Readers' letters: Misuse of language will lead to 'bigotry fatigue'

I am familiar with the term “bigot” in a Scottish context as I was culturally conditioned in late-sixties early-seventies sectarian Glasgow where the term was used to describe dangerous, abusive, violent and at times murderous people, usually by people with similar tendencies similarly traumatised by extreme religious ideology. The women that took the Scottish Government to court do not exhibit in any way these identifiers of “bigotry”.

When will Chapman and Co realise that when they use extreme language to play to the ire of already angry people they only increase the hate speech burden in society at large. They are in addition “blunting” superlatives that will eventually leave us no recourse in language to describe the truly awful aspects of of our dual human nature. Their misuse of language in this way serves the cause of transgender and gender dysphoric brothers and citizens not one jot.

Let us hope that a breath of new and fresh air in the leadership of the Green movement will once more endear it to the Scottish people as the environmental “warriors” we once revered and whose efforts are needed as ever before.

Andrew Docherty, Selkirk, Scottish Borders

Equality Act

You report on the row surrounding Maggie Chapman MSP’s comments about the UK Supreme Court judgment on the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act.

The consequences of that judgment will depend largely on the interpretation placed on it by the regulator, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and then by service providers and employers. There is much debate about what that interpretation should correctly be. A hardline interpretation is that trans people must in future always be excluded from any single-sex space, for example a toilet, that matches their lived and presenting gender. That would place people at risk – for example a trans woman forced to use the men’s toilet – and would fundamentally undermine the ability of trans people to just get on with their lives without being publicly outed.

Such a hardline interpretation is likely to result in an increase in some forms of “bigotry, prejudice and hatred” – the words Maggie Chapman used. That does not mean, of course, that the Supreme Court justices intended that outcome.

Their task was to seek to interpret the words that the UK Parliament wrote into the statute, and to try to make somewhat unclear legislation consistent and coherent. That the UK Parliament’s intention in passing the legislation is documented as having been the opposite of the court’s interpretation of it, indicates that the Equality Act should have been more clearly drafted, and therefore now needs amended.

It remains to be seen what the eventual implications of the court’s judgment will be for trans people’s ability to continue to live their lives in privacy and peace, as they have done for decades. But thanks to everyone who is speaking up for them being able to do that.

Tim Hopkins, Edinburgh

Far-left danger

John Swinney seems obsessed with the far right yet he continues to let his party give succour to what is increasingly a far-left party, the Scottish Greens.

Maggie Chapman’s outburst over the transgender issue cannot just be swept under the carpet as it comes after a litany of Green party mistakes such as the bottle deposit and home heating schemes. Humza Yousaf tried to ditch the Greens but John Swinney appears to be taking the line of “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”.

The Greens are doing the SNP no favours. It is time for John Swinney to come off the fence, Nicola Sturgeon to make a statement over the Supreme Court judgement and Kate Forbes to be somewhat more vocal on issues she finds controversial.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Threat is real

It is far too easy to belittle the anti-far-right summit, as Russell Findlay has done (Murdo Fraser, 23 April), dismissing it all too glibly as a “talking shop”. The threat posed by the far right is all too real on a continental and even a world scale.

We are witnessing the dire damage that the far-right Trump presidency is inflicting on America. Trump’s notorious unelected right-hand man, Elon Musk, openly supports the AfD in Germany, among other far-right parties.

John Swinney’s call for an anti-far-right summit is a timely reminder of the threat Nigel Farage's Reform UK poses closer to home in Scotland.

While Farage himself is hugely unpopular here, he has designs on 10 Downing Street at the next general election. The hope is that John Swinney’s “talking shop” results in much-needed action.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

The bells, the bells!

Label me pedantic if you like, but someone has to call out the ludicrously over-the-top bell ringing carried out by the drivers of Edinburgh trams.

Bells are rung every stop and start at platforms or lights, even restarting behind a vehicle at the latter, whilst multiple bell ringing occurs frequently traversing pedestrian-controlled crossings and many other places besides when there seems nothing other than a clear line ahead.

During ten minutes at Haymarket I counted 20 bells rung by just four trams so one can imagine what this means across the network on a typical day; many thousands. I spent almost three weeks in Vienna recently and recall hearing a tram bell once!

I have no doubt drivers are working to instruction so my challenge to Edinburgh Trams is to explain why this unnecessary behaviour when the same company’s buses and traffic of all other types are not required to or feel the need to blow horns likewise. Warnings given judiciously count, those used over-indulgently do not.

Mike Dunsmore, Edinburgh

Perceived wisdom

As I was preparing to go to the opticians in Galashiels, I read the letter by Elizabeth Scott, titled “Wisdom of age?” (21 April).

When one lectures on the perceived wisdom of age, it is only that – perceived. Wisdom is granted to individuals by others, in how they see us and how our opinions are received by the great and the good.

In Elizabeth Scott’s letter, there is no wisdom, merely the usual SNP drivel about foreign lands (England), nuclear leaks (when was the last one), Scunthorpe v Grangemouth (apart from losing a fortune and the least useful refinery in Europe) and the nonsense of “being at the mercy of a foreign government”. This is the UK – not South Korea or Taiwan!

Sadly in the land of the fluffy “freedom” movement, nobody addresses the large number of elephants in the room – financially a disaster, a government which has produced the sum total of baby boxes in 21 years, ideologically-driven and denying a Supreme Court judgement and also the best of all in my time observing politics: painting on windows for a photo shoot.

I think I will keep my perceived wisdom to myself.

David Millar, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Trump’s Yalta

Anent Doug Morrison’s letter (23 April), it was of course Franklin Roosevelt, not Theodore, who was the United States President in the Second World War until his death in April 1945. Nor, to be strictly accurate, did he “work together” with Churchill to defeat Germany until December 1941 when the USA was itself attacked by Japan. And they trusted each other only up to a point – with Roosevelt mistrusting Churchill on the British Empire and Churchill mistrusting Roosevelt on his wish to accommodate Stalin’s own empire-building.

Nor is it only President Trump who “lacks the courage to fully support” Ukraine – President Biden and German Chancellor Schulz were also prepared to give Ukraine only enough to fight back but not enough for the decisive win which many military experts thought was feasible in late 2022/early 2023. However, it does seem that Trump will now emulate the frail and ailing Roosevelt in his caving in to Stalin at Yalta on redrawing Eastern Europe’s borders, rather than on his much more robust and decisive actions from December 1941 to 1944.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Hole in one

Martin Dempster (Scotsman, 22 April) correctly points out that the initiative from the St Andrews Links Trust to encourage more Scottish golfers to play the hallowed links is to be commended.

The relentless recent commercialisation of the links which in 2023 resulted in a surplus of £11.4 million fuelled by 153,000 visitor rounds has undoubtedly worked to the disadvantage of Scottish golfers. Hopefully this is a sign that the Trust are recognising their responsibilities under the 1974 Act and their obligations under the charities legislations and will now allow them to focus on resident as well as visiting golfers.

The St Andrews Resident Golfers Association welcomes this announcement and wish to work with the Trust to the benefit of those who have had the privileged right to play the Old Course for centuries.

John Winter, Secretary, St Andrews Resident Golfers Association, St Andrews, Fife

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