Sturgeon accuses JK of toxic trans debate

[Tootsweets23]

The world has probably had enough of sturgeon to last a lifetime but today’s ‘revelation’ from her shite book is just infuriating.

A long catalogue of poor me, I’m pure of spirit, any criticism is toxic, everyone else is malevolent.

Despite calling people who don’t agree with her idiotic bill racists, homophobes and misogynists, here she says JK’s teeshirt didn’t elevate the debate or illuminate the issues.

And then goes on to say that this issue wasn’t really that important to mainstream voters but we are all guilty of hysteria.

And she wishes she had the courage to call a rapist female.

For someone allegedly politically astute this book is a very stupid strategy. Slow hand clap.

Nicola Sturgeon accuses JK Rowling of creating ‘toxic’ trans debate

https://www.thetimes.com/article/29160158-03f7-4afc-bce6-38a425c72df0?shareToken=3cf893fc3e26d2e2b4ced9467395d1d5

In this thread, Sturgeon has basically been painted as the AntiChrist.

Aside from the hyperbole of this phrase, let's examine why the posters on here (particularly the Scottish ones who have actually been affected) might be a tad pissed off by Sturgeon.

As First Minister/Leader of the SNP, she presided over -

Rape survivors being painted as transphobes and bigots by their elected representatives during the six words amendment debate of the Forensic Medical Examiner Services Bill.

Called women who raised the obvious issues about the GRR bill 'bigots', 'probably racist too' and their views 'not valid'. Her Government refused to hear from women's rights groups and only asked for input from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women at the last minute of stage 3 of the GRR debate.
She ignored women leaving the SNP in swathes but did the infamous 'broom cupboard video' to plead with TRA members who were leaving because they didn't feel she was sufficiently women hating.

Allowed the Scottish Prison Service, an executive agency of the Scottish Government, to place violent male sexual offenders into the male prison estate. For years.

Presided over the Bute House agreement, going into partnership with the virulently women hating Scottish Greens.

Stripped rape crisis services across Scotland of their funding unless they provided solely mixed sex funding. Was fulesomely pally with the man who was the CEO of a rape crisis service which according to a damning independent review caused rape survivors to suffer harm and self exclude.

And so on and so on.

But no, no, the very idea that we might point this out. It might be 'polarising'

Can't.stop.rolling.my.eyes.

Times leader piece in the Scotland section:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/54279838-2d76-421f-bee7-83f7d024e433?shareToken=8e52c495bd22f4fc754363f69c6d1059

I have lived in Scotland since 2003 and watched it change in this time. I will hold NS in contempt no matter how many scolders appear.

Anthony Howard was fond of quoting Enoch Powell saying: "all political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs". It's a saying that always comes to mind when I think of rejoicing at the misfortune of politicians. And it was for occasions like that that it was deployed: when a politician had left the stage once and for all in defeat.

Sturgen is tough and intelligent; dogged but pragmatic - she's not eloquent, but she has good political instincts. It's a mystery that she not only allowed this to destroy her career but to derail the entire SNP project. Why this?

After her stepping down, the very next day(!), Starmer made his - "that for 99.9%" of women "of course they haven't got a penis", pronouncement. You can draw a line directly from that debacle - a position into which Starmer seems to have sworn to never again to be put - to the SC ruling this year. So, maybe that is simply the role that destiny ordained her to play.

If you want to whine about your policy hitting public opposition because you want to be able to lock up a man who is doing time for two rapes with women and the public says stuff like "wat du fuck? or "no fucken way" or "not on my fuuucken watch" or "fuck no" or (a posh) "No"?

The whine is still not the danger to women to whom she had a direct duty the whine is because she got caught.

She is selling a book and done with her old career and has time to reflect and still decided to use JKR as a book sale prop when her pet project put male rapists into any single sex womans space.

And the Tshirt and JKRs opinion would not have mattered a dam if the people she was passing laws for agreed with the proposed law.

She got the publicty she wanted and may even sell a few extra books as a result.

Personal opinion not about posters :
I mean. It was hardly classy of JKR to wear a tahirt slagging her off, was it? Hardly the height of reasoned debate. I'm defending neither of them,
Personal opinion about posters :
but a lot of you hate Sturgeon, take cheap shots and then somehow think you've the upper hand and are cutely hilarious.

