Alba’s bid to woo women voters with ‘safe spaces’
ALEX Salmond’s Alba Party is hoping to secure the votes of women who are disenchanted with the SNP’s controversial stance on trans rights.
The party will tomorrow unveil its women and equalities policy, which is set to promote women’s sex-based rights – an issue which has split the Nationalists.
The SNP under Nicola Sturgeon has backed a change in the law which would allow people to identify as whichever gender they choose.
Many critics fear such a move could erode the rights of women.
It is understood that Alba’s policy will demand women should have access to single-sex spaces in areas such as prisons, toilets and hospitals.
This is likely to provoke a backlash among campaigners who believe trans women should be able to use female spaces such as toilets and changing rooms, even if they have a male body.
Alba yesterday held a ‘safe space’ online women’s conference attended by more than 400 people, at which the policy’s author described sharing a hospital ward with men.
Lawyer and Alba candidate Eva Comrie had planned to stand for the SNP in the forthcoming Holyrood election but instead switched to the Alba Party.
Ms Comrie described a ‘hellish’ experience in hospital 20 years ago when men were admitted to her ward after accident and emergency ‘overflowed’, saying she had ‘never felt so vulnerable in my life’.
She added: ‘The showers were shared, toilet facilities were shared.
‘The night before my operation, I didn’t sleep because there were men in beds opposite me. They saw me dress and undress, they saw me toilet and vice versa. I was in that ward for several days. Every single nurse, male and female, told me how uncomfortable they were with those arrangements.
‘The male patients were uncomfortable, the women were uncomfortable.
‘Now I learn that those arrangements apparently have been sanctioned again by a couple of health boards in Scotland and I can’t have that.
‘I’ve been in hospital 50-odd times. On none of those occasions have I ever had any desire to share a ward with a male-bodied person. That will not change. Self-ID is a dreadful prospect.’
The Scottish Government has backed calls to reform the Gender Recognition Act, which many people hope will make it easier and quicker for trans people to have their identity legally recognised.
However, critics, including a number of high-profile women in the SNP, are concerned that the changes will erode women’s ‘sex-based rights’ set out in the 2010 Equality Act.
One party source said: ‘There has been silencing and sidelining of women’s voices in expressing legitimate concerns about different pieces of legislation that have been through the Scottish parliament. There is a clear statement in the policy that women have the right to privacy and dignity in accessing single-sex spaces.’
Yesterday’s conference was co-chaired by former Nationalist MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh and Caroline McAllister, ex-convener of the SNP’s Women’s Pledge, who defected to Alba last month.
The event also heard from guest speaker Rhona Hotchkiss, the former governor of Cornton Vale prison, about the impact of housing trans women in female prisons.
‘No desire to share a ward with a male-bodied person’