Ash Regan

Ashten Regan (formerly Denham, born Sarah Jane Regan; 8 March 1974) is a Scottish politician. She has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Edinburgh Eastern since 2016. Initially elected to parliament for the Scottish National Party (SNP), she defected to the Alba Party. Regan served under First Minister Nicola Sturgeon as the minister for community safety from 2018 until she resigned in 2022 in protest against the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill of Sturgeon's government. She identifies with gender-critical feminism.

• Amendments that could have prevented those on the sex offenders register from obtaining a gender recognition certificate (GRC) and strengthened the law on single sex prison allocation were voted down or withdrawn.
• Violent sex offenders have no place in the women's estate.
  Women's single-sex spaces for privacy, safety or therapeutic purposes are enshrined in the Equality Act 2010. These important protections will be impossible to uphold when anyone can decide they are a woman and have a GRC to prove their legal status.
  • "So many questions on new gender law still need answers", The Times (23 November 2022)
  • See the Wikipedia article on the Isla Bryson case.

• There’s an idea that I wanted to put to you. It’s not my idea but the group that came up with it have said that we should be using it in the campaign. And it’s the idea of a ‘readiness thermometer’. I don’t know if anyone’s seen that idea yet. So, the idea is you can have an actual installation which is a readiness thermometer. We could put it up in Glasgow or in Edinburgh, and it can be outside and it has a dial on it that moves. So when we’ve made all the plans for the currency for instance, or we’ve set up how we’re going to do something to do with defence, or whatever it is, that dial will move and it will inch forward. And the media can look at it, everyone can look at it, and it builds that confidence with the public so that when we get up to the 100 per cent, everybody in Scotland knows we’ve solved all these problems.
  • March 2023, reported by Alistair Grant in "Ash Regan suggests building 'thermometer' to show how ready Scotland is for independence", The Scotsman (3 March 2023)

• I think it’s welcome, I’m disappointed that unfortunately the Scottish Government has got itself into this mess to begin with, it didn’t have to do that.

• But what I will say, whilst this legislation, which is deeply unpopular with the Scottish public, is blocked for now, what I would like to see is that this legislation is withdrawn and I would like to see the Scottish Government say they will never implement this bill.
  • Comments on The Nine (BBC Scotland), as cited by Lauren Gilmour in "Robison vows 'robust' defence of parliament after gender reform appeal scrapped", The Independent (20 December 2023)
  • The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill had been blocked from receiving Royal assent by the Westminster government using the Section 35 provision of the Scotland Act 1998 as the Equality Act 2010 allows for these issues to be considered a reserved matter.

• The Minister for Equalities must now report to parliament on what steps will be taken to ensure those at the government-funded Rape Crisis Scotland, who presided over the unlawful introduction of males within their single-sex service, are accountable for their part in this damaging dereliction of duty to service users.
  • As cited by Kirsteen Paterson in "Cross-party calls for action over Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre row", Holyrood (13 September 2024)
  • On issues raised by the case of Mridul Wadhwa, former CEO of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. Wadhwa, a transwoman without a Gender Recognition Certificate (and thus legally male) was appointed CEO of the ERCC in 2021. In September 2024, a report commissioned by Rape Crisis Scotland found Wadhwa had "failed to set professional standards of behaviour".

• If you even think for one second, you cannot possibly drive prostitution underground. If you had a lot of women in underground cellars with a locked door, how would the punters get to them?
  • May 2025, reported by Hannah Brown in "Ash Regan: ‘I won't hide from prostitution issue like other MSPs'", The Herald (1 June 2025)