Sturgeon book reignites trans row with JK Rowling

Harry Potter author JK Rowling has posted a review of Nicola Sturgeon's memoir

JK Rowling has hit back at Nicola Sturgeon after the former Scottish first minister's memoir reignited their long-running row over gender.

In the book, Sturgeon said she had endured a surge of "vile" abuse after Rowling posted a selfie in a T-shirt with the slogan: "Nicola Sturgeon, destroyer of women's rights".

Sturgeon said it had made her feel "more at risk of possible physical harm".

Defending her actions, Rowling accused Sturgeon of a shameless denial of reality over transgender issues.

In a review of the book, published on her own website, Rowling said her intention had been to encourage journalists to "confront" Sturgeon on the topic.

The former first minister's memoir, Frankly, was released on Thursday

Sturgeon, the MSP for Glasgow Southside, had previously told the BBC's Newscast podcast that the Harry Potter author had every right to disagree with her but that the T-shirt "seemed to me quite incendiary".

The pair - arguably the most prominent public figures in Scotland - have long disagreed about politics, with Rowling critical of the former Scottish National Party leader's attempt to legislate to make it easier to legally change gender.

The Scottish Parliament passed the legislation but it was blocked by Westminster before it could be enacted because of its potential impact on GB-wide equality law.

Opponents of the proposed new law were delighted, having argued that it would have threatened women by giving biological males access to female spaces.

The campaigners, supported by Rowling, have since won a landmark case in London when the UK Supreme Court ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex for the purposes of the 2010 Equality Act.

JK Rowling posted a selfie of herself wearing a T-shirt describing Sturgeon as a "destroyer of women's rights"

Sturgeon says she stands by the principle that an individual has the right to self-identify in the gender of their choosing.

However she has also expressed regret that she did not pause the Holyrood gender self-ID bill, in order to seek common ground between supporters and critics, when the issue became mired in "rancour and division".

"We'd lost all sense of rationality in this debate. I'm partly responsible for that," she told ITV News.

Rowling is unimpressed, writing on her website that Sturgeon "caused real, lasting harm" by presiding over a culture in which women who did not subscribe to her "luxury beliefs" were "silenced, shamed, persecuted" and placed in degrading and unsafe situations.

"She is flat out Trumpian in her shameless denial of reality and hard facts," adds the Edinburgh-based author.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast this week Sturgeon said she believed "forces on the far right" had sought to "weaponise" the trans issue to "push back on rights more generally".

The comments echoed language she had used in an interview with The News Agents podcast in 2023 when she said that some opponents of the SNP's gender reforms were "deeply misogynist, often homophobic, possibly some of them racist as well".

Rowling describes that as Sturgeon's "basket of deplorables" moment, a reference to Hillary Clinton's disastrous dismissal of half of her rival Donald Trump's supporters as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic.

With those comments, Rowling claims, Sturgeon "demonised and stigmatised" survivors of sexual trauma, lesbians, women with disabilities and "everyone concerned about safety, privacy, fairness and dignity for girls".

In her memoir, Sturgeon also discusses double rapist Adam Graham - who was initially sent to a female prison after self-identifying as a woman called Isla Bryson - admitting she had struggled to answer questions about whether the rapist was a man or a woman.

"I seemed weak and evasive. Worst of all, I sounded like I didn't have the courage to stand behind the logical conclusion of the self-identification system we had just legislated for," she writes.

"If you're prepared to accept the foundational falsehood that some men are women, you'll inevitably find yourself panicking like a pheasant caught in headlights one day," writes Rowling in response.

The author, who in 2014 donated £1m to the campaign to keep Scotland in the UK, also accuses Sturgeon of omitting or playing down important matters in her memoirs, such as the deletion of government WhatsApp messages during Covid; "tanking" educational outcomes; failures in procuring new ferries; and a police investigation into the SNP's finances.

"Perhaps the most disgraceful omission," she continues, "is the fact that Scotland continues to lead the whole of Europe in drug deaths."

In a series of media interviews to publicise her book Sturgeon has predicted that Scotland will be independent in 20 years or less and has defended her record as first minister from 2014 to 2023.

She has insisted that she acted in the best interests of the nation during Covid and that reforms in Scotland designed to reduce poverty are now leading to progress in narrowing the attainment gap between the richest and poorest students.

Sturgeon, who will stand down as an MSP next year, also points out that she was exonerated by police investigating the finances of the SNP in an inquiry which is codenamed Operation Branchform.

Her husband, former party chief executive, Peter Murrell, faces a charge of embezzlement. The couple have since separated.