Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee 29 April 2025
I want to express my solidarity with trans and non-binary people across Scotland. I have spoken to many of them over the past weeks and months and they consistently say the same thing: that they feel under attack; that they feel that, as a group, they have been cast as a threat to others when we know that they are not; and that they just want to live their lives as who they are, like any of us do.
I am grateful to the many people—trans and cis—who have been in touch with me over the past two weeks to tell me their stories. It has been devastating to hear about the exclusion and prejudice that they or their loved ones have faced and how worried they are for the future. Some have just been in touch to thank me for standing up for them in this cruellest of culture wars.
A culture war is what is happening. Trans and non-binary people are having their lives weaponised in absolutely dreadful ways and, for the first time in a long time, human rights appear to be going backwards. We are already seeing implications for women too, with challenges to our bodily autonomy, our abortion rights and our right to exist as we wish, rather than according to socially imposed views of femininity or beauty.
The Good Law Project and others have produced detailed analyses of the questions that are raised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s interim statement that was produced on Friday evening—and, indeed, the Supreme Court ruling—about compliance with our obligations under international human rights law. I will not go into that in detail now; we will spend time discussing that in due course.
This debate is about what I said in response to the Supreme Court ruling. I have never questioned the court’s right to make the ruling that it did, but that does not mean that I must agree with it. I do not, and I am very concerned about the impact that it will have and is already having. Trans and non-binary people just want to be able to live their lives like any of us, without the fear of prejudice or violence, but they are now concerned about how their lives and rights will be affected by the ruling.
I have stood up for and advocated for trans and non-binary people and I always will. That is not just because it is the right thing to do; it is also my job to stand up for my constituents. All of us have constituents who are trans or non-binary. Other constituents have trans or non-binary children, parents, siblings and friends. They deserve representation as who they are.
I will not stop being a vocal trans ally. That is what I was doing in Aberdeen nearly 10 days ago, as I had done in Dundee the day before, and as I have done many times over the years on our streets and in our Parliament. Thousands of LGBTQIA+ people and their allies gathered on our streets after the Supreme Court verdict because they were angry, afraid and uncertain of what lies ahead for them and their loved ones.
We know that our courts reflect our society. We have probably all criticised court judgments in the past when racist or homophobic laws were upheld, when women did not get justice for the abuse and violence that they had faced, or when coal miners were convicted of offences during the miners strike of the 1980s. Just a couple of years ago, this very Parliament pardoned all those who were convicted during the strike with the Miners’ Strike (Pardons) (Scotland) Act 2022. That is not to say that the courts did not have the constitutional right to make those judgments—of course they did. However, we would all surely hope that those rulings would be made differently if they were to be made today.
This ruling did not happen in a vacuum; it happened with a backdrop of a culture war that has seen trans people and their loved ones being targeted and demonised by too many politicians and by large parts of the media. However, as politicians, we must use our voices to speak out when we see rights being removed or injustices faced by anyone, and perhaps especially when minoritised communities are threatened by societal prejudice. We not only have the right of freedom of expression to be able to speak out; we have the obligation to speak out.
I do not expect all MSPs on the committee to agree with my views on the ruling or about trans rights more generally, but I hope that members will uphold my right to them.
Lord David Hope, who served as the Lord President of the Court of Session and first deputy president of the Supreme Court—and who is not a Scottish Green Party member—said of me:
“I do not think that she should stand down or be removed from her post but she should be more careful with her language.”
I will let members be the judge of that.
09:45However, this is not about me—it is about what message our Parliament sends, and what we do for people who feel under attack and who are worried about what the future holds.
Finally, I am sorry that I am not with the committee in person, but I am at the Scottish Trades Union Congress annual congress in Dundee. Congress opened yesterday with a clear statement of welcome to, and inclusion of, trans people. The STUC’s general secretary, Roz Foyer, has expressed grave concerns about the impacts and effects on trans and non-binary people of the Supreme Court ruling, and trade unionists from across the country spoke passionately in support of trans and non-binary people, expressing solidarity in the face of the onslaught that they face. I am proud to be a trade unionist, just as I am proud to be a trans ally.