Both of the nominated Scottish Labour leadership candidates oppose trans rights. Due to the deliberate actions of gender critical Scottish Labour MPs and MSPs, Monica Lennon, who supports trans rights, was kept off the ballot. We must add August 17th 2026 to the list of shameful days in our party.

Scottish Labour parliamentarians who have privately supported me in my public stance on trans rights are publicly endorsing transphobic candidates. I get that there are other issues and nominations aren't based on a single policy, but if you won't stand for human rights will you stand for anything?

Okay, so we now know that Joe Fagan is, like Michael Marra, also happy to throw trans people under the bus. So unless Monica Lennon can get onto the ballot the only leadership options available to Scottish Labour members are transphobic. What an utter betrayal of our principles and our history.

Scottish Labour leadership hopeful hits out at party support for gender self-ID

EXCLUSIVE: Joe Fagan said Labour should have abstained on the gender reform law and also said trans rapist Isla Bryson is a man.

dailyrecord.co.uk

Nominations open today for the Scottish Labour leadership election. The same powerful forces in the party which forced transphobia into the May manifesto against the wishes of members are desperate to keep pro-trans candidates off the ballot so that the debate is not dominated by this issue.

Meanwhile Labour's leadership really must now reflect on the stark difference between the success achieved by this pro-trans stance compared to the abject failure of Scottish Labour in May after they threw trans people under the bus in their manifesto (against the wishes of Scottish members).

To become a candidate for the Scottish Labour leadership an MSP needs at least three nominations from the 18-strong Scottish Labour MSP group (self-nomination allowed), at least three nominations from the 36-strong Scottish Labour MP group, and at least three nominations from affiliates/unions.

Scottish Labour Against Bigotry welcomes the resignation of Anas Sarwar as Scottish Labour leader. Sarwar chose to reverse decades of pro-LGBT policy and action from Scottish Labour by opposing trans rights in a cynical attempt to shore up votes from transphobes. This attempt, inevitably, failed.

One of the biggest problems young people have with Scottish Labour is its embrace of transphobia. Indeed it was Scottish Young Labour (@scottishyl.bsky.social) and Scottish Labour Students (@scotlabourstudents.bsky.social) who spoke against the anti-trans motion at conference and defeated it.

LabourList@labourlist.bsky.social · last mo.

👀💬 ‘Young people have a problem with Scottish Labour, and it is a threat that we cannot ignore.’ 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 👉️ Ryan-Thomas Quinn ✍️ for LabourList labourlist.org/2026/07/youn...

Scottish Labour members please note the SEC review of the 2026 election campaign is seeking members' views at meetings to be held in all 8 Scottish Parliament regions between 14th and 22nd July. It's vital the SEC hears a clear message: transphobic policy lost the party both volunteers and votes.

Troubling thread on the use of AI in the EHRC analysis of consultations about equality law.

⭕⭕⭕ Zoë Greene ⭕⭕⭕@zdgreene.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🚨 The EHRC admitted on May 21 they used GPT-4.1 to analyse 50,000+ consultation responses about equality law. GPT-4.1 has documented anti-LGBTQ+ bias & included zero disclosed bias testing. The guidance excluding transgender people from facilities is based on a biased tool they won't admit testing.

Keir Starmer was the human rights lawyer who did pro bono work for LGBT activists fighting unjust laws across the world, then became the Prime Minister who capitulated to opponents of LGBT rights and cut off essential support for trans people. The next Labour leader must reverse the damage done.

Sending Pride wishes to good people of @slabcampaign.bsky.social. It may be true that the Labour Party leadership at UK level and Scottish level are ridden with ugly and shameful transphobia but we must salute those willing to call out their own party in this Pride month.

An absolutely damning indictment of the UK Labour government. If we start to see travel advisories from European governments advising their trans citizens not to travel to the UK it will be entirely justified. Shame on this Labour government.

Trans+ Solidarity Alliance@transsolidarity.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Joint statement from international LGBTQ+ rights NGOs, including @ilgaeurope.bsky.social and @tgeuorg.bsky.social “How can any trans and intersex person travelling to the UK feel secure that they will be treated with respect and dignity while using services?” tgeu.org/joint-statem...

Anas Sarwar has appointed Carol Mochan, who called the recent EHRC guidance which deeply harms trans people's ability to participate in society "a victory for basic common sense", as Scottish Labour's equality spokesperson. Scottish Labour continues to betray its LGBT rights supporting membership.

If excluding trans men and women from both men's and women's spaces on the basis that cis people might feel uncomfortable represents a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, then the law which says so needs to be fixed, and Labour MPs need to stand up and say that *right now*.

