Joan McAlpine

Joan McAlpine (born 28 January 1962) is a former Scottish journalist and former Scottish National Party politician. She was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the South Scotland region from 2011 to 2021. McAlpine is known for her opposition to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and for her views on sex and gender.

Quotes

• We learnt that the government decided in 2011 that the census's sex question should be answered according to self-identification, even if the respondent had no gender recognition certificate. This advice was hidden on the website and was never subject to democratic scrutiny. That's shocking when you think that for almost 200 years sex was uncomplicated, binary and biological. For most people it still is.
• Policy capture is at the root of this fankle, as with many issues around gender identity. Officials only take advice from LGBT stakeholders. They never consider that women might have something to say about legislation which erases them as a biological sex class. In this case they didn't consult statisticians either.
  • "Trans questions on the Scottish census must not be at women’s expense", The Times (13 June 2019)
  • National Records of Scotland were apparently suggesting a third sex option for non-binary people in addition to male and female. Statisticians had said such a proposal risked distorting figures on illness as they affect men and women.

• The [Scottish] government said its proposal will not diminish the rights of women.
  However, its own draft equality impact assessment evidenced this by citing Bristol University research which . . . suggests that a woman catching sight of a male body in a changing room should be no more distressing than seeing another woman with a mastectomy. Does the government regret citing this research, and do they agree that the comparison is insulting to breast cancer survivors?
  • "Joan McAlpine MSP calls trans rights research 'insult to cancer patients'", The Times (9 January 2023)
  • The Westminster Equality Act 2010 allows separate changing facilities.

• It is feminists influenced by this second wave who question transgender ideology. They speak the uncomfortable truth that men have a statistically higher propensity towards violence including sexual violence — no matter how they identify — and our laws and public institutions must recognise that brutal truth.
  • "Chief Mammy lost out to the Second Wave feminists", The Times (16 February 2023)
  • Nicola Sturgeon, who had just resigned as Scotland's First Minster was nicknamd "Chief Mammy".

• There were assertions made during that meeting that anyone who identifies as a woman could be a rape counsellor or join a group session. And when survivors asked how a woman may feel if she unknowingly disclosed details of her rape to a male counsellor on the telephone… No adequate answer was provided. It shocked me then as it still does now, that given 100 per cent of rapes in Scotland are committed by men this appeared to not be an issue for the head of Rape Crisis Scotland.
  • "How a service set up for traumatised women forgot its core function", Holyrood (29 January 2024)