SCOTTISH Labour’s leadership has suffered a defeat at their party conference after delegates rejected calls to impose “single-sex spaces … based on biology” in Scottish schools.
The motion, which was proposed by the Glasgow Cathcart Labour branch and supported by Scottish Labour’s ruling executive, asked delegates to back the Cass Review into trans healthcare for young people in the UK.
The review by Dr Hilary Cass – who now sits in the Lords – has been adopted by the UK and Scottish Governments, but teams of experts in the US have said that it “transgresses medical law, policy, and practice” and “obscures key findings, misrepresents its own data, and is rife with misapplications of the scientific method”.
Earlier this week, Anas Sarwar U-turned on his party’s support for gender reform in Scotland, suggesting he did not understand what he voted for but had instead taken what the Scottish Government told him “at face value”.
The U-turn sparked anger, with the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) LGBT workers committee calling it a “betrayal [that] inflicts hurt on some of our most vulnerable”.
At the Scottish Labour conference, delegates were asked to back a motion on bringing guidance for Scottish schools in line with the Cass Review.
It stated: “Guidance for Scottish schools relies on the necessity of unquestioning affirmation [of children’s gender identities] and is therefore not congruent with the Cass Review.
“The guidance also encourages mixed-sex sleeping arrangements on school residential trips in certain circumstances and does not make clear that only same-sex adults are suitable chaperones for children of both sexes.
“This CLP therefore calls for the Scottish Executive Committee to work together with MSPs towards calling: for the withdrawal of this Scottish Government guidance; for support to be provided to gender dysphoric children and gender questioning children in accordance with the recommendations of the Cass Review; for guidance to schools always to be mindful of safeguarding and therefore respectful of single-sex spaces for boys and girls based on biology.”
The motion was rejected by a show of hands.
