A woman in Scotland was reportedly kicked out of a government transgenderism debate on Tuesday for wearing a scarf bearing colours associated with the early-20th-century suffragette movement.
The woman was reportedly attending via the public gallery a meeting of Scotland’s Equality Committee, when she was reportedly kicked out after refusing to take off her multicoloured scarf. It has been observed that while the historic votes-for-women garment was considered déclassé, the several people wearing LGBT rainbow lanyards at the meeting were not told to leave.
Led by the left-nationalist Scottish National Party, the UK home nation’s devolved government has been one of the foremost drivers of transgender politics in Britain and is currently pushing for the passing of more laws that would further allow biological males to be treated as women in various settings.
Some fear that such pro-transgender reforms will endanger women by allowing men to gain access to what were formally single-sex facilities, such as changing rooms and women’s shelters.
The evil piece of clothing. pic.twitter.com/6PJSXfe0qx
— Obsolesence (@Obsolesence) November 15, 2022
According to a report by The Telegraph, it was at a committee debate discussing these further reforms that the woman, who is said to have been wearing a green, white, and purple striped scarf, was ordered to leave the public gallery on Tuesday.
With the publication noting that the colours of the scarf were originally associated with the early 20th-century suffragette movement that fought to get women the right to vote, they have reportedly been adopted by modern feminists in Scotland who oppose the government’s push to put men into women’s spaces.
The woman is said to have refused to take off the scarf when asked, and as such was removed from the chamber under the justification that the wearing of the item of clothing was “unacceptable” due to it being associated with a political movement.
However, The Telegraph claims that a number of people in the chamber at the time of the woman’s ejection — including politicians sitting on the committee itself — were wearing colours associated with political movements in the form of rainbow-coloured lanyards.
The publication also claims that, while the display of “banners and slogans” are banned within the committee chamber, there are no such rules governing politically associated colours on clothes.
Such an observation appears to have been verified by the Scottish parliament itself, which has now admitted that the woman was removed unlawfully.
Scottish Parliament's Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone apologises after parliament security tell woman wearing scarf with suffragette colours to take it off or leave, then refuse to allow her back in to meeting on gender self-ID law https://t.co/32eAKR1T8w pic.twitter.com/lIszX6VTMl
— Chris Musson (@ChrisMusson) November 15, 2022
“Let me make one thing clear, suffrage colours are not, and never have been, banned at the Scottish parliament,” a statement by the parliament’s presiding officer, Alison Johnstone, on the matter reportedly read.
“I would like to advise the Chamber that the action taken this morning was not prompted by any members of the Committee,” she continued. “The action taken was an error, and I would like to apologise on behalf of the parliament. The”wearing of a scarf in those colours does not, in itself, breach the visitor code of conduct.”
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