Nicola Sturgeon has said anyone who rapes a woman ‘forfeits the right to be the gender of their choice’.
The former Scottish first minister made the claim as she struggled to answer fresh questions about transgender prisoner Isla Bryson.
In a TV interview, Ms Sturgeon admitted she was ‘partly responsible’ for a loss of ‘rationality’ in the debate over trans rights.
The ex-SNP leader quit frontline politics in 2023 after a furious row over her Scottish Government’s plans to introduce a system of self-identification for changing gender.
Ms Sturgeon had also been damaged by a row over Bryson, a double rapist who was sent to a female jail after announcing she was a trans women.
Bryson, who was convicted of attacking two women while known as a man called Adam Graham, was later moved to a male prison following a public outcry.
At the time, Ms Sturgeon refused to say whether she believed Bryson was a man or a woman.
But, speaking to ITV ahead of the publication of her memoir Frankly this week, the Glasgow Southside MSP said Bryson is a ‘biological male’.
Nicola Sturgeon has said anyone who rapes a woman ‘forfeits the right to be the gender of their choice’
The former Scottish first minister made the claim as she struggled to answer fresh questions about transgender prisoner Isla Bryson .
Bryson was convicted of attacking two women while known as a man called Adam Graham
Ms Strugeon acknowledged she should have previously been ‘much more straightforward’ on the issue.
‘Isla Bryson identified as a woman,’ she told TV News At Ten presenter Julie Etchingham.
‘I think what I would say now is anybody who commits the most heinous male crime against women probably forfeits the right to be the gender of their choice.’
She went on to add: ‘That probably was not the best phrase to use…’
Asked why she doesn’t simply say Bryson is a biological male, Ms Sturgeon replied: ‘They are a biological male but that’s about whether…. it gets back into the self ID thing.
‘I should have been much more straightforward, I wasn’t, but that’s because of the debate. We’d lost all sense of rationality in this debate. I’m partly responsible for that.’
Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay said: ‘Frankly, Nicola Sturgeon must be delusional if she thinks the women of Scotland will swallow this drivel.’
The Conservative MSP said Ms Sturgeon had ‘ignored all warnings that gender self-ID would be a gift to male predators like Isla Bryson’.
He added that the ex-SNP leader ‘ordered her SNP MSPs to vote down my attempts to block rapists and other sex criminals from being able to legally change their gender by self-declaration’.
Mr Findlay continued: ‘Her absurd ideological belief in self-ID collapses with her belated mealy-mouthed admission that this rapist is a man, but she still can’t bring herself to say sorry for all the pain and misery she has caused.’
