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Here's a wee history of the emergence of transphobia in the SNP, with some thoughts about what it might mean for the struggle in Labour.
I'm less interested in "saving" Labour (I quit), & more in combatting the risk of transphobia's legitimisation & state power through parties.
I'm less interested in "saving" Labour (I quit), & more in combatting the risk of transphobia's legitimisation & state power through parties.
This thread is directed at people outwith Scotland, to explain a bit of what happened, but also to help check my own sense of what happened with other Scottish folk, because it has been a *trip*.
Transphobia is now thoroughly entrenched in the SNP as a factional formation, with a power base and a struggle over the party's institutions. This means that all current candidates, especially women, are questioned on their trans position as a shibboleth for wider struggles.
From the trans perspective, this has made achieving *anything* with the Scottish party of Government a fraught, toxic nightmare.
From the anti-trans position, this has also provided a convenient scapegoat minority against which to consolidate a power base for other reasons.
From the anti-trans position, this has also provided a convenient scapegoat minority against which to consolidate a power base for other reasons.
Part One: Wings Over Scotland
Wings is a prolific and popular pro-independence blogger, known for highly combative, often paranoid style. He's been an open transphobe since before 2014.
- https://athousandflowers.net/2013/09/01/weekly-wanker-017-wings-over-scotland/
- https://athousandflowers.net/2017/07/29/if-youre-still-defending-wings-over-scotland-youre-barking-up-the-wrong-tree/
Wings is a prolific and popular pro-independence blogger, known for highly combative, often paranoid style. He's been an open transphobe since before 2014.
- https://athousandflowers.net/2013/09/01/weekly-wanker-017-wings-over-scotland/
- https://athousandflowers.net/2017/07/29/if-youre-still-defending-wings-over-scotland-youre-barking-up-the-wrong-tree/
Wings' stock-in-trade is furious critique of mainstream media reporting and political statements: rapid (and often inaccurate or highly tendentious) fact-checking, rapid discourse-generation, very active comments section. McInfoWars in structure if not style.
Wings is funded by crowdfunding, which means he also has an interest in binding audience to him as a trusted messenger: the InfoWars-style "only I tell the truth, everyone else is lying" model. This was bolstered by the genuine anti-indy bias of most Scottish media pre-2014.
The result is that Wings gained a very significant indy following and was popular and influential. While most of his blogging used to relate to independence, in recent years there have been long periods of significant preoccupations. Trans issues is the biggest of these.
There have now been long periods where Wings has also been McGlinner: a man highly invested in being the centre of social media wars over trans rights, using trans people and especially trans women as a foil for self-centred misogyny.
All these means that there is a powerful blog generating constant, polemical anti-trans content at the centre of the Scottish independence movement, with particular traction with its angriest and most online members: a general in social media battles.
Part Two: Joan McAlpine and Joanna Cherry
Starting with a conflict over the Scottish Census (administered separately to England and Wales), McAlpine (MSP) and Cherry (MP) have been leading voices of "gender critical" anti-trans campaigning in the SNP.
Starting with a conflict over the Scottish Census (administered separately to England and Wales), McAlpine (MSP) and Cherry (MP) have been leading voices of "gender critical" anti-trans campaigning in the SNP.
In charge of the committee overseeing census legislation, McAlpine stacked meetings with anti-trans campaign groups and turned a managerial issue into a controversy, ahead of GRA reform fights. https://medium.com/@harryjosiegiles/sex-and-the-scottish-census-8881ebe32d15
Scotland's GRA reform consultation ran 6 months before England and Wales', and while it's still supposedly ongoing anti-trans campaigners won an early victory there with the exclusion of non-binary people and other u-turns: https://news.gov.scot/speeches-and-briefings/statement-on-gender-recognition
Cherry has been less leading in this, but is also very senior in the party, gaining recognition through the successful Brexit court case, and tipped by some for party leader. She's most notably been involved in opposing (one-sidedly) online harassment of "gender critical" women.
Part Three: Party Factions
There are two tendencies within the SNP at the moment, with differing views on independence strategy. One is the "slowly, carefully, managerially" approach of current leadership, the other demands an escalation of protest and conflict.
