Election Hustings

We have gathered together the following clips from TV and radio of Holyrood candidates being asked questions on women’s rights and self-identification issues. Please also see MBM’s Fact Check on the comments made by the candidates.

02 May 2021, Radio Clyde
Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour

Anas Sarwar

30 April 2021, Radio 4 ‘Any Questions’
with Jackie Baillie (Scottish Labour), Lorna Slater (Scottish Greens), Ivan McKee (Scottish National Party), Christine Jardine (Scottish Liberal Democrats) and Murdo Fraser (Scottish Conservatives).

Baillie, Slater, McKee, Jardine, Fraser

Transcript:

Audience question:
The Scottish Government has been facing a legal challenge over its definition of ‘woman’ in the Gender Representation on Public Boards Act. I’d like the panellists to actually answer this specific question: ‘What is a woman?’

Chris Mason:
You sound like a man who does want an answer. You’re my kind of chap because that’s my job to try and do that as well. Jackie for Labour.

Jackie Baillie:
I mean I am supportive of the Gender Recognition Act. I think the Government didn’t handle it particularly well but I think that I recognise that there are women who will identify as being a woman based on their sex and there will be trans people who you know may be born as a different gender who will identify as women. And I think we should try and demedicalise the process and enable them to live as they feel they should do as women or indeed the other way as men.

Chris Mason:
So let’s just step back and sort of reflect that this is a complicated and passionate argument isn’t it about a balance of rights. The rights of a trans person to self-identify as they wish and be legally recognised as such and the rights of women. And Jackie in essence you’re saying that you would expand the rights for trans people – that’s your instinct?

Jackie Baillie:
Yes and I think you know when you listen to trans people and their experience of you know the system that they need to go through to have their identity recognised, it is an overly medicalised process that actually damages people and I think we need to recognise as a society that it is time to modernise the law.

Chris Mason:
Lorna Slater for the Scottish Greens.

Lorna Slater:
It’s a question that’s being asked not in good faith because It’s meant to be a sort of gotcha question that’s actually an anti-trans position. So I’m not going to answer that question.

Chris Mason:
Well hang on a minute you’re taking on Arthur’s…you’re assuming Arthur’s motives and I don’t think that’s fair. Why not try answering his question?

Lorna Slater:
Because his question…that is what his question is. It’s an anti-trans dog whistle question to try and make it seem as if women’s rights are threatened by trans people which they are not. Absolutely no conflict between women’s rights and trans rights. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. We support the reform to the Gender Recognition Act and the legal recognition of non-binary identities. Human rights are human rights. We all have the same human rights.

Chris Mason:
What about women only spaces?

Lorna Slater:
Well I was in Queen Street station today and I noticed there was a sign up saying that there was a male cleaner in that station cleaning the women’s toilets. Are we talking about putting those people out of work? I’m not completely clear what you mean.

Chris Mason:
Ivan McKee for the SNP.

Ivan McKee:
I think there is an interesting question. It’s topical. There’s clearly as Jackie rightly identifies…people identify as trans have great difficulties. It’s…there’s phobias out there. Transphobia. There’s people find the process of the GRA difficult to work through. You’ve got to remember there’s already a gender recognition process in place, it’s talking about reform of the Gender Recognition Act that’s what’s being debated. And I think absolutely there’s a case for [indistinct] through that process, understanding which parts of that process that are in place could be reviewed to make it more straightforward. But there also are people who are…

Chris Mason:
Could be? You said could be. I’m just trying to get to the crux of where you are on this sort of balance of rights. Cause that’s the big picture thought here isn’t it? The rights of a trans person versus the rights of women.

Ivan McKee:
Well, our manifesto is clear that we will review the Gender Recognition Act but taking into account those concerns that have been raised. And there are legitimate concerns and I don’t it’s fair for those just to be dismissed out of hand because there are concerns about safe spaces. There are women who have those concerns and that needs to be discussed I think in a respectful way so that people are able to understand the different perspectives on this. And I believe that a conclusion can reached where those concerns can be addressed btu can also address the very real concerns that trans people have about the process which they find difficult.

Chris Mason:
I absolutely recognise that this is an incredibly sensitive debate but equally it’s my job to try and get an answer and I just wonder where your instinct is. I get that you say that you respect other opinions but where your instinct is on that balance of rights.

Ivan McKee:
As I said I believe that this can be worked through. There are people that have concerns about safe spaces. That needs to be considered alongside the very real concerns and fears and problems that trans people experience in society day in day out to make sure that whatever…because this will get into the detail of what this looks like in terms of safe spaces, in terms of what happens in prisons, what happens in sport, what happens in schools, what the age limit is. There’s a lot of detail here that needs to be worked through and rightly debated in that context. I don’t think either position on the edge of this has got this absolutely right because those details need to be worked through. I don’t think there’s an absolutist position to it and I think that process will be gone through in good faith and we will come to I’m sure a reform of the Act that meets those concerns.

Chris Mason:
Christine Jardine for the Lib Dems.

Christine Jardine:
This is an incredibly distressing debate for an awful lot of people. For me there is no conflict between my rights as a woman and the rights of a trans woman and I find it very very difficult that so many people actually get quite abusive about this. To both sides and I think we have to stop and we have to think about what we’re doing and think about the people at the centre of this for whom it is incredibly distressing. Now I don’t know about the rest of you but I watched It’s A Sin and I looked at how we treated gay people in the 80s and before that and I look at how we’re treating trans people now and I think it’s the same thing. We have to stop doing this and we have to look at the people involved. It’s not a thing, it’s not an abstract concept, we have real people involved in this, who are driven by the difficulties of just being themselves…are driven to contemplate suicide, sometimes actually go through with it. And I remember being asked at the time of the Equal Marriage Act how I would feel – in a hustings for a general election – how I would feel if one of my children was gay and I said ‘well, do you know what? If one of my children was gay and one was straight, I’d want them both to have the same rights and the same legal protections’. Now if one of my children was straight and one of my children was trans, I would want them to have the rights, the same legal protections (LS: “Well said, Christine Very well said.”), and same respect from the government and society.”

Chris Mason:
Christine you talk about the people at the centre of this and clearly trans people are at the centre of this but some will make the argument that the rights of people born as women are at the centre of this as well.

Christine Jardine:
They’re not…they’re not in any way, shape or form undermined by recognising the rights of trans women…

Chris Mason:
But some argue that they are.

Lorna Slater:
Which right specifically? The right to vote? Your right to divorce? Your right to equal pay? Your right to education? None of those things are under threat from trans rights.

Christine Jardine:
…and the right to a safe space. And I mean…one of the arguments…we’re in the BBC and I remember when this building was being built, there was an argument about same gender toilets which I found hilarious because we all have same gender toilets at home. We have to just stop thinking about this as some abstract weird problem and think about the people at the centre of it. They have rights and they have to be protected.

Chris Mason:
I hadn’t expected that we would get onto the plumbing of this building. But I’m learning a lot. Murdo Fraser for the Conservatives.

Murdo Fraser:
OK. I mean I think it is entirely fair to say that the current process of changing gender legally is too complex and too bureaucratic, right? And this is something that the UK Government looked at and the equalities minister Liz Truss looked at.

Chris Mason:
And then decided to not do anything?

Murdo Fraser:
Well, no. It’s not fair to say she decided not to do anything. She did decide to simplify the process and reduce the cost. However, the real difficulty here is where you say the only…the only way you can reform Gender Recognition Act is to move to self-identification. And that’s the problem. That’s what causes the problem. That’s why there are so many women’s groups who are concerned about the impact on women’s safe spaces if you move to self-identification with no external objective check and I think that’s where the issue lies.

Lorna Slater:
But self-identification is best international practice and it’s in place in many countries like Ireland, like Belgium, like Australia with no evidence that it causes danger to women or puts women in danger at all. It’s not a reasonable fear.

Chris Mason:
Let Murdo reply.

Murdo Fraser:
Well, Lorna, I’m sure you’ve spoken to women’s groups who hold the opposite view to that who would point to examples where for example in women’s prisons, fully bodied male individuals identifying as women have gone into female prisons and caused difficulties for the women prisoners. Now I don’t think…

Lorna Slater:
…they are an exception under the Equality Act. They are not affected by the reform to the GRA. Murdo, you need to read the Equalities Act (MF: “But they’re already…”) and the Gender Recognition Act before you make claims like that about them.

Murdo Fraser:
There are already full bodied males in women’s prisons, Lorna. You should know that. And you should also know…

Lorna Slater:
That is totally irrelevant to the reform of the Gender Recognition Act.

Murdo Fraser:
In a number of cases, they’ve already been accused of committing sexual offences against women. However, what I was going to say was I mean I actually agree with what Ivan has said. I mean this is a difficult issue to work through, to balance different rights…

Lorna Slater:
If read the law first…

Murdo Fraser:
What I don’t think…Will you stop interrupting, Lorna.

Chris Mason:
Let Murdo finish his point. And then we’re going to move on.

Murdo Fraser:
What we need to do is listen to views on both sides and find the way through this and listen to those legitimate concerns and not just close down and cancel those like JK Rowling or Germaine Greer, people who’ve fought for women’s rights over many years and just say we’re cancelling them because we regard their views as beyond the pale and unacceptable. They need to be listened to too.

Chris Mason:
Christine, your hand was up, a very brief interjection.

Christine Jardine:
I agree about JK Rowling. She has a right to her views. But isn’t it interesting that on this panel the three women are for…say that we do not feel threatened by trans rights and it’s the two men. But the women are not threatened by the idea of trans women having the same rights…

Murdo Fraser:
But many other women are, Christine.


29 April 2021, Sky News
Patrick Harvie, Scottish Greens


27 April 2021, Scottish Women’s Convention, Hustings
with Rhoda Grant (Scottish Labour), Caron Lindsay, (Scottish Liberal Democrats), Kim Long (Scottish Greens), Ella Robertson McKay (Scottish Conservatives) and Shona Robison (Scottish National Party).

Grant, Lindsay, Long, McKay, Robison

Transcript:

Audience question:
Does your party support the single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act 2010 that allow for female only spaces and services?

Kim Long:
Thank you for this question. I am very much in favour of women only spaces. So I’ve worked with women and women-only groups across Scotland, in the community, in prisons in Scotland, I used to run Glasgow women library young woman programme, and I currently run a young women’s mentoring circle in my spare time. So I’ve seen time and time again, that magic happens in small groups of diverse individuals who learn to trust each other and who can learn from each other’s experiences. 

I would say that a lot of the debate is abroad in Scotland at the moment, the gender recognition act, and Equality Act are being conflated. They’re being talked about at cross purposes, it’s really unhelpful. So the GRA is about supporting trans people to change the legal sex on their birth certificate, it has absolutely no impact on toilets, or changing rooms, or access to spaces, or access to services whatsoever. So I believe I live by intersectional feminism, and that is what the Scottish Greens stand for. 

I understand. Look, I understand that a lot of women are scared at the moment. I get that, you know, the stats that we heard earlier, the stats that came out a couple of weeks ago, about 97% of young women have experienced sexual harassment. Of course we have, of course we have, we’ve all had that horrific experience, it is the wallpaper of our lives. So I get, I really do understand the fear. But let’s put the fear accurately where the threat is coming from. The threat has been, is, and always will be from violent, dangerous predatory men. There is not a threat to women from trans people. There’s no evidence base for that. 

And it’s really, really dangerous rhetoric to conflate trans people and predators. It’s exactly the same trope that conflated gay men with paedophiles in the 80s and I’m, frankly, horrified that we’re back here in Scotland. You know, we need to be very clear that trans people are just trying to get through the days, they’re just trying to live their lives, trying to get jobs and housing and everything else, trying to get education trying to get access to health care. The access to health care, the waiting list in Glasgow is three years, three years for an initial appointment. Those are the things that we can be focusing on. And we should be asking, the other final thought here is, you know, we need to be asking in whose interest is it that the woman’s movement is divided? In whose interest is that and who is fanning fears and spreading misinformation? This is really dangerous, and it’s putting lives at risk. And I won’t be part of it.

Caron Lindsay:
Yeah, I think I’ve got to continue in a very much a similar vein to what Kim was saying there. The Equality Act already provides that if anybody is causing a problem they can be removed from a single sex space. But I’m very worried about what’s happening in Scotland at the moment. The Equality Act isn’t broken, it doesn’t need to be fixed. And I think we do have to be very careful when we talk about these issues.

We have a really proud history in Scotland. Feminist organisations and LGBT organisations work together for equality for everyone and it needs to continue. And I’m a lifelong feminist, and a lifelong LGBT activist, and I see no conflict between women’s rights and trans rights. And I think it’s really important to challenge those who tried to create that conflict. Trans people, particularly transwomen, are under attack. And I think it’s really important that we stand with them. You know, the misinformation, the demonization they face on a daily basis,  that isn’t consequence free, it has a huge impact on their well being and mental health. And it’s led to a huge spike in hate crimes against transwomen, or anyone that the criminals think might be transwomen. 

Rather than create conflict, we need to stand together and make sure that we don’t lose the hard won human rights which are under threat. And it’s not just by the Westminster government. You know, some of the leaflets coming through my door and the information I’ve seen on social media from parties standing in this election has horrified me. So you know, we’re growing our own in Scotland sort of anti human rights culture and it’s so important that we stand together to challenge that. And we should not allow the prejudice against trans people to grow. We will lose so much if we allow that conflict to continue.

Shona Robison:
Just firstly, on the Equality Act, the SNP certainly supports single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act, meaning single-sex services like domestic abuse, refuges, or rape counselling are protected. We also believe that all rights, those of women and the trans community have to be protected, including the protection of women’s safe spaces. 

But the reality, it’s already been said by others, backed up by absolutely all of the evidence, is that the real threat to women and girls is not from the 0.1% of the population, or whatever the trans community are, it’s from predatory men who abuse women. And while we’re all focused on that 0.1% of the population, meanwhile over here, are men that abuse, who must be thinking, “Well, actually, it’s good that the spotlight’s not on me”. And that’s a real worry for us as a women’s movement, these are hard won rights that we need to stand together on. 

The tropes that Kim referred to, you know, it’s hard to believe that in 2021 in Scotland that we’re hearing the trans community being described as predators. These are things that I thought had gone decades ago. And it’s not just Scotland. These, unfortunately, are debates that are being had in many countries, and they set us back. And they set us back for other reasons as well. I’ve had men tell me online that they support sex-based rights, the same men who have spent their whole lives trying to rollback the reproductive rights of women, so you can have your sex based rights, but don’t try to have control of your own body. You know, we can’t have that, we can’t have that. Women have fought hard for their rights. We need to see what it is and where it is. 

Now, I’m not going to repeat what others have said. But we have to refocus this debate. And I think the way to refocus it is less about process and more about what people need. So what is it in actual fact that the trans community tell us they need? And it is access to health care and transgender clinics more quickly than is the case at the moment, it’s dealing with the bullying, the harassment, all of these things. So let’s focus on what it is we need to fix. And let’s stop trying to demonise a tiny percentage of the population, because that lets the culprits who abuse women off the hook. I feel kind of better having got that off my chest to be honest. But you know, hopefully we can all agree on this tonight.

Ella Robertson McKay:
I feel better for us to all talk about this too. I think it’s something I think we can all agree on. I know Rhoda hasn’t gone yet, but she’s been nodding. You know, we’re all firm feminists and we all believe that transwomen are women, and that they deserve equal rights and protection under the law and in society. I think that while this debate has become very heated, we need to put compassion at the centre of this debate, because it’s about people’s lives. 

I absolutely support single sex spaces and I think it’s really, really important that those are maintained. And I think it’s really important that we get the Gender Recognition Act in front of people so it can be scrutinised. Clearly, the fear is on the whole, not about transwomen accessing women’s spaces, it’s about men finding loopholes in the legislation to access women’s spaces, and the threat from cis men is something that people are really concerned about. And I think that that’s something that we all want to prevent being possible in the Gender Recognition Act. And I think that people who raise that fear about men abusing the legislation are completely right to raise that. And I think sometimes, because this is a new subject for lots of people, and we have to be realistic about that, people find it difficult to talk about, they’re scared of saying the wrong thing. It’s you know, for people of all ages, it’s something that people find a little bit tricky. Hopefully with more education it’s becoming something that everyone can discuss more fluently. 

But I think when people raise this concern about men abusing the legislation they often get shouted down and called transphobes. And I think that we have to take those views really seriously and make sure that when the Gender Recognition Act is scrutinised, that we close as many of those loopholes as possible to protect women…eh, cis women and transwomen. And so I think we all agree, more or less, on where we’re coming from. And I hope that this is just not something that the next generation of trans kids have to face, we need to put an end to this vitriol, it’s being used to divide women, it’s being used to divide society. And I think like everybody else, I really, really hope that we can put it to bed.

Rhoda Grant:
We support, obviously, the Equalities Act. And it’s really important, women-only places, I think we all understand that, we’re all women. We, especially young women growing up, need that protection. But we can’t answer this question without addressing gender recognition, because that’s, in a way, what it’s about and I find the whole thing really, really difficult to deal with, because it has become toxic. And because, I suppose, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to find a way through – because I recognise as most women do, that violent men will find every kind of loophole to go through to perpetrate their violence, their abuse against women. And there are real fears there, from women, that men will abuse that. Well, I guess it’s changed the subject, in a way, on how do we stop violent, abusive men being violent, abusive men. 

And it’s quite sad that the whole debate appears to become so polarised where you have got people who I would describe as transphobic on one side, and people I would describe as misogynist on the other. And that has closed [word unclear] the debate. I’ve been accused of being both and, well, I haven’t been accused of being a misogynist, but I’ve certainly been seen as being on the wrong side of the debate, according to both camps, because I’m desperate to find a way through. And, you know, women have been discriminated against for centuries, trans people have been discriminated against for centuries, surely, we can make some common cause and deal with those that are doing the discriminating rather than be lined up against each other, because I’m a passionate feminist, and I will never change. 

But I’m also really, really clear that friends who are trans need protection, they need support, they need access to health services, which is a hugely difficult issue. And a lot of people, trans people I’ve spoken to as well, are concerned about the Gender Recognition Act, just from the point of view that it might make access to health services even more difficult – if you can self identify, and therefore don’t need access to health service. So that could create huge difficulties. So there are very practical problems that we need to deal with. 

But yes, as a feminist, the Equalities Act was hard fought fought for, hard won and will be kept. But at the same time, we don’t use it as a way of leaving other people behind, we need to support them too. And I suppose, just as an anecdotal piece, I met with people a couple of years ago from rape crisis locally, and we’re discussing things. Now rape crisis, obviously, is there mostly for women, but they did tell me that they supported men as well. So they weren’t interested in what sex somebody was, but they were very, very clear that they looked at who they had in the building at the same time and how that might be impacted. So they did a risk assessment, and I think people should do risk assessments, but I think we need to support each other and make common cause and let’s look after our hard won rights, but make sure others get the rights they deserve and need.


25 April 2021, Sky News, the Sophy Ridge show
Lorna Slater, Scottish Greens

Lorna Slater

Transcript:

Sophy Ridge:
Well, in terms of being more progressive, one of the things that the Green Party embrace is something called the Yogyakarta Principles. Why has the Green Party decided to support these – they have no standing in international law and they’ve not been adopted internationally in any treaty. It’s about trans rights isn’t it? And it’s about ensuring that the people are not discriminated against because of their gender. But there are a lot of people who have many reservations about these principles in particular.

Lorna Slater:
The Scottish Green Party, like Green parties all around the world, is based upon four principles, sustainability, equality, radical local democracy, and we need to make sure that all humans have fair human rights. And that is a core part of what we believe in. We do not believe that trans rights are counter to women’s rights, all humans have the same human rights. So of course, when trans people gain human rights, or we make sure that their human rights are respected, we don’t take away the rights from anyone else. 

