Scotland’s ex-first minister Nicola Sturgeon reveals her sexuality ‘isn’t binary’

Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon has opened up about her sexuality in a new memoir and related ITV interview.

Nicola Sturgeon was first minister from 2014 until her resignation in March 2023, when she also said she would not be seeking re-election as an MSP in 2026.

During her timein the role, Sturgeon was considered a strong friend of the LGBTQ+ community. She was first minister when Holyrood voted to legalise same-sex marriage in 2014 – which, she told PinkNews, was one of the proudest moments of her career – and later sought to update gender recognition laws for trans people in the devolved nation with the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. However, the plans were blocked by the then Conservative government at Westminster.

Set to be published on Thursday (14 August), Frankly “recounts her journey from working-class Ayrshire to the steps of Bute House [the first minister’s official residence]” and reveals the “person behind the politician”.

Last week, The Times exclusively revealed extracts from the book, including Sturgeon being arrested during an investigation into SNP finances, having a miscarriage, and about her sexuality, where she brought up the social media conspiracy theory that she had had a “torrid lesbian affair” with French diplomat Catherine Colonna.

Variations of the online chatter claimed the pair had a lovers’ tiff at the luxury Balmoral Hotel, in Edinburgh, and that they were set to buy a house from tennis star Andy Murray’s mum Judy.

“Normally, I wouldn’t have known [or] cared about wild stories from the darker recesses of social media, and, if this one had stayed there, it would have been easy to ignore. But, by late 2019, it was being openly talked about,” Sturgeon wrote, adding that family and friends were being asked about the allegations. Her now estranged husband Peter Murrell was questioned by a neighbour who thought “he had a right to know that his wife was having an affair”.

Although she can laugh at such rumours, she admitted wondering how “fake stories like this take root”.

Sturgeon went on to say: “For many of those peddling it, ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ are meant as insults. However, while the fact I was being lied about got under my skin, the nature of the insult itself was water off a duck’s back. Long-term relationships with men have accounted for more than 30 years of my life but I have never considered sexuality, my own included, to be binary. Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters.”

In an interview with ITV News, Sturgeon was asked about the comment regarding sexuality not being binary.

“It’s just my view of the world and life and the way people are,” she replied. “If you’re about to ask me if I am making some big revelation: no. Am I putting labels on myself, no.”

Asked if we might see her in a relationship with a woman in the future, she said had just come out of a marriage and was not “rushing into a relationship with anyone” but instead enjoying being her “own person”.

Sturgeon says she could have handled gender reforms differently

Sturgeon admitted she now believed she should have paused Scotland’s gender law reforms because of the backlash the proposed legislation faced.

Passed in December 2022after years of consultation, the bill sought to amend the2004 Gender Recognition Act to make it easier for trans Scots to change the gender markers on official documents and opened up the transition process to teenagers as young as 16.

Just a month later, theUK government announcedit would block the proposed legislation using Section 35 of the 1998 Scotland Act – an unprecedented move in the history of devolution.

At the time, Sturgeon branded the move a “full-frontal attack on democracy” and said it was an “attack on our democratically elected Scottish parliament and its ability to make its own decision on devolved matters”.

However, now, she has told ITV News: “I didn’t anticipate as much as I should, or engage as much as I should, on some of the concerns that might then be triggered. At the point I knew it was becoming, or felt it becoming, as polarised I should have said, ‘Right, let’s pause, let’s take a step back’.”

However, she still believes that “the rights of women and the interests of trans people are not irreconcilable”, she added.

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