Scotland Is Now the First Country to Require LGBTQ+ History in Schools
September 27, 2021 8:26 AM   Subscribe

 
My queer self, born to Scottish parents in England, is screaming!
posted by ellieBOA at 8:27 AM on September 27, 2021 [8 favorites]


as a many-generations-removed Scot (so far removed it's really laughable to type this sentence) who began their life in Nova Scotia before moving westward, I can only say this is some great news on a Monday. I indulge in a few silly practices in keeping a tenuous connection to my Scottish heritage alive, and it's just great to celebrate good and decent news like this. Cheers to all of us!
posted by elkevelvet at 8:30 AM on September 27, 2021


Well well well!
posted by ikahime at 9:22 AM on September 27, 2021


Sìos na coimhich bhorb gur bas!
Sreath gun ìochd – gach ceann thig 'bhàin,
Saorsa thig an lorg gach stràic.
Buaidh no bàs man till.
posted by dazed_one at 9:50 AM on September 27, 2021


The SNP has been getting hammered by the small-but-vocal TERF contingent in the UK/Scotland and their abetters in the media. They seem to be standing firm in their support for all queer people, unlike the dubious situation with Labour. It's been heartening to see. (Shout-out to the Scottish Greens also.)
posted by feckless at 9:59 AM on September 27, 2021 [18 favorites]


And voters in Switzerland have overwhelmingly endorsed same-sex marriage. If I'm reading the Wikipedia article correctly, that leaves Italy as the only major country in Western Europe yet to legalize it.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:00 AM on September 27, 2021 [3 favorites]


And I already woke up this morning thinking about much I wanted to go back to Scotland once the international travel thing feels like a thing I can do again. This is absolutely marvelous news.
posted by thivaia at 10:46 AM on September 27, 2021


To back up what feckless wrote above (I live in Edinburgh, am married to an SNP member): SNP politics prior to the May 2021 election was dominated by an acrimonious spat between two factions—the mainstream center-left parliamentary party (who run the Scottish government), and the right wing fringe. (Prior to the late 1980s the SNP were disparagingly known as the Tartan Tories; then, as Labour support in Scotland gradually ebbed, the SNP moved left to occupy the dominant—i.e. center-left—ground in Scottish politics.) In particular, there was a very personal, very bitter split between disgraced former leader Alex Salmond and current leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Salmond finally left to form his own pro-independence party, Alba ... and the right-wing zoomers, homophobes, and TERFs followed him. (Alba then sank like a stone at the election.)

The result is an SNP with far fewer TERFs than a couple of years ago: the most notable hold out is Joanna Cherry MP, who—in addition to being a TERF—is a very out of the closet lesbian and feminist. (I speculate: the increasingly clear links between the GCs and the alt-right and the homophobic religious right, mean that the cognitive dissonance has got to be deafening, and at some point soon I expect her to break—not sure in which direction, though.)

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Scottish Green Party, which is in de-facto coalition with the SNP, and had its own internal run-in with TERFs last year.
posted by cstross at 11:02 AM on September 27, 2021 [14 favorites]


Thanks for the additional context cstross and feckless!
posted by ellieBOA at 11:13 AM on September 27, 2021


Alba

... is that a dogwhistle or just a whistle?
posted by away for regrooving at 11:23 AM on September 27, 2021


Having grown up in Scotland under the shadow of Section 2A (and had a lot of mince left in my head as a result), it's great to see the opposite tack now being taken.

the Scottish Green Party... had its own internal run-in with TERFs last year.
I was very unhappy to see Andy Wightman in particular fall for the GC psyop. You'd think the guy that wrote Who Owns Scotland would be better at following the money.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:22 PM on September 27, 2021 [2 favorites]


(Prior to the late 1980s the SNP were disparagingly known as the Tartan Tories

A party that was furious that Scotland was being run from English golf courses when it should have been run from Scottish ones.

Also, there was something quite Presbyterian about the old SNP which was rightly seen with deep suspicion by working class Catholic voters in Glasgow and elsewhere who are now quite a strong base of SNP support.

The modern SNP still has that politically protean quality that all independence parties have (since the idea of independence is such a strong organising principle, it can keep people with wildly different ideas on almost anything else together). It won't survive independence in its current form, but I think most members would accept that. Why should it after all? I imagine it would end up as a substantial party of centre leftish liberals based on its current core membership and eject a lot of crackpot flotsam in all kinds of directions.
posted by atrazine at 12:33 PM on September 27, 2021


i have a small, secret wish in my heart that Scotland goes independent and offers an ancestry visa that I am eligible for.

my family come from McDonald clan -- that's like Smith over there, they are all over, but one Uncle did the genealogical research to track down which clan it was, exactly. Turns out we are descended from these Macdonalds. My father and uncle went to Glencoe to see the place where it all happened, said it was intense but wonderful.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:21 PM on September 27, 2021 [2 favorites]


^ an aunt of mine was quite into the genealogical research.. when she was given an audience with the ancestral laird (Mac--- of A Place) the laird in question was in fact away, and it was the Lady Mac--- who received my aunt and uncle. This person proceeded to be quite shirty with my aunt: apparently the Nova Scotia Mac---s had been delinquent in paying their dues (are clan dues a thing?) and she made a pretty awful comment about "the Black Mac---s" of Nova Scotia (apparently some NS Mac---s married people of the Wrong Colour?).

I love to romanticize my Scots heritage, but that particular brand of Mac--- bs? nae so much
posted by elkevelvet at 2:31 PM on September 27, 2021 [1 favorite]


away for regrooving, If you are worried about Alba meaning white, almost certainly not a dogwhistle - it's the Gaelic word for Scotland from the 800s or so.

After the new party was announced it became clear they hadn't agreed how to pronounce the party name, which was amusing.
posted by hfnuala at 2:54 PM on September 27, 2021 [5 favorites]


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