Sophy Ridge:
A lot of women are concerned that if you remove sex from from a lot of documentation, it jeopardises the provision of single sex spaces that women have had to fight to receive. And Principle 31 of the Yogyakarta Principles specifically says: ensure that official identity documents only include personal information that’s relevant, reasonable and necessary. End the registration of sex and gender of the person in identity documents such as birth certificates, passports, etc. I mean, do you think people in Scotland really don’t want the sex of their child recorded on a birth certificate? Because that is relevant to medical treatment that child…

Lorna Slater:
We are not proposing changing the… We can get into the technical details of the interpretation of that exact bit of wording in that document…

Sophy Ridge:
But your manifesto says enshrine the Yogyakarta Principles in Scots law.

Lorna Slater:
We are not talking about removing the sex from a birth certificate. That is absolutely not what we’re talking about. That law is meant to refer to identity documents in countries where your identity document has to have your sex or gender on it so that you can access your civil rights. We don’t have identity papers like that in Scotland, you don’t have to use your birth certificate to access civil rights. It’s sort of one of those technical details, but we are absolutely not talking about removing sex from birth certificates. That is not what we’re proposing at all.

Sophy Ridge:
Is the manifesto wrong then because it does say that it will enshrine the Yogyakarta Principles into Scots law?

Lorna Slater:
The way you’ve interpreted that line of that particular, that you’ve read out there, is not how we would interpret that, that is about having the correct gender on your documentation. And that means people should absolutely be able to identify their gender, as they do already on their passport, on their driver’s licence. We’re not proposing to change that, that’s already in law, you can change the gender on your passport or your driver’s licence to make it match your self identified gender. We already have that in the UK, we already have the Gender Recognition Act that says that if you follow the process to get a Gender Recognition Certificate, you can then also change the gender on your birth certificate. That is what is in law, and that is what we would like to see kept. The only change we would like to see to that, is the change to the Gender Recognition Act to make that process a little bit more humane, to make it a little bit more straightforward. At the moment it’s very medicalised, it’s very hostile. It means that a lot of people who would really like to change their documentation to make sure it’s correct don’t do so because the process is so unpleasant. It’s very, very small change that we’re wanting.

Sophy Ridge:
So what reassurance can you give to women in Scotland that, under a Green Party leadership, the provision of single sex services will be implemented and that for example, if a woman goes to a rape centre, she won’t necessarily have to be examined by somebody who was born a man.

Lorna Slater:
The Scottish Greens follow the advice of women’s groups in Scotland – Engender Scotland, Rape Crisis Scotland, all these charities and campaigns that work for women’s rights. We follow their guidance and their advice, and this is what we always do. We follow the advice of experts and women’s groups. What you fear there isn’t what’s going to happen. There is no concern about women not giving consent for being medically examined. It’s an absolute…it’s one of these whistle, dog whistle things against trans rights. This sort of terrible fear that a traumatised woman would be re-traumatised by a rape crisis centre. That is not what rape crisis centres are there for. Rape crisis centres are there to support women and trans people and anybody who’s been traumatised in those circumstances. But we also have to respect the human rights of people who work in those centres, and people who give those support services. Women do absolutely have the right to consent, you know, you need to have consent before you can medically examine someone. There isn’t a question around allowing women to be unsafe and traumatised by rape, you know, when they act as rape crisis centres, we always follow the advice of Rape Crisis Scotland and Engender and other women’s groups to make sure that women are properly protected, and that means trans women as well because trans women also need to be able to access these services safely.


25 April 2021, Radio Clyde
Patrick Harvie, Scottish Greens


22 April 2021, Radio Scotland
Patrick Harvie, Scottish Greens

Patrick Harvie

15 April 2021, Radio Scotland
Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour

Anas Sanwar

08 April 2021, Radio Scotland
Douglas Ross, Scottish Conservatives

Douglas Ross