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Professor John Robertson OBA
The Trans issue has been central to media coverage in Scotland for years now and that coverage has uniformly sought to present it as controversial and to locate entirely within the affairs of the SNP, disregarding cross-party support, so as to protect, especially, Anas Sarwar.
You see above, that the Times has decided that ‘trans’ is to be the ‘key issue for the SNP‘ at election, May 2026. What is that claim based on?
In December 2022, in a poll of 1 065 Scots over 16, only 1, a woman in the 55-64 age group, chose Gender recognition reforms as the most important issue facing Scotland today.
The poll data tables, for STV by Ipsos MORI on 5 December can be accessed here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_Scottish_independence
In the last few years, presumably noting the above, pollsters have stopped asking if that is an issue at all, proving that the Times seeks to influence the outcome of the Scottish election by making an issue they feel the SNP is vulnerable on, the central one, in the process, contrary to the evidence and deceiving the electorate in the process.
To be effective this strategy must go beyond one newspaper. It does. Just today:
and most important in misleading the electorate:
Surely a trade war or a shortage of food are more important? This is an editorial decision to try to determine what is important and make sure that decision damages the SNP.
Footnote – the media will say that, if you read the full article, it is balanced but that’s the point. It’s the choice to prioritise that which may damage the SNP, regardless of its proven lack of significance for voters in repeated polls, that matters. Trans will, you can be sure, the key issue, in the media.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
From Google AI 👇
“The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (ICD-11) is the global standard for diagnostic health information and came into effect on January 1, 2022.”
“While the UK, as a member of the World Health Organisation, is expected to adopt the ICD-11, it is not mandated to do so by a specific date. The WHO encourages member states to transition to ICD-11, but implementation timelines are determined by individual countries. In the UK, while ICD-11 adoption is underway, it is not yet fully implemented across the NHS, with a decision on a full national implementation for morbidity coding yet to be made.”
Whenever I look for a date for its implementation in England, I get “Not expected before April 2026”
The difference between ICD-10 and ICD-11 is explained in this BBC report from 29 May 2019. 👇
By delaying its implementation until after the Scottish Parliamentary Elections in May 2026 allows the mainstream media and the UK opposition parties to have one last go at bashing the SNP before they implement the very same thing they accuse the SNP of ‘trying to do’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48448804
“Transgender no longer recognised as ‘disorder’ by WHO”
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As The Times indicated in its survey I , like most people in Scotland , would place Trans Issues at the top of my concerns – except for :
Independence for Scotland
Energy ripoffs by UK Government /Energy Companies
Cost of Living crisis
Privatisation of NHS
Trump !
War In Gaza
Trump!
Two Child Welfare Cap
War in Ukraine
Trump
Waspi Women
BBC lack of neutrality
Global Climate
Trump !
UK Government incompetence
Trident
House of Lords abolition
Wasteful building of Nuclear Power Stations
Trump
Farage
Starmer
JKR
The MSM ….
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Were a poll to be held on the most despised individuals in Scotland, ‘Isla Bryson’ would pretty much be at the bottom of an exceedingly long list of UK politicians (inc Sarwar etc), journalists and celebrities….
I’m guessing you spotted the same re-activation of Agent Rowling as a sign of what was to come, and although agreeing the media propagandists will try to manipulate anything they can to appear relevant, I suspect it’s game over for them this time around, it’s the ‘Wolf’ parable for the modern age.
Folks really have had enough of being taken for fools with these charades north AND south of the border, and as James listed above with a surfeit of ‘Trump’ there are more pressing issues, such as which oligarch now owns UK democracy – James Robertson’s excellent skit “The news where you are” comes to mind with regard to Scotland, but I believe Pacific Quay et al have now run out of all credibility…
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This timeline is important 👇
Just over a month after Isla Bryson was convicted on 24 January 2023, the UK government announced on 27 February 2023 a new transgender prisoner policy for ENGLAND and WALES with immediate effect.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-transgender-prisoner-policy-comes-into-force
The Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, said:
“Safety has to come first in our prisons and this new policy sets out a clear, common-sense approach to the housing of transgender prisoners.
“With these sensible new measures in place, transgender offenders who have committed sexual or violent crimes or retain male genitalia will not serve their sentence in a women’s prison, unless explicitly approved at the highest level.”
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This BBC article from 3 March 2019 clearly demonstrates there were prisoner safety concerns in England and Wales years before Isla Bryson case.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47434730
“The UK’s first prison unit for transgender inmates will open this week, the Ministry of Justice has said.
The wing, within a women’s prison in south London, will initially cater for three offenders.
Officials say the three prisoners, who have Gender Recognition Certificates, will not have access to the other women at HMP Downview, in Sutton.
The Ministry of Justice said prisoner safety was “our biggest concern”.
The move comes after the case of Karen White, a transgender prisoner, who sexually assaulted two women while on remand at New Hall jail in Wakefield.”
It continues.
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AND THERE WE HAVE THE TRUE HONESTY OF ENGLUSH MEDIA
THEY SPEAK WITH FORKED TONGUE
AS LONG AS THEY GET TO RUIN HONSET CONVERSATION
ATTENTION OF ALL TRUE SCOTS VITE FOR THE ONE AND ONLY PARTY WHO HONESTLY WANT SCOTS TO PROSPER IN THE FUTURE
STAYING WITH ‘UK’. GIVES SCOTS NOTHING BUT MISERY AND SKY HIGH PRICES
AND ENGLAND STEALS ALL THE SCOTTISH ASSETS
THIS CANNOT BE ALLOYED TO HAPPEN
SCOTLAND NEEDS AND WANTS ITS TRUE AND HONEST PLACE IN THE WORLD
NOT BEING DOG-TIED TO A COUNTRY ‘ENGLAND’
HELL BENT IN DRAINING EVER ASSET OF SCOTLANDS
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Yes there is a sustained attack on the SNP in government over trans issues by gender critical activists, opposition politicians and much of the mainstream media. I suspect there is a mix of genuine disagreement and political opportunism here!
