The Greens’ loss
One of the Scottish Greens’ most prominent MSPs has resigned abruptly from the party, citing its “intolerance” to open discussion of potential conflicts between women’s and transgender rights.
Andy Wightman, the Scottish Greens’ list member for Lothian region and a highly respected campaigner for tenants’ rights and land reform, stated in his resignation letter published on Friday afternoon: “Some of the language, approaches and postures of the party and its spokespeople have been provocative, alienating and confrontational for many women and men”.
It’s the part about treating women’s rights as entirely secondary to trans rights that gets on our nerves. That and all the rest of it, but it’s rooted in this bizarre assumption that we are The Privileged Class now.
The Graun continues:
It appears that a clash over policy and decision-making in the party was brought to a head by Wightman’s attempts to vote for an amendment to the forensic medical services (victims of sexual offences) (Scotland) bill last week, which legislated for the option to request an examiner of a particular sex.
The amendment substituted the word “sex” for “gender”, which supporters argued resolved ambiguity but other MSPs argued was hostile towards trans women, and was passed overwhelmingly.
There you go, you see. If women’s requests for female examiners are framed as “hostile to trans women” how the fuck can women’s rights be protected at all? If women are required on pain of bullying and ostracism to pretend that men who identify as women are literally women, what rights can we have at all?
In his letter, Wightman – who joined the Scottish Greens in 2009 and entered the Holyrood parliament in 2016 – says it was “made clear” to him that if he voted for the amendment and against the group mandate, he would face “complaints and disciplinary action leading to possible suspension, deselection or expulsion”.
For voting for the option to request an examiner of a particular sex. That’s all.
KBPlayer alerted us to this, and reminded us that we encountered Andy Wightman in June last year, at a time when he was trying to obey the commands to endorse the new dogma. Much to my surprise he commented on the thread; it was a good exchange.
It’s depressing and infuriating that the Green Party officially thinks that women have no right to request a woman examiner in sexual assault cases.
Looks like the exit door is painted green. Trans activists have clearly entered the Greens in numbers large enough to give them effective control. But what will that matter if at the same time a few trans debating points get a bit of a public airing?
It’s infuriating how this issue has taken over politics. It should be a fringe affair, that members of a party can vote for or against, not a core issue in a party like the Green party. If Andy W had supported fracking, or building trunk roads, or coal-fired power stations, yes, that would be fair – that would be totally against Green policy and he should get out before he was chucked out. But this should be a minor issue, not one to split parties.
Indeed, and that should apply to the rest of life too. It shouldn’t matter that a tiny fraction of the population wants to think of itself as the opposite sex, they should just go ahead and do that while leaving everyone else alone, but no, because it makes the fantasy so much more fun when the entire world pretends it’s true, we have to disrupt everything to “validate” their personal fantasy.
Every time a trans radical says “that would never happen,” they go and make it happen.
Women are not allowed to refuse men access to their private parts?
Didn’t we use to have a word for that? I don’t think it was “green.”
It’s a sad thing that when I read “deselection” as “dissection” I didn’t find that unbelievable. Things are way out of hand.
So I’m having a hard time parsing the actual result: did the amendment pass (presumably the one where you get to request an examiner of a particular sex)? Overwhelmingly?
OB @#3:
Perhaps that might be slightly reworded:
Just a suggestion, mind.
BKISA:
Yes, that is correct.
@BKISA – the SNP, who are the biggest party in Holyrood, abstained. I don’t know the politics behind it, but this must have been a shock to the Greens, who are sarcastically called the gardening wing of the SNP, as they normally vote with the SNP to form a majority.
In the recent elections to the SNP’s National Executive Committee various members of their trans ardent wing lost their places, and the most prominent gender critical politician in Scotland, Joanna Cherry, was voted on. I would guess that the SNP might just quietly drop its interest in trans rights on seeing how divisive it has proved.
Ah, the SNP have put the plans on hold – I didn’t realise that. Here’s an article on the Beeb, which is good on the background.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-55361550