Former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said Isla Bryson is “a biological male”, as she conceded she “should have been much more straightforward” on the issue of the double rapist’s gender.
However, she told ITV news that “all sense of rationality” had been lost amid the furious debate over gender identity which had raged in Scotland.
Controversial reforms, which would have allowed transgender people to self identify as their preferred gender, had been passed by Holyrood late in 2022, only to be blocked by Westminster in January 2023.
Not long afterwards Bryson – who was born Adam Graham – was sent to a women’s only jail after being convicted of raping two women, before being transferred to a male prison.
In her first television interview ahead of the publication of her memoir Frankly this week, Ms Sturgeon said that anyone who commits the “most heinous male crime against women probably forfeits the right to be the gender of their choice”.
However, the former SNP leader went on to tell ITV News At Ten presenter Julie Etchingham that “that probably was not the best phrase to use”.
That remark came after Ms Sturgeon stated: “Isla Bryson identified as a woman.
“I think what I would say now is anybody who commits the most heinous male crime against women probably forfeits the right to be the gender of their choice.”
Asked why she did not simply say Bryson is a biological male, Ms Sturgeon said that “they are a biological male” but added the issue “gets back into the self-ID thing”.
The former first minister continued: “I should have been much more straightforward, I wasn’t, but that’s because of the debate. We’d lost all sense of rationality in this debate. I’m partly responsible for that.”
However, Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay said: “Frankly, Nicola Sturgeon must be delusional if she thinks the women of Scotland will swallow this drivel.”
The Conservative MSP said Ms Sturgeon had “ignored all warnings that gender self-ID would be a gift to male predators like Isla Bryson” adding that she “ordered her SNP MSPs to vote down my attempts to block rapists and other sex criminals from being able to legally change their gender by self-declaration”.
Mr Findlay said: “Her absurd ideological belief in self-ID collapses with her belated mealy-mouthed admission that this rapist is a man, but she still can’t bring herself to say sorry for all the pain and misery she has caused.”
Referring to then Conservative Scottish secretary Alister Jack’s decision to step in and prevent the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill from becoming law, Mr Findlay said that without this “common-sense decision to block Sturgeon’s dangerous law, every rapist in Scotland would be able to declare themselves as women with the full support of the state”.
