EDINBURGH – Scottish nationalists have never had a better chance of achieving their centuries-long dream of securing independence. The Brexit that Scottish voters never wanted turned out to be just as horrible as predicted, the fierce and painful English Prime Minister Boris Johnson is disappearing an eternal fuck, and the last 20 polls have shown the pro-independence side at the forefront.
But like everyone with even a Brave heartknowledge of its national history knows, Scots have a long preference to take the defeat out of the jaws of victory. And at the moment, Scottish nationalists who have worked their whole lives on this moment are letting it all go to hell – over a raging and destructive struggle over transgender rights that has seen legislators burst into tears at meetings.
Britain’s persistent problem with transphobia, which comes from both the political left and the right, is well documented.
Scotland, where political leaders boast that they are more outward-looking and progressive than their counterparts south of Brexit, have failed to suck in the same brain-rotating vortex. In fact, it’s home to the issue’s most famous cultural fighter, JK Rowling, who has been denied by almost every child actor ever to appear in Hogwarts for her anti-trans tweets.
The problem has now dominated the center-left Scottish National Party, which leads the ousted Scottish government and has been the driving force behind the movement to separate from Britain since the 1930s. Last week things got so bad that its leader and Prime Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, had to post a video begging young LGBTQ + members of her party to stop cutting their membership cards in large quantities due to the anti trans-views of some of her party’s senior members.
In the video, Sturgeon said that ‘mainly young people in large numbers have left the SNP’ because they no longer think it’s a safe place for transgender people. The Prime Minister said that it ‘mourns [her] deep ”that those younger members came to that damning conclusion, and she promised to“ do everything [she] able to change that impression and convince you all that the SNP is your party. ”
Sturgeon added: “Trans people have just as much right as all of us to be safe, secure and valued for who they are. Transphobia is wrong and we have to deal with it with the zero tolerance that treats our racism or homophobia. ”
The message was welcomed, but for most people who quit, it did not have enough to persuade them back. Their decisions come after what they saw as a few years of gradually increasing tolerance for – and lack of action against – toxic anti-trans views throughout the party.
One of the former members, Teddy Hope, who uses the pronouns they / they used, told The Daily Beast that they acted as trans officers for the SNP’s LGBTQ + wing last year after attending a meeting by party members abused is because they are non-binary. Hope said one of their abusers was later selected for an important official role, and that the party did not act on their complaints about the person.
“I honestly believe that the SNP has become one of the focal points of transphobia in Scotland,” Hope explained. ‘We see a process of radicalization taking place within our movement. Those who oppose the human rights of transgender people have a small number, but they have a great influence on party politics and our media, which is deeply worrying. ‘
Mridul Wadhwa, a colored woman who was also recently forced to leave the party, told The Daily Beast she was repeatedly attacked as she tried to get more senior positions in the party. She said the problem was at its worst when her members were furiously questioned about voting on a candidate list for all women.
“I expect transphobia everywhere I go, but it’s a failure of leadership,” Wadhwa said. ‘I do not think there are a large number of people, but there are enough with power and privilege who have debated trans lives without involving or understanding our lives. I believed they had no legitimate concerns; they are genocide in their view because they really do not want us to exist. ”
The breaking point for many came when one prominent SNP MP, Joanna Cherry, expressed her support for Sarah Phillimore – a lawyer and feminist activist whose Twitter account was suspended last month after she was accused of hateful behavior. Cherry support has led to an avalanche of SNP resignations. Phillimore denies ever tweeting anything transphobic, but admitted on a crowdfunding page for her defamation cases that she may have sexually transgendered.
Jack Boag, who was LGBT + official in the party’s student wing, said he decided to quit shortly after Cherry’s tweets. He told The Daily Beast that he initially encountered anti-trans views in a ‘vocal minority hiding behind Twitter accounts’, but then he saw that some of the people in the party were being promoted and came to the realization has that the SNP leadership ‘willing to place them in the name of party unity. ”
Days after Sturgeon posted her video, Cherry was fired from her prominent position in the party, but she remains a member and has been mentioned by some in the past as a future party leader. In a written statement, Cherry told The Daily Beast that a “very large” number of SNP members had stopped talking about her dismissal, but did not comment on those who said they were stopping her tweets.
Cherry added: ‘I’m not aware of anyone in the SNP wanting to undermine the rights of trans people. As a lesbian, a feminist and a veteran of the fight for equality, I believe that everyone under the law deserves equal protection, and I am very proud of the fact that we in Scotland have very good rights-based protection for trans people has. ‘
Cherry said she had raised “legitimate concerns” about gender recognition legislation, saying it “concerns that it is difficult to express a point of view without becoming a transphobic.”
Cherry’s fellow SNP lawmakers, who asked to remain anonymous so they could talk freely about the matter, told The Daily Beast that the events of the past few weeks have exposed a factional crackdown in the SNP and thus the independence movement. . On the one hand, there is vocal Sturgeon who has always used a cautious approach to independence.
On the other hand, there is Cherry, who lives near the former leader of the SNP, Alex Salmond, who was acquitted last year of a series of charges in a trial over sexual assault which according to him was now a witch hunt by the current leader Sturgeon has been orchestrated. Put simply, SNP insiders say these two factions fell broadly on either side of a toxic transgender culture war, causing the rift that has now washed up in public view.
One Sturgeon ally said: ‘[Salmond supporters] seemed to be riding it like a Trojan horse. Salmond will never be a leader and seems to have a small group of people who want independence at all costs [and] use it to cause a rift in the party and unrest in Sturgeon’s leadership. ”
Asked about the fracture, one SNP lawmaker told The Daily Beast: “It’s all one person – Joanna.” The legislature claimed that one colleague in an online group meeting burst into tears when the argument over transgender rights became erratic last week.
On the other hand, Cherry also feels the shockwaves of division – last Thursday, a man was allegedly charged in connection with alleged threats against the SNP politician on the day of her dismissal. His publicly blamed her colleagues for spreading ‘lies’ about her, and in a Friday newspaper article accused her party leaders of carrying out a ‘masterful piece of Stalinist revisionism’ when they fired her.
The SNP now looks most divided at the exact time when the stars finally decided to support a majority of voters in their lifelong cause. And since young people are usually the age that is demographic that is likely to support independence, this is a group they can not afford to lose – but the people are likely to run out of a stench of transphobia.
If anything, the divisions are likely to deepen as the Scottish Government pursues plans to support gender recognition reforms aimed at making it easier for people to change their legal gender. The SNP could very well have an election in May, and then a promised second independence referendum in the next few years, which will tear itself apart.
“Every time the party comes into conversation, even with those who are not immediately interested in politics, they automatically associate it with transphobia,” former party official Hope said. ‘Radical change is needed only for trans people to feel safe exercising their rights in the party. Until that happens, he will continue to lose faith and support from his youth wing, until a generation of his activists are completely lost. ”
Wadhwa, one of the trans members who left the party, said she would still vote for Scottish independence if given the opportunity, but she warned that if the SNP was serious about building a just society, independent country ‘, then’ approach to any form of folly is required – whether it be transphobia or any other prejudice. ”
She added: “The party is far away from that.”