Readers' Letters: Women won't forget Sturgeon's role in gender controversy

Of course she disagrees. After all, she is part of a wider crusade for changing the meaning of these words in law, language and policy, stripping them of their biological definition.

True to form Ms Sturgeon used stark, dark, yet unspecific rhetoric. The lives of trans persons might become “impossibly difficult”, even “unliveable”, she warned. She didn’t provide any examples as to what this could involve. She also lamented that the planned Misogyny Bill might be shelved and insinuated that For Women Scotland, who had brought about the court judgment, only “purported” to have women’s interests at heart.

As ever, her comments were selective. Firstly, the Supreme Court judgment didn’t change the law. It clarified the legal meaning of certain terms, no more, no less. It didn’t alter existing protections for anyone.

Secondly, Ms Sturgeon omits the fact that her own government in 2022 offered a separate Misogyny Bill because they stubbornly refused to include “sex” as a protected characteristic in the Hate Crime Bill. Now, three years later, this will be reversed and “sex”, presumably in its biological definition, will be added to the list.

Thirdly, her notion that For Women Scotland “purport” to support women is downright offensive. These are women who – in a David and Goliath fight and despite normal everyday life pressures like family and job commitments – put their time, energy and resources into taking the Scottish Government to the Supreme Court, and won. Their efforts have put the brakes on distorting the legal meaning of what a woman is and saved us from being deleted as a sex class. Insinuating that they are mere pretenders is shameful.

Ms Sturgeon’s words have been heard and I can reassure her that women won’t forget.

Regina Erich, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Both-ways Harry

There are many ordinary people in our country who have genuine ongoing fears for their safety and yet have no right to 24-hour police protection, not least many victims of domestic abuse.

It is therefore astonishing that the Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, as a wealthy non-UK resident, thinks he should have automatic entitlement to police protection every time he rocks up in town.

The Prince's security woes stem largely from him foolishly (and disrespectfully) admitting killing Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, in a 2013 television interview, while wearing a British Army uniform. It was his mistake, and over a decade on he is wealthy enough to pay for his own security to mitigate that mistake. Particularly as he further antagonised things through more needless disclosures on this in his 2023 book, Spare. Admitting killing insurgents (in a one-sided fight from the relative safety of a hi-tech helicopter) is evidently easier than living with the long-term personal security consequences.

Yes, I get it, he wants armed protection in the UK, and argues, wrongly, that it can only come from the police. But the police have never said he wouldn't get armed protection, just that it would be on a case-by-case basis. In return, he needs to recognise that a couple of armed police officers walking alongside him, as he wanders central London at will, aren't going to protect either him (or them!) against the sort of threat to his safety that the Taliban represent.

If he were genuinely concerned about that threat, it would be easily mitigated by living a low-profile life on a country estate (Frogmore Cottage?). With plenty of gamekeepers around, as gamekeepers are allowed to be armed in the UK, unlike private security guards.

But there we get to the crux of the matter – the Prince complains about his personal security, but isn't willing to make the lifestyle sacrifices necessary to minimise the risk. He wants it both ways. And for UK taxpayers to foot the bill.

Mark Campbell-Roddis, Dunblane, Perthshire

Pure madness

I couldn't agree more with Alexander McKay when he describes Ed Miliband's actions as “blind zealotry” (Letters, 8 May). The idea that our mines are being concreted in is an example of total and complete imbecility in pursuit of what Reform’s Richard Tice calls (rather engagingly) “net stupid zero”.

When we are trying to retain our one and only steelworks in Scunthorpe which needs that British coke, and when we have two totally inept governments who have now lost Grangemouth, I despair at how gullible people can be. How can anyone who claims to be a First Minister at Holyrood, or a minister at Westminster, not do a minimum of research to find out that the Chinese and Indians are putting CO2 into the same atmosphere that we all breathe? Do they think it is acceptable that it should be said of us by a US negotiator that “you don't make anything anymore” when our nation once called itself “the workshop of the world”? These people should hang their heads in shame!

An example of the sort of nonsense Mr Miliband probably believes is the claim that the UK hit 40 degrees C (105 Fahrenheit) for the first time in 2022, for example. A casual glance at historic records shows that temperature being hit several times in the past: 1906 in Morpeth; 1909 in Bristol; 1921 in London (110F, in fact!) and so on.

This climate madness plays into the hands of extremists like the SNP and the Greens who wish to destroy our country. It is politically motivated against the West. The East just laughs and thumbs its nose at us.

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

Ethnic cleansing

Just when you think things couldn't get worse in Gaza, they do. The latest ruse by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow war criminals is to invade Gaza and stay there, as an occupying force. The far from cunning plan is to press the local Palestinian population to look for accommodation elsewhere.

If that's not ethnic cleansing, I'm not sure what is. The only spoke in this lethal wheel is that this occupation would require reservist forces to be recruited to boost the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) numbers. Thankfully, only a small reluctant minority are answering the call, as more and more Israelis are appalled by the atrocities being carried out in Gaza in their name.

Ironically, despite appearances, there are no clear winners in this war. In an increasingly dangerous Middle East, Iran is edging steadily to a closer involvement. Israel is becoming more and more isolated as a pariah state, whose “best friend” Donald Trump is steadily becoming its only friend, and even his patience is wearing thin.

The major sticking block to peace is Netanyahu himself and his deeply unpopular government. The sooner they're voted out of office in the “only democracy in the Middle East”, the better.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Slippery slope

Murdo Fraser MSP is right to be concerned about the strength of the safeguards included in the proposed Assisted Dying Bill being considered in the Scottish Parliament next week (“Why Scotland’s assisted dying bill would make death an acceptable substitute for care”, Perspective, 6 May).

Not only would assisted dying slowly mutate, as he suggests, from being a right to a perceived duty, but the legalisation of assisted suicide (where individuals take their own lives with assistance) will inevitably lead to euthanasia (where other persons end the lives of the individuals).

For example, some people with advanced neurological conditions may have significant physical impairments, making them unable to take the assisted suicide drugs themselves to end their lives, making the legislation discriminatory.

Because of such limitations it has already been suggested that healthcare professionals should be able to administer the drug in certain circumstances, thus transforming assisted suicide into an act of euthanasia.

It is striking to note the speed in which Canada has moved from legislation similar to the proposed Scottish Assisted Dying Bill to legislation which allows euthanasia by lethal injection for individuals irrespective of capacity and irrespective of terminal illness. All this means that, if ever the Bill becomes law, it seems inevitable that further demands to liberalise the legislation in Scotland will take place through the courts and judicial systems which may even include euthanasia of children, as in The Netherlands! Nobody can, as yet, predict where all this will end.

(Dr) Calum MacKellar, Director of Research, Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, Edinburgh

Dark irony

When I see the famous photograph of the women at Trafalgar Square on VE Day 1945, one of whom was my mother-in-law, I am struck that we are celebrating VE Day when Europe is facing another tyrant who clearly wishes to conquer a European nation which is free and democratic.

We are beholden to ensure that the Ukraine remains so, despite the lies which Putin's Russia spins about them being “Nazis”. The only state in the conflict which meets the criteria of emulating Hitler's attacks on its neighbours using such false flags is Putin's Russia.

Yet, amazingly, the men who are shown, putting up the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in 1945 were a Ukrainian, assisted by a Georgian! Those two nations are both victims of post-war Russian aggression.

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

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