FORMER Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale has been named Politician of the Year at a prestigious award ceremony celebrating diversity and the LGBTQI community.
The Lothians MSP also made her first appearance with her partner, SNP MSP Jenny Gulruith, at the annual Icon Awards.
Ms Dugdale only publicly revealed she was gay in April last year, during the Holyrood election campaign.
Last month the 35-year-old announced she was stepping down as leader of the Scottish Labour Party.
He friend Gordon Aikman, a Labour Party activist who died earlier this year after battling Motor Neuron Disease, was posthumously awarded the Icon award for his "courage, bravery and fundraising".
His husband, Joe Pike, collected the award on his behalf.
Other winners include Jordan Daly, the co-founder of the Tie Campaign for LGBTI inclusive education, and Paralympic gold medallist Gordon Reid MBE.
Scott Barclay, one half of the first same sex couple to be married in Scotland and Chair of the Icon Awards said that over the last three years the award has received "unprecedented support.
He said: "We are proud to be the largest event of it’s kind in Scotland that celebrate’s those who have championed diversity and inclusion in our education system, workplaces and communities.
"I am proud that Scotland doesn’t just tolerate diversity but we celebrate it and tonight’s ceremony shows the world how proud we are."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel