JK Rowling criticises John Swinney after failing to say whether trans women are women

John Swinney has been criticised by JK Rowling after refusing to answer when asked whether he believes trans women are women.

The Harry Potter author accused the SNP veteran, who is set to become Scotland’s new first minister next week, of “obfuscating and blustering” when asked for his opinion on the issue.

She suggested that by dodging the question in an attempt to avoid saying “women don’t have penises”, Mr Swinney had shown he could not be trusted to protect women’s rights.

Rowling was also a vocal critic of Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf over their positions on trans issues.

Mr Swinney, 60, is set to become SNP leader on Monday after he persuaded Kate Forbes, the former SNP finance secretary, not to run against him in exchange for an influential role within his government.

However, he is already facing calls to ditch the SNP’s controversial trans rights agenda as part of a major “reset” of his party’s priorities.

Swinney declines to answer

Mr Swinney was asked by The Telegraph at his campaign launch on Thursday whether he believed trans women were women.

He declined to answer, claiming if politics were “defined purely and simply by these questions, I think we’re not addressing the core issues and challenges that people face in our society”.

Responding to his comments, Rowling said on X, formerly Twitter: “I don’t know about you, but male politicians obfuscating and blustering to avoid uttering the dangerous words ‘women don’t have penises’ totally convinces me that the rights and protections of 51 per cent of the population are safe in their hands.”

Mr Swinney was a major figure in the Scottish Government when Ms Sturgeon pushed her gender self-ID law through Holyrood. The law would have allowed anyone aged 16 or over to change their legal sex by signing a declaration and Mr Swinney voted for it.

It was one of the most controversial pieces of legislation ever passed by the devolved parliament and was later blocked by the UK Government.

However, the Scottish Government has said it could attempt to resurrect the self-ID law under a Labour UK government and it is currently expected to introduce controversial legislation banning so-called conversion therapy next year.

The conversion ban would make it a crime to attempt to “change or suppress” another person’s gender identity, raising fears that parents or psychologists could be prosecuted if they refuse to “affirm” a child’s self-declared gender identity.

Any attempt to ditch the policy, which Ms Forbes is known to have concerns over, would cause a backlash from other sections of the SNP and be opposed strongly by the Scottish Greens, whose votes in Holyrood Mr Swinney may be forced to rely on.

Calls to abandon ‘faux progessivism’

On Friday, Mairi McAllan, an SNP rising star who introduced Mr Swinney at his campaign launch, suggested her party would continue to “progress” the trans rights agenda.

However, Joanna Cherry, the SNP MP, called on the party veteran to abandon “identity politics and virtue signalling” and “faux progressivism” that prioritises rights of biological men who identify as women over biological women.

Writing in the pro-independence newspaper The National, she said she would have supported Ms Forbes had she run but would now “fall behind the leadership of John Swinney”.

She said that she would “continue to argue for the reset that I believe the Scottish National Party needs” and that this should mean “out with the identity politics and virtue signalling”.

“A truly progressive agenda would not govern by headline-grabbing announcements without doing the hard work to make sure they are delivered,” Ms Cherry said.

“It would not rely on the sort of faux progressivism that elevates the rights of men who identify as women above those of women, nor would it deny science and spread disinformation in the face of expert medical advice about the care of gender questioning children.”

On Friday, Ms McAllan was asked whether gender self-ID had caused problems for her party.

She told the BBC: “I think back to social movements of the past, whether it is suffrage, civil rights, the gay community.

“They have had to push for acceptance of who they are and what they deserve in a democracy. I think although they have faced challenges, they have invariably been worth pursuing.

“I think we have to continue to make progress, take all people’s perspectives on board. Feminism, and the protection of the dignity and safety of women, is one of my principal driving belief systems as a politician.

“But equally, we balance that with requiring to make progress in our country and protecting minorities within it.”