Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon has revealed that she does not consider sexuality to be binary, opening up about her personal life in her forthcoming memoir Frankly and a related ITV News interview.
Sturgeon, who led Scotland from 2014 until stepping down in March 2023, has long been regarded as a strong ally of the LGBTQ+ community. She was first minister when Holyrood legalised same-sex marriage in 2014 — a moment she has described as one of her proudest achievements — and later championed the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, aimed at making it easier for trans people to update their legal gender. The bill, however, was blocked by the UK’s Conservative government.
Frankly, due for release on Thursday (14 August), charts her journey from working-class Ayrshire to Bute House and offers an intimate portrait of her life behind the political stage. Extracts published by The Times last week touched on her arrest during an SNP finances investigation, her experience of miscarriage, and her reflections on sexuality — including her response to a persistent online rumour alleging a “torrid lesbian affair” with French diplomat Catherine Colonna.
The conspiracy theory, she writes, began on social media but by late 2019 was being discussed openly, with friends and family questioned about it. Sturgeon says her then-husband, Peter Murrell, was even approached by a neighbour who claimed he “had a right to know.”
While she was bothered by the dishonesty, she was unfazed by the suggestion she might be gay. “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,” she writes. “Moreover, sexual relationships should be private matters.”
Speaking to ITV News, Sturgeon clarified: “It’s just my view of the world and life and the way people are… Am I making some big revelation? No. Am I putting labels on myself? No.” Asked if she might have a relationship with a woman in future, she said she had just come out of a marriage and was enjoying being her “own person.”
The memoir also revisits Scotland’s gender law reforms. Sturgeon admits she should have considered pausing the legislation when backlash intensified. The bill, passed in December 2022, sought to lower the minimum age for gender recognition to 16 and streamline the process. In January 2023, the UK government blocked it using Section 35 of the Scotland Act — a first in the history of devolution.
Reflecting now, Sturgeon says: “At the point I knew it was becoming… polarised I should have said, ‘Right, let’s pause, let’s take a step back.’” Still, she maintains: “The rights of women and the interests of trans people are not irreconcilable.”
