THE SNP’s new minister for higher education appears to have been dropped just a day after being given the role, amid outcry over a blog post in which she ridiculed transgender students as “hairy knuckled lipstick-wearing transitional transgender Laydees”.
Gillian Martin, who was appointed minister for colleges, universities and science in Nicola Sturgeon’s wide-ranging reshuffle this week, also made reference to an EU “tranny trove” of cash in a blog written before she entered politics.
She was due to be confirmed as a minister in Holyrood this afternoon, but her name was removed from a list of appointments after opposition parties confirmed they would oppose her new role.
It comes after Ms Martin issued an unreserved apology, insisting: “In 2007 I wrote a blog that I deeply regret. It used language that was inappropriate and offensive.
"I expressed myself in a way that did not reflect my view then and certainly does not reflect my view now.
"That is entirely my fault and I am sorry for it. That's why, when this blog was first raised publicly two years ago, I apologised and I am more than happy to unreservedly apologise again today."
In the 2007 blog mocking political correctness in higher education, Ms Martin wrote: “Will they install a third category of loo with a special transgender sign? Are they then going to pinpoint these transgender people and make sure that they get represented fairly on all undisclosed-because-I-don’t-want-to-get-fired-establishment literature in the same way our five endlessly tolerant Asian students do or that guy with the guide dog does?
“Are we going to see lovely photos in the foyer of hairy knuckled lipstick-wearing transitional transgender Laydees being embraced by the principal of undisclosed college or visiting politicians for the press?”
She claimed college public relations staff “froth at the mouth with excitement if anyone in a wheelchair does anything that can be remotely described as an achievement”.
Elsewhere on her blog, Ms Martin, 49, said of former first minister Alex Salmond: “I know he’s a smug git but he’s our smug git.”
The MSP’s posts previously emerged when she was elected to Holyrood but had been highlighted again given her new role in Nicola Sturgeon’s team.
Her brief covering higher education included widening access to minority groups.
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