, both enjoyed very favourable and uncritical coverage from the British English media. And of course, compared to Boris Johnson... at least NS pitched up for important govt meetings, instead of swanning off to the Caribbean. Obviously, if you look a bit closer at what's been going in Scotland on NC's watch, a very different story emerges.