THE CO-LEADER of the Scottish Greens has hit back at criticism of his colleague for calling out transphobia – labelling the backlash “wild overreactions”.

Patrick Harvie has defended fellow co-leader of the party, Lorna Slater amid calls for her to resign as a Scottish Government minister after comparing those with transphobic views to racists and antisemites.

In an interview for the Herald on Sunday, Ms Slater said that the the backlash against the trans community was reminiscent of 1990s America and “ridiculous bathroom laws”.

The Lothians MSP said: “We wouldn’t put balance on the question of racism or antisemitism.

“But we allow this fictional notion of balance when it comes to anti-trans [views]."

She also said that opposition to plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act was being partly funded by “certain right-wing American groups”.

All Holyrood parties, except the Scottish Conservatives, support the Scottish Government’s proposals to reform gender recognition that would lead to the system used by transgender people to obtain a certificate legally recognising their acquired gender to be simplified and sped up.

Speaking at the Greens’ manifesto launch for the local elections, Ms Slater failed to clear up which groups she was referring to as transphobic.

She said: “There is broad consensus in Scotland that there is no space for transphobia in Scotland. We should not be giving platforms to bigotry and hate.

“Of course, we are looking forward to respectful discussion around the GRA reforms and that’s what we’ll be doing in parliament.”

Mr Harvie told journalists that he did not think Ms Slater should resign and came to her defence.

Asked if his colleague should quit her government role, he said: “Clearly not. I mean, I’ve seen some rather wild overreactions.

“Lorna was very clear that transphobia is unacceptable and compared it to other forms of prejudice which is a fair and reasonable thing to do.

“If we do want to have the respectful debate that has been called for, we should recognise that transphobia does exist.”

Mr Harvie added: “There are certainly people who feel that they don’t know quite what language to use or feel unclear about some of those issues.

“That’s the case with every form of prejudice and as we tackle prejudice on a range of different fronts, there are some people who understand that that’s the right thing to do but aren’t quite sure how they should talk about it yet.

“Sadly there are always a few people who are openly expressing prejudice and that is causing confusion. So that’s happened on pretty much every other aspect for the fight for equality and human rights. It’s happening again and we should face down genuine prejudice and have a respectful debate.”

Asked if those who advocate for shared spaces that could exclude transgender people are transphobic, Mr Harvie said: “There are already exemptions in the Equality Act where the exclusion of transgender people is deemed to be necessary for supporting the means for a legitimate purpose, and that’s not changed.”

Meghan Gallacher, the Scottish Conservatives gender reform spokeswoman, and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, the chair of Alex Salmond’s Alba party, have both written to the First Minister to make a formal complaint and asked her to refer Ms Slater’s comments to the independent advisers on the Ministerial Code.

In her letter, Ms Ahmed-Sheikh said: “As a woman of colour, who has been subjected to racism throughout my entire life, I find it abhorrent that Ms Slater believes those of us that do not support your legislative agenda, and wish to defend the sex-based rights of women, are ourselves somehow akin to racists or anti-Semites.”