Kezia Dugdale, the former leader of Scottish Labour, says she is now \u201cquite scared\u201d as a lesbian in Britain and has started to feel nervous holding her wife\u2019s hand in public.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the Guardian in Edinburgh on the announcement of her appointment as the chair of Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity, she said it was \u201ccompletely possible\u201d gay rights in the UK could be eroded with the rise of rightwing populism.<\/p>\n
Equal marriage could not be taken for granted, she cautioned. \u201cI don\u2019t think it is an implausible argument now in the way that it maybe was five years ago. My rationale for that is: look at Italy, for example, where you see a rollback of rights for LGBT people. It\u2019s happened pretty quickly, it\u2019s centred around concepts of family life and the country is going backwards. It\u2019s not beyond the realm that that could happen here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dugdale, who led Scottish Labour from 2015-17, will take up the unpaid position in six months. She takes charge after a turbulent period in which Stonewall lost more than half of its income<\/a> and had to make dozens of staff redundant, in large part because of its uncompromising position on transgender rights.<\/p>\n Critics accused it of pursuing a \u201cmilitant trans agenda\u201d and a \u201cno debate\u201d approach to trans women. They charged Stonewall with pursuing an absolutist position on trans inclusion, in which trans women should be allowed into all single-sex spaces \u2013 from prisons to hospital wards, professional sport and women\u2019s refuges \u2013 regardless of concerns about safety and fairness.<\/p>\n Dugdale\u2019s appointment would appear to mark a pivot for the organisation. As well as acknowledging the charity\u2019s missteps, she also heaped praise on JK Rowling, the author who has become a lightning rod for the ire of the trans community.<\/p>\n Asked if she understood why many trans people felt Rowling\u2019s approach had become cruel and dehumanising, and contributed to them feeling unwelcome and unaccepted, Dugdale said: \u201cI understand that and I\u2019ve also heard JK Rowling and other people who hold a different position on these issues to me describe with a similar rawness how they\u2019ve experienced being opposed for their views. And I just think, the days of these culture wars, about sitting in polar extremes from each other, should be behind us now.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cWhen you look at our renewed strategy, it is about navigating this turbulence; it\u2019s about listening, it is about engaging.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about recognising now that there\u2019s the best part of 2,000 LGBT organisations across the country, all with different priorities and strands of work, and Stonewall now needs to find its place in that network of organisations. And we\u2019re really clear about what that place is, which is to be influencing policy and change in rooms with power and creating more inclusive communities.<\/p>\n \u201cI think anyone that\u2019s ever been associated with any organisation will put their hands up and say: we\u2019ve made mistakes at certain times; given the chance to do things again we might have done things differently. But I also think it\u2019s right to say: if we\u2019re going to have difficult conversations about difficult issues where a lot of people are feeling their way through messy issues, people need to feel safe,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to be in the position of persuading people. We\u2019re not dogmatic and sitting in silos. We want to be in the messy, grey bit \u2026 because that\u2019s where progress and consensus is found.\u201d<\/p>\n A demonstration in London supporting transgender rights. Dugdale has called for culture wars to be put to one side. Photograph: Andrea Domeniconi\/Sopa Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n Dugdale said she had lost friends because of her support for trans rights. \u201cI think the whole country\u2019s spent an awful lot of time on these issues in quite a divisive and damaging way. I\u2019m personally very sorry that a lot of the women that I\u2019ve campaigned alongside for decades in the Labour<\/a> movement sit on a different side of the conversation about gender \u2013 that\u2019s hard. And some of the fractures in those relationships I\u2019ve contributed to with the language that I might have used in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about JK Rowling\u2019s opposition to trans rights, Dugdale said: \u201cI have a huge respect for JK Rowling. I\u2019ve had the pleasure of meeting her before and I think her story and how she came to be this prolific, incredible children\u2019s writer in this city as a single mum writing in a cafe is phenomenal and an inspiration to so many women across the world.<\/p>\n \u201cI think she\u2019s been a really powerful political advocate [for] improving the lot of single mums, making a case for tackling poverty and inequality in all its forms, and there is absolutely a place for her in public life to share her experiences and tell her story and make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n She called for \u201ca bit of kindness, a bit of generosity of spirit, a willingness to get into the grey area to talk about these things calmly. To try and find common ground is the only path through this and it\u2019s one that I\u2019m committed to.\u201d<\/p>\n Dugdale supported the Scottish government\u2019s gender recognition reform bill, which aimed to make it simpler and quicker for people to change their legal gender, including 16- and 17-year-olds. This was a move towards \u201cself-ID\u201d, removing the requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.<\/p>\n The law passed in Scotland<\/a> in 2022 but was blocked by the UK\u2019s Conservative-led government the following year.<\/p>\n \u201cI believed in it; I still do,\u201d she said, but added that pushing for self-ID was \u201cnot top of the list\u201d of Stonewall\u2019s priorities. \u201cWe are an LGBT organisation, of course we\u2019re going to be there for trans people, so that\u2019s integral to who we are and what we do. But our priorities now are very much focused on things like securing justice for military veterans and compensation for what they\u2019ve endured. We\u2019re currently working very hard to ensure that there\u2019s a ban on conversion therapy in this country, which is incredibly important.\u201d<\/p>\n