From a review of documents from Westminster – Hansard records of parliamentary debates on the Gender Recognition Bill (c. 2003-4) and the Human Rights Bill (c. 2009-10) plus the transcript of oral evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (in 2009) plus the text of relevant acts, it seems to me that the origin story and its subsequent fall-out resides in Westminster under a Labour government and not in Holyrood under the SNP.
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is an Act of a Labour Westminster government. Its Clause 9 received close attention in the 2025 UK Supreme Court judgement in For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent). This clause in the Act seems – to this non-lawyer – to have been drafted in a way to avoid any doubt in terms of parliamentary intent:
‘Consequences of issue of gender recognition certificate etc.
9 General ‘(1) Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman).’
Whatever one’s view of the substantive issue here, this clause in the Labour government’s legislation – as drafted and passed into law – could hardly be clearer!
Aware of the significance of this, in a House of Lords debate on the Gender Recognition Bill (see Hansard for January 19, 2004), the Tory Lord Tebbit asked Her Majesty’s Government: ‘Whether they attribute the same meaning to the word “sex” as to the word “gender”.
Lord Filkin, the relevant minister in the Blair government responded: ‘No. It is, however, a fundamental proposition of the Gender Recognition Bill that, following legal recognition in their acquired gender, a transsexual person will be regarded in UK law as being of the acquired gender for all purposes and that in law that acquired gender will be the same as any legal definition of their sex.’
Filkin added: ’This means that, following legal recognition, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex in law becomes that of a man and if the person’s acquired gender is the female gender, the person’s sex in law becomes that of a woman.
‘Where under any legislation it is necessary to decide the sex of a person who has an acquired gender, or to say whether that person is a man or a woman, or male or female, the question must be answered in accordance with the person’s acquired gender.’ (my emphasis)
Again, whatever one’s position on the substantive issue, the ‘fundamental proposition’ within the Blair government’s Gender Recognition Act 2004 – its intent – could hardly have been stated more clearly.
Of course, there was no SNP or Scottish Government involvement in drafting or securing the passage of this Bill. And when a subsequent Westminster government failed to sort out what the Supreme Court has only in 2025 judged to be incompatible with more recent equalities legislation – namely the Labour government’s Equalities Act 2010 – again no SNP Scottish Government FM was involved!
Referring to Westminster’s Equality Act, 2010, the Supreme Court in 2025 concluded that ‘There is no provision in the EA 2010 that expressly addresses the effect of section 9(1) of the GRA 2004’ Why not? This is surely a damning indictment of the then Westminster government and more broadly of Westminster’s legislative process responsible for the Equality Act 2010, given the explicit terms of Clause 9 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004!
It is worth noting that a quick read of the Hansard records for ALL the debates on the Equality Bill in 2009-2010 reveals that little attention was given to the now fraught sex vs gender issue and little attention given to the significance of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. When the term ‘gender’ is used in these debates, it is predominantly in the context of the ‘gender pay gap’.
However, and finally, it is instructive to note oral evidence to Westminster’s Human Rights Joint Committee: Legislative Scrutiny: Equality Bill – Oral evidence taken before the Joint Committee on Human Rights, 24 June 2009. The key witness was Vera Baird QC MP, Solicitor General in the Labour government and a lead minister in taking the Bill through parliament (Source: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200809/jtselect/jtrights/169/9062401.htm )
What follows requires careful reading but it seems to me to be a notable exchange for pointing up the Labour government’s INTENT:
Q73 Dr Evan Harris MP (Lib Dem): ‘… the trans community may well want protection in their own right. I just want to bring in a human rights point here, which is that there is concern that the right to privacy might be infringed by the exemptions that exist from protection for trans people in Schedules 3 and 9, which we have also debated, which exist for organisations to discriminate against them even where a certificate is held. Under the Gender Recognition Act, of course, that requires that people be recognised in their new gender for all purposes. Therefore, one of the questions I have is whether to protect their human rights and be compliant with that law, even if the Equality Bill could write out that one did not have to be compliant, if there was not to be regression how can you allow exceptions on grounds of gender reassignment even where people have a Gender Recognition Certificate? I do not think we raised this in Committee so it is a new human rights based point.’
Vera Baird: ‘What are the specific exceptions that you are worried about?’
Q74 Dr Harris: ‘For example, in Schedule 9 there is the ability of a religious organisation to discriminate, so they could say, “We will allow a woman priest”, that is if they had women priests—
Vera Baird: ‘There are not many of them.’
Q75 Dr Harris: ‘Yes, indeed, but let us say they did, “But we are not going to allow a woman priest who is in possession of a Gender Recognition Certificate, who is a woman”. They would argue that is a permitted exception under gender reassignment. Is that a clash with the sex discrimination provisions?’
Vera Baird: ‘Is that right? She is a woman now for all purposes, not a transgender person, a woman.’
Q76 Dr Harris: ‘Right.’
Vera Baird: ‘That is the point of the certificate, is it not, to make it clear beyond doubt and that is where all her rights come from.’
Q77 Dr Harris: ‘So what you are saying is someone with a certificate does not fall within the protected ground and, therefore, exceptions on that protected ground—‘
Vera Baird: ‘Will fall within the protected ground of sex.’
Chairman: ‘I think you have answered the question.’
So once again the intent seems clear: the Supreme Court no doubt only sought to determine intent based on the legal text of Westminster’s Act.
By the way, for the avoidance of doubt, there was no SNP supporter of trans rights sitting on Vera Baird’s shoulder, whispering in her ear as she gave her evidence!
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