Being called cutely hilarious when objecting to a view on rape and rapists.

All of this. She was an elected representative who attacked her own voters and the voters for her party for having genuine concerns about a pet project of her own. She had the platform to try to damage these women and she used it plenty of times. She fell on the sword of her own hubris and is still looking to blame others for her demise. She is an absolute fool.

God forbid women have strong views on politics and express them! So unladylike.

They'll be giving us the vote next.

Nicola Sturgeon is being interviewed by Fi Glover on Times Radio at 3.30 today. I think Fi Glover is in the 'Be Kind' camp but still could be worth a listen.

Posters on here to scold us should be mindful of who held (still holds) the power in Scotland. Who has personal security details, who appointed the Lord Advocate, who called those who disagreed with her homophobic and racist - while bearing in mind that she also presided over the Hate Crime Act that introduced new crimes relating to these sort of prejudices.

A FM inevitably attracts criticism and when she or he has treated the electorate with the insults and contempt Sturgeon did, anger is unsurprising. She ran party, country, and government in an increasingly authoritarian way, which is why criticism is inevitably levelled at her personally. The party itself was hollowed out and power concentrated ever more tightly in a shrinking circle. See the NEC changes for example.

Political protest is stirring things up and one could call it 'divisive' by nature. What the fuck do you think the point of protest is?!

People who want to chide women for criticising politicians should think carefully about where that kind of narrative leads.

Just seen this in one of the comments underneath the Times leader:
Now, much more interesting is the fact that For Women Scotland are holding a rally entitled Women Won’t Wait at Holyrood on 4th September from 11am to 12 noon. The many-time loser Swinney will see just what he’s up against for his failure to implement the Supreme Court ruling. All welcome. Hopefully the witty woman outside the Peggie tribunal in Dundee will bring her ‘Nae Manny has a F_anny’ placard!

great article in the Times ! @Igneococcus thanks for the share

“ Ms Truss and Ms Sturgeon have much in common in retirement. Both are seeking to rewrite their own pasts. Both are wielding sophistry to show faux ­humility. And neither is being honest by failing to tell readers the truth about their time in power……..

Her memoir makes scant mention of the mess the Scottish National Party made of governing Scotland during her leadership ……

The book is especially disingenuous on trans rights. After attacking JK Rowling, who has shown admirable clarity and bravery on the question of what defines sex, Ms Sturgeon offers only a minimal apology for the decision to push ahead with the self-ID legislation that ended her career …..

No amount of recasting of history can overcome such blunders”

So it’s not just us wonderful MN posters who are calling out Sturgeon on her past actions. Obviously Fi on Radio 4 will be kind and paint Sturgeon as some sort of saint

Fi Glover is on Times radio.

Thank god she’s out of power now. What a relief. The comparison with Liz Truss is very apt. Sturgeon’s not of any consequence now without that powerful role, so I hope there is not going to be any follow up or attention on anything else she says, after this naked attempt to flog her book. Come September I hope her misogynistic authoritarian views will seem like a baffling distant past anachronism. How could anyone have got behind those ideas.

NS also gets a mention in The Times Diary

"Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir has claimed independence from factual accuracy. The book, Frankly, is littered with small errors, such as the former first minister’s claim that the reconvened Scottish parliament of 1999 contained more women than had ever been elected to Westminster. This could not have been achieved even if every single MSP had been a woman, but it evaded a fact-checker’s pen. Other mistakes are more personal. Sturgeon recalls how, after wiping out all bar one of the Labour MPs in Scotland in 2015, she boarded a flight for London to wild applause. She even claims that Tom Harris, one of the defeated MPs, was there looking on. “It isn’t true,” said Harris, who was confused with another ex-MP. “What is the point of the anecdote in the first place other than to crow … about a defeated opponent?” Harris said. “Stay classy, Nic.” This would be another example of Sturgeon’s self-proclaimed emotional intelligence."

She wasn’t really challenged for a long time in power - very authoritarian - squashing people who disagreed with her. I guess she believed she had become infallible which is probably why her book has so many errors in it.

I am pleased Sammond’s widow has taken Sturgeon to task about it as well.

Other politicians need to take note.

Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir has claimed independence from factual accuracy.

