Nicola Sturgeon: Women like Sandie Peggie, Maria Kelly 'brave' to fight over human rights

During an interview at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, Ms Sturgeon also spoke of her ongoing grief at the breakdown of her relationship with her late mentor Alex Salmond.

The former First Minister also said inviting JK Rowling to Bute House to discuss their differing views on trans rights would not “have worked”.

Ms Sturgeon, who is promoting her memoir Frankly, was asked about the ongoing employment tribunals of nurse Ms Peggie and engineer Ms Kelly.

The nurse is suing NHS Fife for discrimination after having to share a women’s changing room with a trans woman.

Ms Kelly’s discrimination claim against aerospace firm Leonardo UK relates to using mixed-sex work toilets alongside trans women staff.

The SNP MSP said she would not comment on ongoing tribunals but said: “I think any woman or any person who feels that their human rights have been compromised and come forward to challenge that, whether they are ultimately found to be vindicated or not, is a brave thing to do, and particularly when that involves sharing intimate details.”

Ms Sturgeon’s government introduced the failed Gender Recognition Reform legislation that was ultimately thrown out by the Westminster administration.

However, she has remained a firm and vocal advocate of trans rights.

She went on to say that, as a young woman at university, she was afraid to walk alone at night.

Now, no longer having the security detail of a First Minister, Ms Sturgeon said she is still afraid when walking home at night.

“I tell you, it's not trans people I'm scared of walking home at night, it's abusive men that I'm scared of,” she said.

“Everything I ever say on this is in some way misrepresented, and so be it, but I will not ever be bullied into climbing down on things I believe when they relate to equality, to basic, fundamental human rights.”

Ms Sturgeon acknowledged the toxic debate over the conflict between trans rights and women’s rights could have been better handled.

She faced fervent criticism from the author JK Rowling, who first expressed concerns about gender self-ID in 2019.

Asked if she thought of inviting Rowling to Bute House for a discussion on the topic in person

Ms Sturgeon responded: “I am not sure that would have worked.

“In the last few years, I would have made my own life a lot easier, if I'd just said, ‘Yep, JK Rowling and co are right, and I got it all wrong’, but I didn't come in to politics to chuck vulnerable groups under the bus.”

Ms Sturgeon also said she had spent the past few months, since the publication of her book, reflecting on the complicated nature of her relationship with her former mentor Alex Salmond.

At times, she said, she “gets a bit emotional” talking about Mr Salmond, who served as First Minister from 2007 to 2014.

Asked if there was any remaining loyalty to him, she said: “I guess there is.”

“Because of what happened between us,” she said, referring to their rift following allegations of sexual assault against Mr Salmond, “I was very conscious of how easy it would be for me, and maybe how tempting it would be for me, to try to rewrite history.”

She said she could have framed Mr Salmond as “a bit of a bad guy” or claim to have “always known he wasn’t a good guy” but that “would have been unfair”.

He was, she added, “a massively positive figure” in her life who “believed in me before I believed in myself.”

“He pushed me to do things I would not have had the confidence to do without him,” she said.

Ms Sturgeon described the “massively successful political partnership, probably the most successful political partnership in the UK” they became.

“I struggle to this day to find the words that I think best describes what happened between us,” the MSP added, “Because people talk about we ‘fell out’, and somehow that doesn't feel right to me, because it suggests we had this political disagreement, or we had a personal falling out, and that that just doesn't really capture it.”

Acknowledging that Mr Salmond, who died one year ago, would “take issue” with her version of events, she said her late mentor wanted her to make the allegations “go away” and could never forgive her for not complying.

During the “grieving” process following the end of their relationship, Ms Sturgeon described vivid dreams she used to have where the two were still on good terms.

“You know sometimes when you wake up from a really vivid dream, and it takes you just a few seconds to remember it wasn't real?” she said.

“I'd have this terrible sense of loss and sadness, but I thought I had got to a point of kind of being at peace with it, of not really feeling anything for him at all.

“And then, of course, he died, and I was hit by that wave of grief all over again.”

She said the grief following his death was “complicated” by the fact she knew that “going to his funeral wasn’t going to be an option”.

“I think I will go through long periods of my life not thinking that much about him, but I've got this feeling that for as long as I live, I'll have wee periods of my life when I do think about him and I do feel the complexity of it.”

Asked when she had last had one of her dreams about Mr Salmond, Ms Sturgeon said it had been “quite a while”.

“I don't think I've had one since he died,” she said, “But I can’t remember exactly.”

Peter Murrell, Ms Sturgeon’s ex-husband, is currently awaiting a court hearing in relation to allegation he embezzled money from the SNP.

She was asked whether, had she known the man she admired would be caught up in a sexual assault scandal and the man she loved would have been mired in a financial scandal, was high office worth the sacrifice.

“I don't regret the path I took in life,” she said. “I don't regret the career I've had.

“I've had an extraordinary career.

“If we could turn the clock back, knowing everything that I know, would I still have put myself into the position of being the first woman to be first minister of my country?

“I hope I wouldn't have been deterred from that by things that I had no control over.”

She said that, if she could go back and tell her five-year-old self about her political career, the child Nicola Sturgeon would have been “wide-eyed and absolutely agog”.

Recently, she added, “I've learned to just stop and enjoy life and made the most of it, and I think, I think that's a bit of a gift, and I hope I don't lose that in the next phase of my life, whatever that next phase of my life might entail.”

Ms Sturgeon also shared a lighter moment, revealing the details of how she bashed the side of her new car by reversing into a concrete pillar in the Scottish Parliament car park.

“I can't park to save myself,” she said, “And I had a bit of an incident a few months ago in the Scottish Parliament garage, where I was parked next to a concrete pillar.

“As I was trying to manoeuvre myself out of the garage, that concrete pillar bashed into the side of my car.”