Biological reality catches up with Nicola Sturgeon

News

When Nicola Sturgeon announced she was quitting as Scottish First Minister last week she claimed it wasn’t a response to the “latest period of pressure” – but few believed her.

For in recent weeks, the SNP leader has been engulfed in a scandal entirely of her own making, as her insistence that transgender women are women was exposed as dangerous nonsense by the case of a male rapist who, by claiming to be trans, had been placed in a women’s prison.

Sturgeon’s acknowledgement that the “physical and mental impact” of the job had taken their toll appears to be a reference to the intense pressure she had come under to clarify her stance on gender and to abandon her misguided self-ID gender bill.

Recent interviews saw the normally unflappable politician flounder as she struggled to answer what should have been straightforward questions about the sex of the rapist.

J.K. Rowling deserves a chunk of the credit, some have said, because of the way she has used her fame to rise above the threats of ‘cancel culture’ and keep on highlighting the absurdities of SNP policies on gender.

While Sturgeon has been no stranger to scandals during her eight years in power, it was, as the Telegraph’s Allister Heath notes, her “quasi-religious conversion to the most extreme form of gender ideology that brought her down”.

In the wake of the scandal, support for the SNP fell to 44% from 50% in December, while backing for Scottish independence – the SNP’s flagship policy – dropped from 53% to 47%. One SNP source said that the party is “seeing thousands of members leaving – some estimates are saying as many as 30,000 – because they are completely disillusioned”.

Of the three candidates currently standing for the SNP leadership, two oppose Nicola Sturgeon’s gender reforms, and one of these (Kate Forbes MSP) has declared she would also have voted against same-sex marriage. Opponents of the gender proposals may not receive the support they could have had if the rumoured 30,000 who quit the party over the issue are not readmitted and allowed to vote in the leadership contest.

The whole saga is a valuable reminder that reality has a way of catching up with you in the end and trying to deny it is never sensible. The realities about biological sex, just like those about the benefits of marriage, are hard-wired into humanity. At C4M we will continue to stand up for these foundational truths, confident that standing up for the truth, even when it’s unpopular, is always the right way to go.