Joan McAlpine

In February 2019, McAlpine tweeted explaining her belief that the Scottish census should record biological sex in order to monitor sex discrimination, and questioning the influence of key stakeholders in the Scottish government's consultation process.[18] This led to her receiving online abuse including threats from some claiming to be SNP members that they would attempt to deselect her as a MSP, despite the fact that no deselection mechanism exists within the SNP.[19] Her claims about the funding and role of several women's organisations led to the publication of an open-letter rebuking her claims, signed by organisations including Engender Scotland, Equate Scotland and Close the Gap.[20] In May 2019, McAlpine's invitation for radical feminist Meghan Murphy to speak at Holyrood caused further controversy as a result of Murphy's perceived trans-exclusionary views.[21] Writing in The Spectator, Stephen Daisley described McAlpine as "gender critical" and described the negative reaction she had received for her stance.[20]

In 2019, the Scottish Parliament debated the Census (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill regarding a proposal from National Records of Scotland (NRS) to include a non-binary sex option on the 2021 UK census in Scotland.[22] Prior to the debate, the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee, of which McAlpine was the convenor, published a "highly critical" report, decrying the lack of consultation with women's groups and stating that this had led the NRS to conflate sex and gender identity.[22] Speaking during the Stage 3 debate of the Census (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill, McAlpine quoted Simone de Beauvoir, criticising the fact that "Stonewall's trans umbrella includes people with no medical treatment who refute the contention that they have a psychological condition" and stated that she "reject[s] the concept of innate gender identity".[23] Following the debate, McApline wrote an article published in The Times newspaper, stating that she believed women would be erased "as a biological sex class" if a non-binary sex option were to be included.[24] McAlpine did, however, vote in favour of the bill, which was passed unanimously.[22][25]

In November 2019, it was announced that McAlpine and Labour MSP Jenny Marra would be hosting an event on behalf of the "Women's Human Rights Campaign", an international campaign that launched in New York in March 2019. The campaign states that its focus is on "the importance of keeping the current sex based definition of woman". The announcement was met with criticism from some feminist and LGBT groups, including Engender, The Equality Network and the Scottish Trans Alliance, who expressed their concerns that the Campaign's aims would breach Human Rights law, and in particular the rights of transgender people. However, a spokeswoman for the Campaign reiterated that their aim was to "re-affirm women’s sex-based rights, as set out in international human rights documents".[26]