Anti-Trans Obsession In Scotland Reaches Fever Pitch

When Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of the Scottish Parliament, this week tweeted her concern for the women and girls of Afghanistan who are facing the prospect of oppressive restrictions imposed by the incoming Taliban authorities, that should have been the end of it. However, for a dedicated community of online radical feminists – self-described as "gender critical" but the common term is TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists) – it was hypocrisy. Piling on, they took to the Internet in an attempt to suggest that women and girls in Scotland are as oppressed as the women of Afghanistan: all because of how open the Scottish government has become to trans rights.

Without a hint of irony, TERFs continued to suggest that the introduction of a mandatory burkha, outlawing women's education, threats of physical and sexual violence, and loss of political and social rights in Afghanistan under a regime of clerical fascism, meant that finally, the women of Afghanistan knew what it felt like to be a woman in Scotland, who face the prospect of someone they know being able to self-identify their gender.

This is just part of the increasing "gender critical" – transphobic – obsession currently gripping Scottish politics. Earlier this summer, dozens of anti-trans activists descended on Glasgow for "Women Won't Wheesht" [shut up], a rally calling for an end to what they view as a war on women. Yet this "war" is oddly one-sided – trans people are four times more likely to be a victim of violent crime than their cis peers.

The outrage is cyclical: an organization makes the decision to use inclusive language – such as Edinburgh University did – and is immediately accused of erasing women, and are hounded and abused until it affects the services they are providing. Without any self-awareness, these activists end up doing more harm to the women who immediately need access to these services, in the pursuit of ensuring that trans people cannot use them either. And while this obsession grips Scotland, trans people will continue to live in fear and suffer.

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