I know I won’t be alone in being both unsurprised but dismayed by former first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s refusal to apologise for her role in making the gender debate one of the most toxic and divisive since the independence referendum.
Speaking this week, she showed not one iota of contrition for the way she ramped up this issue and denigrated the legitimate fears of women who saw safe single-sex spaces and services threatened by ideologues who failed to accept than a man cannot be accepted as a woman just because he says he is.
She and others like her insisted it was all transphobic scaremongering, until a rapist was sent to a women’s prison under cover of a blonde wig and a pink anorak. “I recognise the different views on this, I’ve always recognised the different views on this, but I think it’s important that respect runs in both directions,” she said, conveniently forgetting that her idea of respect was to use the Scottish Parliament to attack opponents of her Gender Recognition Reform plan as bigots.
For Ms Sturgeon it seems respect is indeed a one-way street, accorded to people who agree with her, but not to those who don’t. To Ms Sturgeon, respect means not condemning aggressive protestors who abused and spat at me and my colleagues on our way into a meeting, and who with her trademark snarky half-snigger told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg how much she detested Conservatives. R-E-S-P-E-C-T? She couldn’t spell it, never mind sing it.