Hacks are thoroughly enjoying this, aren't they?

Not fully up to date on this thread,so apologies if someone's already said this.

There's an article in today's Times by Jack Blackburn slagging off NS 's work of fiction.
He starts the article:

"Nicola Sturgeon's memoir has declared independence from factual accuracy"

In the comments online someone has credited NS with inventing "rapist gender"

Sorry, just seen that I'm one of many to post the opening sentence.
Thought the comment was good though.

it is, in fact, a comment that bears repeating. And i wonder if the women attending holyrood on 4th sept would be able to put that on a banner...

I don't see why not, but someone better qualified than me might like to comment

"Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir has claimed independence from factual accuracy."

(Yes I know it's been posted several times but it's so apt.)

She has apparently included several pages about conversations with the Queen, even a working class lass should have known that isn't "classy". Wearing a T shirt that actually represents the truth - classy in my book and I dont generally like T shirts with slogans.

I wonder how fast the book will go from bookshop to charity shop to being pulped as even in a charity shop no-one wants to buy it. Might be tempted to bid for JKRs copy though.

To those that think this thread is being mean either to NS or to you.
You've got to see the context. This thread is about someone with absolute power in Scotland who behaved like an absolute authoritarian asshole.
I want to fully justify that comment, but I'd be here all day, and it would take you all day to read it. A short list of lowlights. From the small(ish) stealing the campervan and the money donated for independence, through the farcical ferrys fiasco, the utter disregard and dismissal of different points of view "Isla Bryson is rapist gender". The list is depressingly disproportionately large.
People are understandably pissed off with NS and the SNP in general. Racist Yousef spitting out "white!, white!, white!". The thought crime bill. Unholy alliance with Harvie the pound shop Bond villain.
Since the departure of Salmond ( who they tried to crucify with what looks like witness tampering ) the SNP leadership has proven again and again to be utterly incompetent, and possibly to have broken the law in several different ways over several different issues.
People are angry at this. Anger in this thread directed at NS has a good basis.
If you then want to complain about language used, or t shirts, it seems pretty fukking petty by comparison. It almost feels like an attempt to either shut down criticism, or telling people they are "wrong" to feel angry at the multitudes of malfeasance. I'm wondering if we are going to get told we should be happy with dear glorious leader NS?
It's your right to post any comments you want that follow the MN posting rules, but given the context its very obvioous that people are very angry about what's happened it seems quite disingenuous for you to act shocked and offended that people are expressing their anger.
NS trying to rewrite history in her book like a soviet cold war era dictator isn't helping matters either. If it was within her powers I'm sure there would be drab depressing soul crushing concrete statues all over Scotland praising Dear Leader's 15 year plan. 200 foot baby boxes blotting out the sun. Supplicant Scottish peasant women anointing Jesus's Nicola's feet with costly ointments and wiping them with their hair, a gesture of devotion and humility. All in technicolour concrete grey actively sucking any colour of the surroundings. North Korea has now, and has always had better leaders than Scotland under the iron merkin of NS.

"..the iron merkin of NS"! Chef's kiss.

I've just read this, thank you, that's a good apology
I'm sorry it didn't end the matter - I'm going back to read the later posts to see why it didn't. Sometimes people post responses to earlier posts - in this case earlier posts of your before this apology.
I hope that's what has happened, and that most people will have taken your apology at full face value, as I am.

For now anyway, I'm going to read on past it and see what's what.

BBC Breakfast AT BBCBreakfast
'Forces on the far right have weaponised this issue' Nicola Sturgeon, former First Minister of Scotland, spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the debate on gender recognition laws which would have made it easier for people in Scotland to change their legally-recognised sex

For Women Scotland AT ForWomenScotland
Again with the unsubstantiated lies about the women's movement in Scotland. PLEASE, journalists ask her EXACTLY who she means and who she thinks they control here!

For Women Scotland AT ForWomenScotland
In Dec, along with AT mbmpolicy AT Scot_Feminists AT WWWheesht AT WRNScotland AT ScotLesbians, we asked her and the publishers Pan Macmillian to clarify this or to desist in making sly allusions to women's groups which have exposed us to horrible abuse.

https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,feminist-groups-call-on-nicola-sturgeon-to-clarify-comments