That it has made this announcement so sheepishly, so politely and with such regret only deepens the shamefulness of the EHRC's surrender. And that the Labour government has been so evasive and so desperate to delay and deflect only underlines the loss of its moral compass, and its utter cowardice.

It is hard to overstate the egregiousness of this failure. The body whose statutory duty is to protect the human rights of, and prevent discrimination against, trans people has published exclusionary rules for trans people under the aegis of a government run by the party which created those duties.

So the EHRC guidance has been updated from "Fuck trans people's rights" to "I'm terribly sorry but fuck trans people's rights", and it remains glaringly obvious that the government's response to the Supreme Court judgement should have been to fix the law rather than cower in fear of bigots.

As the party struggles in the throes of electoral defeat and leadership instability, Labour's journey on LGBT rights tells in microcosm the wider story of its malaise: instead of standing for its principles and standing on its legacy, it has sought to appease those who criticise it. And here we are.

The staggering thing for my party is that it was Labour delivery on LGBT rights between 2001 and 2010, and Labour MPs pushing equal marriage over the line in 2013, that put the UK at number one. It's now Labour's surrender to transphobia and think-of-the-children rhetoric that has pushed us down.

Eleven years ago the UK was number one on this list, leading Europe in LGBTI rights. It's now 22nd. The list is deliberately relational - countries can lose places simply by standing still while others progress - but the UK has actively harmed LGBTI rights as well. It is a shameful legacy.

ILGA-Europe@ilgaeurope.bsky.social · 3mo ago

#RainbowMap 2026 is live! Spain breaks Malta's decade-long hold on top spot. As the rules-based international order fractures and democracy is under pressure, Spain's No’1 ranking stands as proof that political courage remains the most powerful answer. Find out more at rainbowmap.ilga-europe.org!

I think among the very many mistakes made by Scottish and UK Labour leaderships was believing this GC-manufactured idea that there's a sizeable constituency of LGB people prepared to thrown trans people under the bus. It's never been true. The LGBT community is united, and it's FUCKING PISSED OFF.

Tyron@tyron.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Would be nice if Labour could realise how much it's fucked it with one of its most historic constituencies over trans rights - a thing it costs literally *nothing* to be more reasonable on - but I don't have much hope on that any time soon

This is a disgraceful thing for a Scottish Labour candidate to write, but he has been encouraged to embrace this position by the Scottish Labour leadership, so the disgrace is theirs too. What a shameful moment in our party's proud history.

Baby octopus@mancalled.horse · 4mo ago

Scottish Labour reaching new depths of transphobia and misogyny. Both the Green and SNP candidates ARE CIS WOMEN you paternalistic bigoted prick.

I'm still on the LGBT+ Labour mailing list and they are now using it simply to recruit canvassers for the LGB committee members standing in the local elections. Has the goodwill of tens of thousands of LGBT+ Labour members and allies been squandered for personal advancement? Sure looks like it.

As a reminder, while there’s no Strasbourg case law on toilets, there are two on hospital wards and similar settings: the case of Goodwin, and the case of “I”. This is legally unachievable.

Marty Davies@smartypantsmarty.com · 4mo ago

Wes Streeting talking about NHS hospital wards on LBC “I believe very strongly that women’s wards should be for biological women” and he goes on to say “we need to make sure we’ve got trans-inclusive spaces too” A reminder to all politicians: Segregation is not trans inclusion.

LGBT+ Lib Dems would be screaming from the roof tops if this had happened in the Lib Dems

LGBT Labour Scotland is an official, affiliated society of Scottish Labour, but it appears not to have made any public statements or held meetings or elections since 2023. Can anyone shed any light on who if anyone is now in charge of this organisation, or if it has in fact been quietly closed down?

Further to the earlier thread detailing how transphobic policy was put into Scottish Labour's manifesto despite Scottish Conference voting it down, it's worth noting that Scottish Labour's key policy development body is the Scottish Policy Forum, convened for two years every parliamentary session.

At Scottish Labour Conference in Feb 2025, a leadership-backed motion to adopt a transphobic policy on single-sex spaces in schools was defeated. Party members and affiliates voted it down. Today Scottish Labour's leadership put that transphobic policy into its manifesto for May's election anyway.

Good to see moral clarity and decency from LGBT and women's groups within the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP. Damning that LGBT Labour has once again left @georgiameadows.bsky.social to stand alone against transphobia. Self-serving cowardice which shames the entire Labour movement.

LGBTIQA+ Greens@lgbtiqa.greenparty.org.uk · 6mo ago

This is a cross party statement in solidarity with @greenpartyhan.bsky.social after what happened this weekend. Thanks to all the LGBT and Feminist organisations within all the respective parties for signing this, and it was amazing working with you all.