ON SATURDAY The Times ran an interview with the Scottish Parliament’s new Presiding Officer, Kenny Gibson, under the headline: “I won’t stand for any misgendering”.
Gibson said:
“You have to respect what that person wants to be called. And if someone doesn’t do that, then you have to call that out in the chamber and you have to take the appropriate action. If there’s a clear issue of it looks like it’s being deliberate, then you have to act on that because you can’t have someone, a member of the parliament, feeling undervalued or disrespected. So whatever your personal views are of what they call themselves, it is what they want to call themselves, I think, which is significant.”
According to the article, Gibson “made it clear that he would not tolerate politicians deliberately or maliciously refusing to use the chosen pronouns of the newly elected Green MSPs Iris Duane and Q Manivannan”.
This is the first time openly trans MSPs have been elected to Holyrood. Iris Duane is biologically male but was listed on the Scottish Parliament website as “female”; he uses she/her pronouns. Q. Manivannan, also biologically male, was listed as “non-binary” – an opaque category with no standing in law; he uses they/them pronouns.
Until Sunday, the Scottish Parliament website categorised MSPs by “gender” as male, female and non-binary. That facility has now been removed, presumably following complaints that it distorted sex-based statistics.
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