The cynical treatment of Pauline McNeill

Pauline McNeill is an impeccable left-winger. The Scottish Labour MSP is a socialist, a feminist, and a devolutionist. All her pros (rent controls, Palestine, gay rights) and antis (inequality, war, western imperialism) line up as you would expect. Yet the Scotsman reports that she has been forced to pull out of a meeting with some lawyers and feminists after Scottish Labour received a complaint. 

Why would anyone object to such a thing? Come on, let’s not be coy. We all know why. The event, scheduled to take place at Holyrood next week, is titled ‘The Meaning of Sex Under the Equality Act 2010’. There is plenty to discuss. There’s the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which would remove medical experts from the gender transition process in favour of self-identification. There’s Lady Haldane’s judgment in For Women Scotland 2, which concluded that the definition of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act was not limited to biology and included anyone holding a gender recognition certificate.