Cowardly John Swinney, First Minister in waiting, can't keep dodging this simple question: What is a woman? – Susan Dalgety

Asked if a ‘trans woman is a woman’, John Swinney dodged the question. It is not, however, going to go away

In the drive north to her home in the Highlands yesterday, Kate Forbes must have breathed a sigh of relief. Not only had she deftly secured a senior position in government without a bruising leadership contest she was not guaranteed to win, she had forced a commitment from the incoming First Minister, John Swinney, that he would put economic prosperity at the heart of his new government.

And in a series of social media posts, she said that Swinney was determined to return the SNP to “governing from the mainstream”, adding that he wanted, like her, “competent, candid government earning the trust of the people”.

There are many women – even those vehemently opposed to nationalism – who are disappointed that Forbes did not do battle with Swinney for the top job. She, far more than Nicola Sturgeon ever did, represents ‘everywoman’. A clever yet down-to-earth young woman, juggling her blended family with the demands of a challenging job. Even as she was in discussions this week about her immediate future, it was reported that she had to break off from talks to rush her toddler to A&E after a minor accident. Mothers everywhere will recognise that moment.

John Swinney brushed off a question about whether a trans woman is a woman. But people will keep asking (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA)

Free Church is part of Scottish life

But for every woman who cheered her on, there was a so-called progressive man waiting in the wings to shoot her down. Forbes offends many in Scotland’s political and civil society elite. Not because of her views on the economy, which owe more to Tony Blair’s New Labour than Sturgeon or Swinney’s SNP.

Get our weekly opinion newsletter for expert analysis from The Scotsman’s team of columnists

She draws the bile of commentators and MSPs alike because of her faith. Pundits revelled in Scotland’s diversity when the current First Minister, Humza Yousaf, held Muslim religious services in Bute House. “Look at Scotland, a welcoming, tolerant, diverse nation, with the best values,” they cooed. Yet the same gang hounded Forbes because she is an active member of the socially conservative Free Church of Scotland, an institution that is as much a part of Scottish life as Oor Wullie and the Broons.

The venom directed at her by some men who should know better was reminiscent of that old misogynist, John Knox, who back in the 16th century argued that, “to promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature…”

Strong whiff of misogyny

Speaking on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland show on Thursday, former SNP MP Dr Eilidh Whiteford agreed that the treatment meted out to Forbes was aggravated because of her sex. She said: “Most of us in our day-to-day lives rub along with people in our neighbourhood, in our work, even in our own families, who have different religious beliefs to us, different political outlooks, have very different lifestyles… I think a lot of it is to do with the fact that she is a woman. There’s a lot of evidence now that women take more abuse on social media than others in public life, I think that has been well evidenced.”

Have Yousaf's opponents made a terrible mistake by ousting him for Swinney? – Euan McColm

Whiteford is right. Even after nearly ten years of a woman in charge of Scotland, and many more in senior positions in business, the public sector and the arts, a strong whiff of misogyny pervades Scottish public life. What many, otherwise serious, people have failed to understand about the transgender debate of recent years – deliberately or otherwise – is that Scottish women are angry, not because a few blokes think they were ‘born in the wrong body’, but because our very humanity has been traded for political gain.

We don’t care how men dress, or what name they choose to adopt, but when politicians insist that an adult human female is only a ‘concept’, they reduce womanhood to nothing more than a figment of a man’s febrile imagination, an easy target for those men who have never come to terms with equality of the sexes. It is misogyny on HRT.

Contempt for women

Even “Honest John” Swinney, who on Thursday tried to position himself as the elder statesman with the experience and gravitas to steer the country out of the terrible mess it is in – a situation that he must take much of the blame for creating, given his senior role in government since 2007 – can’t bring himself to speak the truth about women.

When asked if a “trans woman is a woman” he responded dismissively. “If our politics is defined purely and simply by these questions, I think we are not addressing the core issues and challenges that people face in our society,” he said.

What a coward. He and his backroom boys may have congratulated themselves that they had avoided controversy over whether a woman can have a penis, but all he did was expose his contempt for 51 per cent of the population. Like it or not, Scottish politics have become defined by the ideology of gender identity in recent years, thanks in no small part to Swinney and the SNP, aided and abetted by the Scottish Greens and much of civil society. Yousaf himself admitted earlier this week that the Greens’ response to the Cass Review contributed to him ending the Bute House Agreement.

If Swinney is to be an even half-competent First Minister for the next two years, and earn the trust of the people as Forbes has suggested he will, he needs to answer the question, “what is a woman?” If he can’t stand up and say, “a woman is an adult human female", then he can’t be trusted to fix the economy or public services. He certainly can’t govern “from the mainstream”.

The ‘woman question’ may irritate Swinney. It may elicit yawns from political pundits more interested in internal party spats than real life. It may even prompt calls of ‘bigot’ and ‘transphobe’ from so-called progressives. But it is one Swinney needs to answer. So, soon-to-be First Minister, “what is a woman?”