There are two tendencies within the SNP at the moment, with differing views on independence strategy. One is the "slowly, carefully, managerially" approach of current leadership, the other demands an escalation of protest and conflict.
Broadly, the "slow and steady" faction is closer to power and more neoliberal in outlook, and the "push for indy now" faction is more populist, more nationalist, and more likely to have some reactionary social positions.
Part Four: Alex Salmond
The former First Minister was tried this year for 13 counts of sexual assault from nine complainants, and acquitted by a jury. https://members.tortoisemedia.com/2020/04/01/dani-garavelli-alex-salmond-verdict-scotland/content.html
The former First Minister was tried this year for 13 counts of sexual assault from nine complainants, and acquitted by a jury. https://members.tortoisemedia.com/2020/04/01/dani-garavelli-alex-salmond-verdict-scotland/content.html
Ultimately, all any such trial should be about is justice for women who have faced sexual violence. However, the Salmond trial was a powder keg for the SNP's factional conflict, and the fallout is still ongoing, with accusations of conspiracy and cover-up in multiple directions.
Cherry and Wings have both been openly aligned with Salmond throughout, and with the "more aggressive action for indy now" faction of the party, which means that that faction's politics have been tied up with the sexual assault trial.
One of the more awful anti-feminist aspects of this is the emergence of an "anti-woke" tendency within the populist faction: (mostly) men who bolster "feminist" credentials by opposing trans rights, but who argue that men are being persecuted by false charges of sexual assault.
All this means that it's now not possible to say or do anything about trans rights in Scotland without it signalling something about what you think about Salmond, or indy strategy, or populism, or any number of a host of aligned issues: polarised bipartisanship within a party.
This means that when Cherry stood as a candidate for Edinburgh Central, it was seen as a power move within the party for the leadership, for the pro-indy-escalation faction, and also that the online anti-trans crowd were there to support it. https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18804692.snp-mp-joanna-cherry-says-outside-interference-cost-msp-selection-race-angus-robertson/
It also means that the opposition to Cherry is seen as conspiratorial, entrenched neoliberal power -- with all the dogwhistles you can imagine attached to that. That is, the global culture war is playing out through SNP factions, with trans rights as the opening salvo.
Part Five: Wrapping It All Up
So this is the particular and peculiar Scottish context for the UK's (and increasingly UK settler states') conflict over trans rights, intersecting with the network of so-called gender critical groups, which Scotland has its own versions of.
So this is the particular and peculiar Scottish context for the UK's (and increasingly UK settler states') conflict over trans rights, intersecting with the network of so-called gender critical groups, which Scotland has its own versions of.
In many ways, Scotland was a training groung for UK anti-trans campaigning: our legislation and consultations were all moved forward first, so tactics could be tried and groups radicalised on a smaller scale first.
But the particular political situation of Scotland was ripe for an escalation of trans culture wars: a highly dominant party of Government, a strong populist base disenfranchised by mainstream media and narratives, a political movement with nowhere to put its energy.
Looking to Labour, the anti-trans organisers within it cross between the political factions: they are in the centrist wing and the Corbynite wing. This means it's less ripe for the pure factional conflict than the SNP, but the dangers are still there.
I would argue that the SNP's failure to act early on some of the more egregiously anti-trans behaviour within the Party enabled the tendency to gain so much power in the base that it can no longer be directly confronted. That's a major risk in Labour now.
I can't work out myself what's going on in the Tories, and how the different factions align there. There's space for Johnson to go Trumpian on trans stuff, openly using trans rights to galvanise the reactionary base, but for whatever reason he hasn't done so.
In Scotland, a lot is going to depend on coming candidate selection, and then on the May 2021 election, which will shift the balance of power. Little action on trans rights will happen before then, because it's too risky for Sturgeon's hold on the party.
I think what's happened here has some lessons for what's now happening in Labour, and England more broadly. As always, my plea to those outwith Scotland is to study what's happening in Scottish politics to draw lessons for the wider UK and global context.
I hope this has been useful to you! There'll be much that I've missed, much that I've over-simplified and gotten wrong. Depending on how much negative attention this gets, I'm up for chatting about it. I would love someone who is not me to write the full story properly.
