Why is Scotland still tying itself in knots over gender?

Of all the self-inflicted harm to have felled politicians and undermined governments, was there ever a more curious case than that of self-ID and the SNP?

In so bullishly battling the cause of Gender Recognition Reform (GRR), that would have allowed for trans-identifying people to self-declare their new gender, the SNP suffered the largest backbench rebellion of the Scottish parliament’s 25-year tenure, saw a minister defect to Alex Salmond’s Alba party, and lost two first ministers in rapid succession.      

And after all such calamity, the SNP’s GRR Act was merely blocked by Westminster using a Section 35 order, a dead man’s switch designed to prevent Holyrood’s lawmakers passing incompetent bills that interfere in UK-wide legislation.

One might think that a new leader of Scotland’s governing party – now fire-fighting on multiple fronts, skint and deflated – would distance himself from an issue that caused nothing but misery for his predecessors.