Supreme Court gender ruling addresses elephant in the room - Sue Webber

Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville speaks to MSPs on the Scottish Government's response to the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman under equalities law, in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

The ruling was a monumental triumph for women’s groups in Scotland, who refused to accept the erosion of their rights by the cosy left-wing consensus at Holyrood.

This is one of those defining moments in history when future generations will ask, "Where were you when the ruling was announced?" Well, I was exploring the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum.

As our tour guide pointed out, that there were two separate bath complexes for men and women, I was reminded that even the Ancient Romans understood the importance of single-sex spaces as far back as 79 AD.

The majority of Scots have always believed that women are biological human females. Yet for years, SNP ministers – and the other left-wing parties at Holyrood – have point blank refused to acknowledge what should have been blatantly obvious.

A small but vocal minority of hardline gender extremists have been dictating SNP government policy for years. They claim that you are what you say you are. Their logic is, if you have a male body, but choose to identify as a female, that’s absolutely fine and you should be able to use the women’s toilets.

This understandably terrified biological women who didn’t want to share a bathroom or changing rooms with biological men, but their concerns and objections were treated with utter contempt.

Instead of listening to their views, Nicola Sturgeon arrogantly said they were “not valid” and pushed her reckless Gender Recognition Reform bill through parliament.

Nicola Sturgeon’s dangerous bill was rightly blocked by the previous UK Conservative government, but the ideology behind it had already permeated Scotland’s public bodies and institutions.

It resulted in a double rapist who claimed he was a female being sent to a women’s prison. Only when there was huge public backlash did SNP ministers backtrack and move this monster to a male prison.

But, if you asked Nicola Sturgeon, Anas Sarwar or Alex-Cole Hamilton they would probably still refuse to call him a man, you would have thought that the famous photo of him in his iconic pink leggings would have given the game away.

We’ve seen a health board taken to a tribunal by a brave nurse who refused to stay silent as a male-bodied colleague used the women’s changing room and a rape crisis charity worker who faced dismissal for saying that a woman is a woman and a man is a man.

It is time for NHS Fife to back down before its already shattered reputation falls further into disrepute

After last week’s verdict, this nonsense needs to stop right now.

The SNP aren’t the only party at fault. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Greens supported the Nationalists as they tried desperately to strip women and girls of their rights.

But the onus is on John Swinney as First Minister of Scotland, to apologise for the upset and anxiety that his party’s obsession with gender self-ID has caused.

He must issue an immediate directive instructing all public bodies to uphold the court’s ruling by providing single-sex spaces for biological women.

Sue Webber, Scottish Conservative MSP for Lothian Region