P.S. All nationalisms contain reaction, the fantasy of liberal celtic nations independent of England is a resignation from liberatory struggle that masks both neoliberal and reactionary popular power, social democracy is an illusion, join a union & start a mutual aid movement.
This thread is now gaining a lot of views beyond my original audience, so I want to say a few things about recent events, and also make a couple of things clear:
Events this month have included:
- An SNP equalities campaigner quitting the party because of transphobic abuse: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19021581.snp-equalities-campaigner-teddy-hope-quits-claims-party--hub-transphobia-scotland/
- The SNP CabSec for Justice proposing a hate crime bill amendment which undermines trans people: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/01/27/scotland-hate-crime-bill-humza-yousaf-transgender-criticism-amendment/
- An SNP equalities campaigner quitting the party because of transphobic abuse: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19021581.snp-equalities-campaigner-teddy-hope-quits-claims-party--hub-transphobia-scotland/
- The SNP CabSec for Justice proposing a hate crime bill amendment which undermines trans people: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/01/27/scotland-hate-crime-bill-humza-yousaf-transgender-criticism-amendment/
- Cherry supporting & funding a transphobic campaigner with a history of antisemitism: https://twitter.com/DavidPaisley/status/1354031851455840257
- Nicola Sturgeon giving a personal message on transphobia without outlining concrete action: https://twitter.com/NicolaSturgeon/status/1354521063502336001
- An official statement: https://twitter.com/theSNP/status/1354851538548760577
- Nicola Sturgeon giving a personal message on transphobia without outlining concrete action: https://twitter.com/NicolaSturgeon/status/1354521063502336001
- An official statement: https://twitter.com/theSNP/status/1354851538548760577
- Robin McAlpine, formerly Director of Common Weal, a major left-of-centre player in independence movements, publishing an extensive blogpost attacking the SNP leadership and defending Salmond: https://www.thenational.scot/news/19024793.robin-mcalpine-quits-common-weal-chief-angry-article/
The background to this escalation is a major victory for the anti-Sturgeon faction in the SNP's NEC elections, in which the alignment between pro-Salmond, pro-indy militancy, anti-trans and Common Weal factions became very clear: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-55152472
On the other side, the Sturgeon faction mostly held on in MP selection, with a slate of explicitly anti-trans candidates failing to make significant in-roads, so the balance of power remains uncertain: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-54849589
Now, from me: I have spent years talking about these events, trying to get trans people across the UK to understand it and act in solidarity with Scottish trans people, trying to get former allies in the indy movement to act, and trying to get journalists to cover it.
Now that things have reached a point of total crisis, I am *finally* seeing these events get something like the attention they deserve. I'm bitter, but a little hopeful.
I would love journalists and campaigners to provide some proper coverage and analysis, and do better than my Twitter thread. You're welcome to use this as a source, and I don't need crediting. In fact, better not: attention atracts abuse (and I may be dealing with it today).
There is a great deal more detail to all of this, and I'm happy to talk it over with anyone who's curious and working on a serious piece about it. My DMs are open.
This thread was originally written in response to similar events beginning to happen in the Labour Party, which I maintain some connection to despite leaving, hence the original framing. That connection is still relevant, but the critical situation in Scotland needs centering.
What I feel most now is grief and fear. A wing of a nationalist movement has for years demonised a tiny and vulnerable minority as a way to build factional power, and Scottish indy and leftist campaigners let it happen.
I don't know how anyone can be of the left & not terrified by this. The silence from some comrades has been foul, a willingness to let this pass in the interests of coalition. But when a nationalist movement demonises a minority, nothing good and a great deal of bad is possible.
Two final things:
- First, please do not argue with transphobes in the replies to this thread. It is useless and makes the abuse worse. Tag me out if you must do it.
- First, please do not argue with transphobes in the replies to this thread. It is useless and makes the abuse worse. Tag me out if you must do it.
- Second, one of the biggest material issues for trans folk in the UK is the trans health crisis: endless waiting lists, extreme gatekeeping, failure of mental health support. Media and party politics risks distraction from this. Allies, if you put action anywhere, put it there.
