Another year, another call to action to enhance women’s rights across the world. International Women’s Day is globally recognised, with many women’s groups seizing the opportunity not just to commend shining examples of women who have smashed glass ceilings in their professions but to reflect on how much further countries need to push to achieve equality.
In Scotland, women’s rights have dominated media outlets for years. The introduction of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill sent a shudder down the spines of women who have fought to protect hard won rights.
When I first wrote about gender reform, I did so with a degree of nervousness. I knew the debate was going to be toxic, as two protected characteristics were competing for their rights to be upheld. The gaping flaw in the Scottish Government’s approach was when former First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, declared that concerns voiced by women who opposed changes to self-id were “not valid.
Despite continuous attempts by women to raise concerns over safeguarding and the importance of recognising sex over gender identity, any critique of reform was met with hostility. The passage of the Bill exposed many potential scenarios where women’s safety would not be upheld. Indeed, one of the flaws in the proposed legislation was exposed a few months later when the case of Isla Bryson hit the headlines. Bryson, a biological male and convicted rapist, was initially placed in a women’s prison. The resulting public outrage should have signalled the death knell for the Bill.
But SNP ministers pressed on with trying to get their legislation on to the statute book, despite its pitfalls having been exposed and the UK Government having intervened to block it on the grounds that aspects of the legislation fell outside the jurisdiction of Holyrood because it impacted on the UK-wide Equalities Act.
Thankfully, the courts sided with the UK Government when SNP ministers challenged Alister Jack’s intervention. A victory for women? I wish it was.
The 2010 Equality Act enshrines into law protections for women, that ensures they have access to sex-defined spaces such as toilet facilities, rape crisis centres and hospital wards.
Single-sex spaces may sound like a parochial issue, something so obvious that it doesn’t warrant discussion, but ongoing legal battles suggest that ideology is favoured over biological sex in some public sectors.
The case I am referring to is that of Sandie Peggie, a nurse working for NHS Fife Health Board who took her employer and a colleague, Dr Beth Upton, to an employment tribunal. Although this is a live case, the evidence presented has been extraordinary.
Sandie Peggie objected to having to share a changing room with a biological man. After a purported exchange between the pair in December 2023, she was suspended by NHS Fife. She has claimed that her treatment amounted to unlawful harassment under the Equality Act.
Whatever the specifics of the case, no woman should be forced to change in front of a biological man.
The case has been adjourned until July but has prompted a stark response from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission who have written to NHS Fife and the Scottish Government to remind them about workplace legislation around single-sex spaces. At least someone is doing their job to uphold the rights of women.
Women across Scotland will be waiting with anticipation to find out what the result of this tribunal will be. But regardless of the outcome, I will never stop fighting for women. We should have a right to single-sex spaces across the public-sector. And my party will not shy away from advocating for that and for the protection of women’s rights more generally.
This year’s International Women’s Day theme is ‘Accelerating Action’, but it seems we can’t even get the basics right.
There are countless reasons why I will continue to champion single-sex spaces in Scotland. Not just because of rape survivors who deserve access to crisis centres, knowing that there are no biological men present.
Not just because of female prisoners, not just because they are vulnerable, but because they deserve a safe environment for rehabilitation.
But because of my own daughter, as I want her to be able to grow up in a country where she can access safe spaces.
Women’s rights should never be up for debate.
That’s why I stand with Sandie Peggie.
