John Swinney must stand up for women’s rights

This morning, when asked if it was his position that trans women are women, Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney replied in a rather blustery manner: ‘The answer I’ve given to that question before, is that, em… I accept that to be the case.’ It’s an interesting response. Not the emphatic ‘yes’ demanded by gender identity activists. Nor the ‘no’ demanded by gender critical feminists and those still wedded to objective reality. Nor the ‘well, it depends’ that is the outcome of the legislative tangle caused by the lack of clarity over the meaning of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act when it interacts with the Gender Recognition Act.

His use of ‘accept’ is one I have encountered before, from those not particularly attached to the wilder claims of the gender identity movement, but who ploddingly go along with it anyway. It’s an admission of defeat, almost, a resigned sigh of a word.