Iris Duane: Green's bid to become first trans woman of colour MP

Not only will this be her first time standing for Westminster, it is the first time she has been old enough to vote in a general election.

“My parents were very like, we always knew you wanted to get into politics, but first time?”

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The student is standing for the Scottish Greens in the new Glasgow North constituency.

The seat’s precursor was held by the SNP’s Patrick Grady, who was deselected by his party after a Alison Thewliss, previously the SNP for Glasgow Central will fight the election for the party, her old constituency having been abolished.

What makes the constituency interesting is that it takes in the University of Glasgow and much of city’s West End, where students make up a sizeable chunk of the population.

However, on July 4, many of those students will be away for the summer.

Many might not have postal votes organised and others might want to vote at home.

The most recent MRP poll for YouGov said the result was a “tossup” between Labour and the SNP.

The Greens, the pollster suggested, will be a distant third.

When the Herald on Sunday suggests her chances of winning are slim, Ms Duane politely but firmly pushes back.

“There are certainly some challenges that our party faces that the larger parties don't, especially as they have a lot of money so they can basically do what they want.

“But I wouldn't say it's slim.

“You know, 100 years ago, we said that about the Labour Party and now they're the dominant force, they replaced the Liberals.

“Not that long ago that was said about the SNP. They've just had 16 years of government and they had almost every seat in Scotland in the last general election.

“I mean, in 2010, everyone was saying, you know, the SNP can't win.

“Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it's not going to happen.”

It has been a difficult few months for the Greens. There have been splits, some public, some behind closed doors.

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And there has been the collapse of the Bute House Agreement and the end of the party’s place in government.

Humza Yousaf took the decision to end the power-sharing deal after the Scottish Greens prepared to put it to a vote of members.

It was very much him dumping the Greens before they dumped him. Ultimately it brought his time as first minister to an end.

(Image: Gordon Terris/H&T)

“There were disagreements within the party [over the agreement]” says Ms Duane. “What I will say is we've definitely as a party recalibrated on our direction.

“We're now a party of opposition in Holyrood.”

“Our MSPs did some great work in government,” she adds, “And there were some things that the membership weren't happy with.”

She says Mr Yousaf’s decision to torpedo the agreement “prematurely” means the party never really had that discussion.

Though there were splits, it is not clear how widespread those splits are.

“We were being tied to government that often it might have been that we were giving a progressive veneer to a government that wasn't quite as committed to the progressive policies that we as a party are.

“And I can understand that would probably be very difficult for MSPs considering the platform they were elected on and the things that I know they really believe in.”

“You never know we might end up back in government in 2026 in Holyrood,” she adds.

Parliament has had an openly trans MP before. In 2022, Tory Jamie Wallis wrote on his website: "I’m trans. Or to be more accurate, I want to be"

Ms Duane says she has received many messages from young queer people thanking her for standing in the election and “putting up the good fight.”

“I am just me. I'm very much this is just who I am. And I refuse to be placed into a box.

“What I will say is it has given me a significant amount more abuse than some of my fellow candidates in this race.”

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Ms Duane says she is so used to the social media abuse that she no longer notices it.

“I've built this resilience that I don't really see it anymore. I turn off all my notifications. I do have people that look through it to make sure that I'm not in any immediate danger.

“There have been times where there have been credible death threats made against me.

“But apart from that, you know, I'm not ashamed of who I am.

“I'm also not just my immutable characteristics. I'm also a person outside of that.”

She also believes that much of the political argument around trans issues is more to do with parties trying to distract from their record in government.

She points to the UK Government’s decision to block the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.

MSPs passed the legislation in December 2022 by 86 votes to 39 on a cross-party basis.

The law was supposed to speed up and simplify the process for a trans person to obtain a gender recognition certificate and change their legal sex.

Under the current system, this takes at least two years, involves a medical diagnosis and is only available at 18.

Holyrood’s Bill would have cut the waiting time to six months, scrapped the need for medical diagnosis and lowered the age threshold to 16.

However, before it could become law, Scottish Secretary Alister Jack blocked it by using the first-ever order under Section 35 of the 1998 Scotland Act.

He argued that although the subject matter was within Holyrood’s powers, the Bill would hurt the operation of UK-wide equality law.

The Scottish Government’s attempt to have that decision set aside by the courts was unsuccessful, with Lady Haldane saying there was nothing to lead her to conclude that Mr Jack had acted unreasonably or unlawfully.

Ms Duane questions the UK Government’s motives for using the Section 35 order.

“Westminster blocked a Scottish Parliament law for headlines, essentially. That's genuinely my belief. They've got a different headline, and not because they found anything wrong with the policy. I mean, it was, up until Theresa May left office, a Tory policy.

“That just shows you how much in the last few years it's very much become this hot topic that can be used for any failures in government.”

Ms Duane says the abuse she receives has intensified with her being trans but she has also grown up with discrimination.

“My mum is a dark skinned black woman. She also faced this discrimination.

“We refuse to be locked out of any opportunities. I deserve to be in the room just as much as any other person deserves to be in a room and I'm going to put myself forward in this election and you know hopefully the people in Glasgow North think that I can represent them.

“And I'm not going to let my immutable characteristics get in the way.”