What are the SNP going to do about their transphobia problem?

[andrewducker]

The SNP have a transphobia problem.

By which I don't mean that members of the party are more transphobic than the average person, or that their representatives are.

What I mean is that
1) They have an upcoming election (in May)
2) They need to get 50% of the voters to vote for them so that they can get a majority and try and push through a referendum
3) Enough of their voters are against transphobia to affect that election
4) Enough of their MPs and MSPs say things which are (at the very least interpreted as) transphobic to drive away some of the membership.

The SNP are held together by a defining principle, to gain independence for Scotland from the UK. All other things fall by the wayside. But not everyone who votes SNP will put up with absolutely anything the SNP comes up with, so there's a constant tension, as they try to keep a majority onside.

In the past, transphobia is one of those things that's been seen as too divisive to actually deal with. There are too many members/representatives who don't see trans people as being the gender they declare themselves to be, and there was no point fighting it out.

But the last few days have seen enough people make a big fuss, and start to leave the party, that Nicola Sturgeon has stood up and said that she is utterly against transphobia.

Vitally, the SNPs National Executive Council has been asked to come up with a definition of transphobia. Because there's no point them declaring that they're not going to tolerate transphobia unless there's a clear line that tells people what behaviour is and isn't okay.

And it's when we see that definition that we'll know whether the SNP really means it, or if they're just trying to muddy the waters to hold things together until after the elections.

I have a terrible worry that they'll hold off on publishing a definition until after the elections. If they aren't going to do that then they need to get them out very soon to avoid any negative reactions/schism carrying over into the election period.

(The SNP isn't the only pro-independence party in Scotland of course, the Greens are too and are very clearly pro trans rights.)

Comments

[cmcmck]

This is a very major reason that my Scottish husband does not support the SNP for very obvious reasons although in all other ways, he does.

Not that he gets a vote being down here, but there'll be people up there in a similar situation.

Of course everyone knows we don't have friends or relatives or families or partners...........

Unpersoning is such a dangerous thing and we all know where it leads! :o(

[rhythmaning]

[Copied from my reply on Facebook.] Dreamwidth ate my first reply! Which was probably a smart move, because what I'd written so far was how hard I find it to debate this issue without pissing *everybody* off - I find it just too complex and nuanced.

The behaviour which, as far as I can tell, kicked off the current stooshie (a party meeting in Bearsden, according to the BBC) is clearly unacceptable.

But there is a need to be able to discuss these issues with those who hold such strong views on both sides is clearly necessary, without resorting to name calling or bullying.

All political parties are coalitions of groups with different, even opposing, views - just look at the Tory party with regard to Europe for the last fifty years. And I know several LibDems who support independence despite the party's unionist stance.

I'm not sure that transphobia is a large enough issue to significantly affect the election. It may lose them some young, active campaigners (though I would still expect them to vote SNP, or they might migrate to the Greens). [Similarly, I shall not be campaigning in any way for the LibDems because of the policy on the union.]

I think the SNP might have a bigger problem with the ongoing arguments regarding Alec Salmond and the ongoing parliamentary enquiry. Indeed, the argument over trans rights seems to split along similar lines, with some of those in the Salmond camp being the most outspoken against trans rights. (This does not necessarily mean they're transphobic.)

I guess this is a long winded way of saying "it's complicated"...

Incidentally, is a definition of transphobia really necessary? If one were to develop a principle- rather than rule-based system, the same principles could be used to manage any bigoted behaviour - transphobia, homophobia, anti-semitism, sexism, racism. All of which are wrong, in my view.

[andrewducker]

I think that you need definitions and examples because otherwise people will say "I'm not being transphobic, I'm just using their birth name, calling them by their original gender, and repeatedly pointing out that they have a particular set of genitals. That's not hate, it's just science."

Whereas the libdems came up with a really good definition, so now people know what they can't get away with.

https://www.libdemvoice.org/liberal-democrats-adopt-definition-of-transphobia-65868.html

[calimac]

Is there a word for using a spurious claim to objectivity to push a parrticular value judgment? Because we see it a lot. Libertarians are especially prone to this.

[andrewducker]

Am inability to see that your own preferences are not the natural order of things seems very common to me.
Some people refer to that natural order as "God's Will" others as "The only logical approach". I'm not sure there's a simple phrase for either of them.

[kerk_hiraeth]

I'd like to engage with Liberal Democrats who support independence; was considering LibDem/SNP for May but, increasingly, the transphobic bigotry has put me off and I fell I have no party with the Lib Dems refusal to engage with a return to the European Union.

I voted against independence last time because I did not believe that England and, most shockingly to me, Wales had become to racist and/or immune to reality as to support leaving.

The only people who can throw independence away are the SNP themselves; so depressing to see them seemingly enagaged in that very thing.

kerk

[andrewducker]

And this is why I hope they sort this out quickly and cleanly. Because otherwise they will lose good people.

[rhythmaning]

Prompted by this, I've just searched for "Scottish LibDems for Independence" group - there are groups for all sorts of other interests - but to no avail. The only one I found was a Facebook group which has been dormant since 2015 (and which boasts Andrew as a member).

