Nobody could say Nicola Sturgeon hadn’t been warned. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls told the then Scottish First Minister that amending the Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill to include self-identification would pose a danger to women and girls. Feminists working in domestic and sexual violence services warned her. The indomitable J.K. Rowling called her a “destroyer of women’s rights”. And legal experts pointed out that the erosion of female only spaces, including refuges and prisons, would allow male sexual predators to access vulnerable victims.

Now comes fresh humiliation for Sturgeon: the Court of Session in Scotland has found in favour of the UK Government’s unprecedented decision to use Section 35 to block the GRR Bill from Royal Assent. This ruling is a damning indictment of how the legislation was poorly and irresponsibly drafted; it confirms that the Bill was fundamentally flawed, and the S35 order legitimate. Had it not been blocked by Westminster, the new Bill would have allowed anyone over the age of 16, born or living in Scotland, to change their sex in law, within a period as short as six months and without any need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

Want to see more SNP fails? – Health Matters