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Nicola Sturgeon: JK Rowling is not a real feminist like me

Rowling Sturgeon - Twitter/Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
Rowling Sturgeon - Twitter/Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

Nicola Sturgeon has suggested that JK Rowling is not a “real feminist” as she lashed out at the Harry Potter author's accusation that she is a “destroyer of women’s rights” over her plan to allow people to self-identify their legal gender.

The First Minister insisted her government’s Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill would not confer additional rights on trans people despite making it much easier for them to be declared female.

In a rebuke to Ms Rowling, Ms Sturgeon said that “real feminists as I consider myself to be” focus on the “real” threats to women posed by abusive men and “lawmakers who want to take away our rights”.

She argued that predatory men that attempted to abuse the process to gain access to women’s safe spaces, such as female changing rooms, would be guilty of a criminal offence.

Dismissing opposition to the Bill, which attracted a huge protest from women’s rights campaigners this week outside the Scottish Parliament, she said scrapping it would be “further stigmatising and discriminating against a tiny group in our society that is already one of the most stigmatised”.

Ms Rowling took to Twitter on Thursday to express her support for the protestors and posted a picture of herself wearing a black t-shirt with the slogan: “Nicola Sturgeon - noun - destroyer of human rights”.

The author has previously warned the Bill would result in attacks on women by men exploiting the changes, especially “the most vulnerable” in places like prisons and refuges for those who have suffered domestic abuse.

The legislation would allow Scots aged 16 and upwards to self-identify their legal gender without a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

It would also cut the time in which someone must live in their “acquired gender” from two years to only six months and lower the age for obtaining a gender recognition certificate from 18 to 16.

SNP ministers forged ahead with the Bill despite the equalities watchdog previously warning it could harm “measures to address barriers facing women” and arguing the existing system struck the right balance.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) also said this week that the legislation risks confusion over trans people’s legal status and access to services south of the border as Scottish GRCs may not be recognised in the rest of the UK.

But a Scottish Parliament committee this week gave its approval to the legislation, with only the Tory members objecting. A Holyrood debate on the Bill is scheduled for Oct 27.

women's rights - Ken Jack/Getty Images
women's rights - Ken Jack/Getty Images

Asked on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme whether she was a “destroyer of women’s rights”, Ms Sturgeon said: “No, I’ve spent my entire life campaigning for women’s rights and am a passionate feminist with lots of evidence behind that.”

The First Minister said the Bill’s opponents were “entitled to express their views however they wish” but argued it was “about reforming an existing process - it doesn’t give any more rights to trans people and it doesn't take any rights away”.

“Men are the risk to women, not trans women. Any man who seeks to abuse any process to attack women, we should deal with that. We shouldn’t stigmatise further an already stigmatised group of people,” she said.

"The current process is stigmatising, it’s traumatic, it’s asking people to prove that they are mentally unwell.”

Ms Sturgeon said there were “many, many real threats” to women such as physical and sexual attacks and the removal of abortion and reproductive rights in countries such as Iran.

“There are no shortage of attacks on women that feminists, real feminists as I consider myself to be should be focusing on right now,” she added.

“The threat to women in our society today is not from trans women. It is from abusive men and from lawmakers who want to take away our rights and that is what we should be focusing on.”