Whilst I won't be campaigning, I will be voting LibDem - the only policy I expect to disagree with being on the union. (Otherwise I feel I'd have to leave the party. I would also be very surprised if my constituency doesn't elect an SNP MSP.)

I guess that with any LibDems in favour of independence may become more active once IndyRef2 is imminent.

[danieldwilliam]

I think the trans rights argument in the SNP is actually a proxy fight for the Plan A vs Plan B fight and / or the fight over whether Salmond is a criminal or Sturgeon tried to have him locked up.

[andrewducker]

The conversations I'm seeing on Twitter are trans people and their supporters who are horrified by the amendments.

[danieldwilliam]

Oh I'm sure actual people are actually engaged in the substantive issue.

However I think the genesis of trans-rights as an issue there ought to be a high profile fight about in the govering party goes back to Cherry vs Sturgeon and Cherry's factional position in the SNP and the type of activism seen in the Cherry Case.

[andrewducker]

Cherry is certainly a major factor. But the uproar of the last few days happened after the amendments were made public and triggered this.

[danieldwilliam]

I don't think the three points are mutually exclusive.

Are people genuinely upset about the amendments to a piece of legislation? Yes, all 4 sides on that argument will have people who are genuinely upset.

Is the issue of trans-rights and the issue of the boundaries in which those rights and potential clashes with other rights are discussed a significant issue in Scottish politics in the last three years fundamentally triggered by an internal factional fight about SNP strategy? Yes (I would argue. It certainly started as a factional proxy for containing Plan B. Perhaps very cynically and with cut throat intention. )

Are trans-rights and the debate about how trans-rights are discussed insufficiently important to the average voter or the average undecided voter in a marginal seat to alter the result of the May election. Yes, I think so.

[andrewducker]

"It certainly started as a factional proxy for containing Plan B"

This is the bit that confuses me. I just can't see how this works.

For a start, England kick-started this with the GRA Reform. And Rowling moved it up a level and is against the SNP as a whole.

Can you explain to me in a simple manner why trans rights in Scotland are a proxy fight?

[danieldwilliam]

(Potentially a longer answer is needed when I'm in front of a keyboard.)

I think it starts with Wings Over Scotland (the South West England based and potentially litigious pro-independence blogger).

He's an early advocate Plan B and has become keener on the idea.

He also holds socially conservative views, perhaps even traditional views on areas of sex, sexuality and gender. He often expresses these views robustly.

Ultimately this lead to him facilitating the setting up of a pro-independence list party with a socially conservative inclination.

So whilst he's been going through this process since about 2015 people in the independence movement who are inclined to support Plan B have had to decide if they are prepared to turn a blind eye (or enthusiastically endorse) WoS's robustly expressed socially conservative views.

And I think that's the start of the correlation between Plan B and the robust expression of particular socially conservative views.

It becomes more complicated when this starts to interact with old school radical feminists, gender essentialists and also with personal supporters of Salmond who are also Plan B'ers.

But Wings is the start of it I think.

[autopope]

I broadly agree. But one extra thought occurs to me: what is the likelihood that this internal knife-fight breaking out right now, with less than 100 days to a pivotal election, isn't being egged on from the outside? I'm thinking here in terms of Heritage Foundation/Mercer/Koch/Bannon-aligned hard right/religious right American slush money being pumped into disrupting any perceived threat to Tory hegemony over the UK (which the SNP clearly represents), now that the Tories have lurched so far to the right they're aligned with BNP and National Front positions of yesteryear.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, it's terrible timing. Although April would have been worse.

And it does seem to be happening because transphobes keep kicking off.

But those transphobes may well be funded by awful right wing Christian types.

[cmcmck]

There is good evidence of transphobic groups including some TERF aligned ones being in bed with the Christianist hard right.

Strange bedfellows!

[andrewducker]

The transphobes regretting Trump's loss were a great example of that.

[dewline]

*stomach lurching at the very thought...because that thought is all too realistic*

[calimac]

The SNP are held together by a defining principle, to gain independence for Scotland from the UK. All other things fall by the wayside.

Which entitles a voter to ask, "And what positions are you going to take in the meantime until you get your goal, and what positions are you going to take on unrelated issues?"

That was what I wondered when I first heard there was such a thing as the SNP, and I've only partially gotten an answer since then.

[andrewducker]

They've changed significantly over time. Used to be more right wing (known as the Tartan Tories a few decades back), now solidly centre left. They're last few manifestos were pretty good.

[danieldwilliam]

I don't think 3) is true.

I think there is a difference between voters consideration of the salience and valance of an issue. Both are important. I don't think trans-rights or transphobia scores very highly on either axis. Probably less so this Holyrood election than last one.

Also, I think the SNP's transphobia / trans-rights issues are best understood as a proxy war over Plan A vs Plan B and the Salmond vs Sturgeon fights.

[andrewducker]

I see multiple very upset threads from trans friends and their friends who are directly engaging with what they see as transphobic amendments to the hate crimes bill.