EDINBURGH – Scottish nationalists have never had a better chance of fulfilling their centuries-old dream of guaranteeing independence. The Brexit that Scottish voters never wanted is proving to be as dire as had been predicted, the stilted and painfully English Prime Minister Boris Johnson is stumbling into an eternal disaster, and the last 20 opinion polls have shown the pro-independence side in the lead.
But, like anyone with even a Brave HeartUp to the level of knowledge of their national history, Scots have an old tendency to pull defeat from the clutches of victory. And right now, Scottish nationalists who have spent their entire lives working for this moment are letting everything go to hell – because of a furious and destructive dispute over transgender rights that made lawmakers burst into tears at meetings.
Britain’s persistent problem with transphobia, which comes from both the left and the right, is well documented.
Scotland, where political leaders pride themselves on looking more outwardly and progressive than their belching Brexit counterparts in the south, has not escaped being sucked into the same brain-destroying vortex. In fact, it is home to the best-known cultural warrior on the issue, JK Rowling, who was rejected by almost every child actor from appearing at Hogwarts for her anti-trans tweets.
The problem has now flooded the center-left Scottish National Party, which leads the decentralized Scottish government and has been the driving force behind Britain’s separation movement since the 1930s. Last week, things got so bad that its leader and Prime Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, had to post a video pleading with young LGBTQ + members of his party to stop cutting their membership cards en masse due to the anti-trans views of some of the senior members of his party .
In the video, Sturgeon said she had heard of “mostly young people, in a significant number, leaving the SNP” because they no longer thought it was a safe place for trans people. The Prime Minister said that he “regrets [her] deeply ”that those younger members had reached this damning conclusion, and she pledged to do“ everything [she] it can change that impression and persuade you all that the SNP is your party. “
Sturgeon added: “Trans people have as much right as any of us to be protected, protected and valued for what they are. Transphobia is wrong and we must treat it with zero tolerance, we treat racism or homophobia ”.
The message was welcome, but for most of those who gave up, it was far from enough to convince them to return. Their decisions came after what they saw as several years of gradually increasing tolerance – and lack of counter action – anti-toxic views across the party.
One of the now ex-members, Teddy Hope, who uses their pronouns, told The Daily Beast that they stepped down as transgender officer of the LGBTQ + wing of the SNP last year after being abused by party members in a meeting because they are not binary. Hope said that one of his attackers was later chosen for an important official role, and the party did not follow up on complaints about that person.
“I honestly believe that the SNP has become one of the main centers of transphobia in Scotland,” explained Hope. “We are seeing a radicalization process taking place within our movement. Those who oppose the human rights of transgender people are few, but they have a great influence on party politics and on our media, which is deeply worrying ”.
Mridul Wadhwa, a black trans woman who also felt forced to leave the party recently, told The Daily Beast that she was repeatedly attacked when trying to run for more important positions in the party. She said the problem worsened when her eligibility to be selected from a list of all-female candidates was questioned angrily by party members.
“I expect transphobia everywhere I go, but that is a failure of leadership,” said Wadhwa. “I don’t think there are a lot of people, but there are enough with power and privilege who have debated about trans life without involving or understanding our lives. I believe they have no legitimate concerns, they are genocidal in their views because they really don’t want us to exist ”.
The breaking point for many came when a prominent SNP member of parliament, Joanna Cherry, expressed his support by Sarah Phillimore – a lawyer and feminist activist whose Twitter account was suspended last month after she was accused of odious conduct. Cherry’s support led to a flood of SNP resignations. Phillimore denies tweeting anything transphobic, but on a crowdfunding page for his defamation cases, he admitted that he may have misinterpreted the gender of transgender people.
Jack Boag, who was an LGBT + officer in the party’s student wing, said he decided to give up shortly after Cherry’s tweets. He told The Daily Beast that he first came across anti-trans views in a “vocal minority hidden behind Twitter accounts”, but then he saw some of these people being promoted in the party and realized that the SNP leadership “was willing to placate them on behalf of the party’s unity. ”
Days after Sturgeon posted his video, Cherry was dismissed from her prominent position in the party, but she remains a member and has in the past been mentioned by some as a future party leader. In a written statement, Cherry told The Daily Beast that she was told that a “very large number” of SNP members withdrew because of her resignation, but did not comment on those who said that they withdrew because of their tweets.
Cherry added: “I am not aware of anyone in the SNP who wants to undermine the rights of trans people. As a lesbian, feminist and veteran in the struggle for equality, I believe that everyone deserves equal protection under the law and I am very proud of the fact that in Scotland we have good rights-based protections for trans people ”.
Cherry said she “raised legitimate concerns” about the gender recognition law and said it is “worrying that in this area it is difficult to express a point of view without being labeled transphobic”.
Cherry SNP lawmakers, who asked to remain anonymous so they could speak freely about the matter, told The Daily Beast that the events of the past few weeks have revealed a faction split in the SNP – and therefore in the independence movement. On the one hand, there is the trans-allied vocalist Sturgeon, who has always taken a cautious approach to independence.
On the other hand, is Cherry, who remains close to former SNP leader Alex Salmond, who last year was cleared of a series of charges in a sexual assault trial that he now claims was a witch hunt orchestrated by the current leader Sturgeon. Put simply, SNP members say these two factions are largely on both sides of a toxic transgender cultural war, causing the disruption that has now spread to public opinion.
An ally of Sturgeon said: “[Salmond supporters] seemed to ride him like a Trojan horse. Salmond will never be a leader and it looks like he has a small group of people who want independence at all costs [and] are using it to cause division in the party and unrest in Sturgeon’s leadership. “
Asked about the fracture, an SNP lawmaker told The Daily Beast: “It’s all one person – Joanna.” The lawmaker said a colleague started crying at an online group meeting when the discussion of transgender rights became volatile last week.
On the other hand, Cherry is feeling the shock waves from the division too – last Thursday, a man was accused of connection with alleged threats made against SNP policy on the day of his resignation. She publicly guilty her colleagues for spreading “lies” about her and, in a newspaper column on Friday, accused her party leaders of carrying out a “masterpiece of Stalinist revisionism” when they fired her.
The SNP now appears to be more divided at the very moment when the stars finally lined up for most voters to support their lifelong cause. And, as young people are routinely the age group most likely to support independence, it is a group they cannot afford to miss – but the people most likely to escape the stink of transphobia.
At the very least, the divisions are likely to deepen if the Scottish government continues with plans to support gender recognition reforms designed to make legal gender change simpler for people. The SNP may well go to an election in May, and then a second independence referendum promised in the coming years, falling apart.
“Whenever the party comes into conversation, even with those who are not immediately interested in politics, they automatically associate it with transphobia,” said ex-trans Hope party official. “A radical change is necessary only so that trans people feel safe in campaigning for their rights in the party. Until that happens, he will continue to lose the faith and support of his youth wing, until a generation of his activists is utterly lost. “
Wadhwa, one of the trans members who left the party, said he would still vote for Scottish independence if he had the chance, but she warned that if the SNP is “serious about building an independent and fairer country” then “no tolerance approach” any kind of intolerance is what is needed – whether it is transphobia or any other prejudice. ”
She added: “The party is far from that.”