Gender rebels expelled from Scottish Greens were treated like ‘lepers’

The Sunday Times has spoken to seven of the expelled members — most of whom are in their seventies and many who have dedicated decades to environmental causes.

They reveal how they were ostracised by the party for questioning aspects of the trans movement with one saying the “trans agenda is running the Greens”.

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Topher Dawson, 70, a retired maths teacher, said there had been “online abuse” when questions about gender ideology were raised and he endured “six years of being called a transphobe”.

He said that a “secret motion” had been passed during the party’s autumn conference in 2018, which declared “trans women are women, trans men are men”.

Daya Feldwick, 55, who stood for the party in Midlothian, revealed that she received a written warning for using the phrase “biological males” during a discussion about the inclusion of trans athletes in sport.

Following a Green Party meeting late in 2022, which discussed trans inclusion in sport, she said she received a warning for using the term when referring to the potential for males to outperform females.

In an email seen by The Sunday Times, she was told her phrasing was both “offensive and transphobic” and in breach of the party’s code of conduct.

Feldwick said: “It has definitely gone too far by now, the trans agenda is running the Greens and many good activists (mostly women and environmentalists) have left. Our branch being a perfect example of the fallout — with now only a treasurer and one co-convener left on the committee it may have to be dissolved.”

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She added: “You give so much of your time to a cause, and on the back of two decades of hard work you get treated like a leper or a transphobe when you have no problem with trans people.”

Some of the members describe problems arising around the time that Andy Wightman, who was elected to Holyrood for the Greens in Midlothian in 2016, quit and alleged that the party was intolerant to discussion of potential clashes between transgender and women’s rights.

Andy Wightman quit the Scottish Greens in 2020 over its “provocative, alienating and confrontational” attitudes on transgender rights

JANE BARLOW/AFP

Feldwick said that when those who had helped to campaign for his election asked questions about what had happened they were accused of being “a transphobic branch”.

She said: “While quite a few people were unhappy with how the party dealt with the issue and left, some of us decided to stay on, perhaps naively hopeful that some compromise or conciliation could still be achieved despite a growing intolerance of different views, especially around gender self-ID.

“However, any further debate and questioning were shut down, people labelled transphobic if they dared say anything.”

• Sensible English Greens have a lot to teach their Scottish cousins

Patrick Harvie, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, defended the expulsions. “I think it’s really important to be a political party that takes equality and human rights seriously, and I reject the idea that most political parties seem to follow, that says if you say something racist that’s a disciplinary matter, if you say something homophobic or transphobic that’s just a special matter of conscience,” he said.

“The Greens are not like that. The Greens take the same principled approach to all these aspects of equality, and we take that seriously.”

Seven expelled Greens tell their story

David Jardine,72, from the Highlands, joined Scotland’s green movement in 1983, when it was known as the Ecology Party, initially because he supported campaigns for nuclear disarmament.

The retired telecommunications technician became concerned when a fellow Scottish Green, who worked for the NHS, resigned her membership. She left for believing in biological sex and said she could not openly express herself within the party “without worrying about being reported to her HR department and being subject to a disciplinary procedure”.

He signed the women’s declaration believing people should be able to share their opinion without “being harassed or mocked or told to shut up”.

Daya Feldwick, 55, from Loanhead, joined the Scottish Greens in 2007 after campaigning to save an area of woodland. She helped to build the Midlothian branch, campaigning for Andy Wightman, who was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2015, and standing in council elections herself, losing to a Conservative candidate by less than 200 votes in Bonnyrigg in 2022.

When Wightman left the party in 2020, saying he had been threatened with possible expulsion over his concerns about women’s rights, Feldwick said that she and others in Midlothian asked what had gone wrong and were accused of being “a transphobic branch”. At meetings of the Scottish women’s green network she said she had tried to raise women’s rights issues and was “shot down in flames”.

Helga Rhein, 71, who worked as a GP in Edinburgh, joined the Scottish Greens about four years ago because she wanted to back Scottish independence and environmental causes. Her experience looking after women who had survived violent relationships led her to sign the declaration.

She said: “It is crystal clear to me that vulnerable women who have been abused must have permission to use their own spaces. I don’t mean toilets, I mean safe houses.”

Any discussion of this nature, she said, was forbidden within the party.

A practising GP, who asked not to be named amid fears his medical practice may be targeted, is among those ousted from the party. Joining the Scottish Greens amid a local planning dispute, he said it was the only party that he felt backed “living within planetary boundaries and within the laws of nature”.

As a doctor, however, he said “biological sex is fundamental” to his work and he could not agree otherwise. He also said he had seen patients who were “unhappy that they had transitioned when they did”.

He and others who signed the declaration were surprised it became a disciplinary issue. “What we were asking was just respect for our opinion within the party. It is about tolerance. The idea it is some kind of bullying or threatening behaviour is just ridiculous.”

Irene Brandt, 77, a retired primary school teacher, has been a member of the green movement for 45 years, initially with the Ecology Party. She founded the Scottish Greens’ Glasgow branch and has stood in council, Holyrood and Westminster elections.

She said there was “vicious side” to trans discussions in some meetings but laughs when asked about being expelled to “ensure the safety of all trans and non-binary members”.

“I am hardly a threatening, bullying kind of person — a 77-year-old decrepit woman,” she said.

Topher Dawson, 70, a former maths teacher from Ullapool, was drawn to the Scottish Greens because of his commitment to independence and climate action. When Wightman left the Greens, he felt it was a “red flag”.

“I could see there was this looming crisis for women’s rights,” he said. “I think the party as it is currently constituted is beyond repair.”

Mary MacCallum Sullivan, 78, joined the Scottish Greens in 2014 after being disappointed by the outcome of the independence referendum and wanting to become more active politically. She is a retired psychotherapist whose “vulnerable” son has transitioned during adulthood.

She said: “I helped draft and signed the declaration because of my worry about child safeguarding.”

She said she tried to be thoughtful and considered in all her responses to the complaint, which followed. “No notice of this was taken; I was required to undertake ‘re-education’!”