The trans rights row sparking a crisis for Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership

London: Even Nicola Sturgeon’s harshest critics concede that for almost a decade she has been among the most effective politicians in Britain.

The leader of the Scottish National Party has established herself as perhaps the best campaigner in British politics today, galvanising progressives while infuriating those who think her radical agenda – including on gender issues – is a dangerous threat to the Union.

Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon is in a tight spot.Credit: Getty

But after making Westminster, and in particular the ruling Conservative government, the enemy for so long, a series of mishaps and a self-inflicted political crisis over transgender rights have intensified questions about her future.

The 52-year-old Sturgeon has been a thorn in the side of successive British prime ministers since she became Scotland’s First Minister and head of the SNP in 2014. The first woman to hold either role, she has staunchly defended Scotland’s interests amid Brexit negotiations.

In her most recent war of words with Westminster, she has weaponised the British government’s first-ever decision to veto a bill passed by the Scottish Parliament making it easier for people to change their legal gender into a new push for independence.

But Sturgeon’s gender agenda might be about to prove fatal to her career. In the past fortnight it is her response to revelations about Isla Bryson – a 31-year-old trans woman convicted of raping two women when still living as a man – which has caused Sturgeon more difficulty than anything the combined efforts of the Conservative and Labour parties have achieved in years.

Isla Bryson, 31, formerly known as Adam Graham and then Annie Bryson, arriving at the court in Glasgow.Credit: AAP

Pending sentence, Bryson was sent to a woman’s prison, Cornton Vale, near Stirling, 60 kilometres north-west of Edinburgh. When the details of the case prompted a public outcry, Bryson was moved to a men-only prison and the Scottish Prison Service announced it was pausing the movement of all transgender prisoners while it carried out an urgent review of policy.

The courts had been informed Bryson was known as Adam Graham when charged with the crimes in 2019 and the following year began identifying as a woman. The name on Bryson’s birth certificate was changed to Annie Bryson in May 2021, but Bryson’s legal gender remains male.

Within days of the revelation it was revealed another offender, Tiffany Scott, who had stalked a 13-year-old girl while living as a man, would be moved to a female prison.

The cases have sparked fierce debate across Britain and exacerbated splits over gender reform legislation within the SNP.

A Scotland Police photo taken of Isla Bryson when she was living as Adam Graham.Credit: AAP

Several high-profile critics have also emerged, including former SNP leader Alex Salmond, who has described Sturgeon’s position as “untenable”, while former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars said the issue could be her “poll tax moment” – a reference to the backlash against former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s attempts to replace domestic rates in 1989, in what was a gross misreading of the public mood.

“The foundation of our case for independence – that we could do things better on our own – is being undermined by this gender fiasco,” he wrote in The Sunday Times.

In the Sunday Post, former SNP member Joan McAlpine described gender self-identification as a “personal passion of the first minister”, adding that she “must answer for any harm done – to women, obviously, but also to her party and the cause of independence”.

While the gender wars have mainly played out within the social circles of highly engaged politics watchers, the Bryson affair has sharpened the focus on Sturgeon’s gender policies. And her discomfort on the matter in the last week has been palpable.

“She regards herself as a woman; I regard the individual as a rapist,” Sturgeon said after she was repeatedly pressed at a press conference as to why she had used “she” and “her” when describing Bryson.

“If you take a view that an individual of this description is a woman, in a prison context, that does not give that individual the right automatically to be accommodated in a female prison.”

The SNP leader had previously attempted to sidestep questions about Bryson’s gender, but last week admitted that she believed “the rapist” was “almost certainly” masquerading as a woman.

When asked in parliament whether Bryson was a woman, Sturgeon said: “This individual claims to be a woman. I don’t have information about whether those claims have validity or not.”

Sturgeon’s handling of the issue has also prompted broader questions about her judgment. A YouGov poll last weekend found her approval rating has slipped into negative territory, from plus seven to minus four, since October.

IPSOS found 50 per cent backed the British government’s move to block the SNP’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill. Credit: Getty

A separate Ipsos survey found 50 per cent of those polled backed the British government’s move to block the SNP’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill, compared with only 33 per cent who opposed it. Even 31 per cent of SNP voters said the British government should have blocked the legislation, showing Sturgeon’s attempts to use the issue to fuel nationalist fires had not worked. Her detractors in the party believe the gender issue has put independence at risk.

Since 62 per cent of Scots in 2016 voted to remain in the European Union despite the collective result throughout Britain in favour of leaving, Sturgeon has continued to push for a re-run of the 2014 independence referendum in which Scots voted 55 per cent to 45 per cent in favour of remaining in the United Kingdom.

Sturgeon was already facing dissent in her own party over the controversial gender reform legislation – with nine of her own MPs opposing legislation, which passed 88 votes to 33, and one of her own cabinet, Ash Regan, even resigning as the Scottish minister for community safety so she could oppose the bill.

But its passage was viewed as a victory for Sturgeon, who said it was her responsibility “to make life a little bit easier for stigmatised minorities in our country”. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak later said he would block the law, arguing it would conflict with the Westminster Equality Act 2010 by, for example, making it more difficult for women-only spaces to exclude people who were born biologically male.

The Sturgeon laws would reduce the age at which people can obtain a gender recognition certificate to 16, remove the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria – the feeling of discomfort or distress some trans people feel when their bodies do not align with their gender – and shortens the period in which someone has to live in their gender before getting a certificate to three months.

Bryson’s gender legally remains male. Current laws require a medical diagnosis for a person to be eligible for a gender recognition certificate. However, under Sturgeon’s proposed laws – currently blocked by the British government – Bryson could have applied to legally switch gender within months of being charged, without a diagnosis.

The trans community is ‘in limbo’ waiting to see what will happen to Nicola Sturgeon’s legislation.Credit: Getty

Vic Valentine, manager of Scottish Trans, an advocacy group, said that, while it was “good to see people in positions of power, such as the first minister, being supportive of the trans community”, it was disappointing that transgender people were now “back in limbo”.

“It is our view that anyone who has committed sexually violent crimes, and who poses a risk to women, should not be housed with women on the female estate,” Valentine said.

“A blanket rule about where trans people in custody are accommodated would be wrong. In a community of any size, there will be some people who commit appalling crimes – that does not and should not reflect on the majority of that community.”

James Mitchell, professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, said the controversy over Bryson and Scott would likely “upset a lot of SNP members” who he said were perplexed by how such a divisive issue came to dominate debate in the party.

“There’s always been a strand within the SNP that’s thought independence is what we are about, and everything else is secondary,” he said.

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