Overview

• Sturgeon explicitly referred to Isla Bryson as a “biological male” and said anyone convicted of the “most heinous male crime against women” probably forfeits the right to gender self-identification.
• She admitted she should have been “much more straightforward” on Bryson’s gender and said Scotland had “lost all sense of rationality” in the wider trans rights debate, for which she accepted partial responsibility.
• The interview coincides with the upcoming release of her memoir Frankly, in which she revisits the 2022 Gender Recognition Reform bill and its January 2023 blockage by Westminster.
• The Isla Bryson case, in which the double rapist was first placed in a women’s prison before being moved to a male facility in 2023, remains central to concerns over prisoner placement and women’s safety.
• Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay renewed criticism of the SNP’s self-identification proposals, accusing Sturgeon of ignoring warnings that the reforms would be exploited by male predators.