ANAS Sarwar has outlined his "regrets" at Scottish Labour previously supporting the Gender Recognition Reform bill.
"Knowing what we know now, we would not have supported the bill," he told the Holyrood Sources podcast in a screeching U-turn.
The Scottish Labour leader previously whipped his MSPs to vote in favour of the legislation in December 2022.
The gender reforms would have simplified the process to allow transgender people to self-identify, removing the medical element, during the process of applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).
However, the Scotland Office blocked the reforms from becoming law.
In February 2023, Sarwar told the Daily Record he did not regret supporting Holyrood’s gender reforms but insisted tighter curbs on sex offenders should have been introduced.
Scottish Labour did not put forward any amendments relating to sex offenders at the time.
Now, Sarwar has fully rolled back his party's support for the bill.
"Looking back, the deep regret that that we have is that actually we didn't push harder on the amendments that we had as conditions for supporting the bill," he said.
"And we took at face value the Scottish Government, on the record, they said that nothing in the legislation would negatively interact with the Equality Act."
The Scottish Labour leader also pledged support for nurse Sandy Peggie (above left, alongside Dr. Beth Upton) amid the fallout from a high-profile employment tribunal involving her accusing NHS Fife of harassment because of a dispute with a transgender medic.
The nurse, who has worked at the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife, for 30 years, took the Fife health board and Dr Upton to tribunal after being suspended following an incident on Christmas Eve 2023 in the female changing room.
Peggie, known as the claimant, lodged a complaint of sexual harassment or harassment related to a protected belief under Section 26 of the Equality Act 2010 regarding three incidents when they shared a changing room: indirect harassment, victimisation, and whistleblowing.
She was suspended on January 3, 2024 after Dr Upton made an allegation of bullying and harassment, initially for four weeks, however, this was later extended for another four weeks due to delays starting the investigation, the tribunal heard.
“This isn't just about a government issuing guidance and then a health board choosing to either follow a guidance or not follow a guidance or interpret a guidance,” Sarwar said.
"This is about following the law, the actual law. And the Equality Act is very clear. So this actually undermines the argument, which is around how do we challenge transphobia and how do we make sure we are also challenging misogyny and sexism at the same time.”
He added: “Because there's a failure to respect the Equality Act and there is no robust action from government – who actually were notified about this and didn't take meaningful action.”
“If we are going to stop falling into divisive culture war politics, if we are going to make sure we're making progress as a nation, then we've got to say quite clearly we support single sex spaces based on biological sex. We respect the Equality Act.”
