Mick Hartley

Once again the Scots are leading the way in the never-ending battle against the transphobes:

A schism has erupted in environmental politics after the Scottish Greens voted to cut ties with the UK party over claims of “trans abuse”.

Members overwhelmingly backed a motion to suspend “formal association” with the Green Party in England and Wales on the second day of their Scottish party’s conference in Dundee.

The Rainbow Greens, a group representing LGBTQ+ members of the Scottish Greens, submitted the motion, accusing the Greens of “transphobic bigotry”, “homophobic bigotry” and disrespecting the devolution settlement….

The Scottish Greens’ accusations of transphobia follow co-leader Patrick Harvie’s call this year for the expulsion of Shahrar Ali from the party after the candidate for the deputy leadership of the Greens, who came third in the election, was compared to Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on the issue of trans rights.

Shahrar Ali – can you believe it? – defined a woman as an adult human female. Never mind Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin…more like Adolf Hitler.

In February the Scottish Greens criticised the opinion of Emma Bateman, the co-chair of Green Party Women, who was suspended in February for her opinion that “humans can’t change sex”.

Not a good look, expelling someone from your party for stating a basic scientific fact. 

Likewise the former MSP Andy Wightman resigned over a disagreement with the Scottish Greens about an amendment allowing victims of sexual crimes to choose the sex, rather than the gender, of the person who examined them.

Rather demonstrating the deep misogyny underlying it all there. A women who's just been raped will have to put aside her trauma if a strange man wants to validate his exciting new gender identity by giving her an intimate examination. Lovely.

It'd be hard, you'd think, to make the Greens in England and Wales seem sensible, but if anyone can do it, it's the Scots.