"Nicola Sturgeon said the abuse she faced for trying to overhaul transgender laws helped convince her to quit as Scotland’s first minister.

"The former Scottish National Party leader, who resigned suddenly last year, said she’d received more abuse for her plans to make it easier for people to legally change their gender than on any other issue.

"Speaking at the Charleston literary festival in Sussex this weekend, Sturgeon said 'it seems like everyone in society is raining down on trans people' — and that they were increasingly being used as 'a battering ram' in political debate.

“'I’ve had more abuse hurled at me over the issue of trans rights than probably any other issue I’ve discussed, including Scottish independence probably, so it has been really, really difficult,' she said, according to a report by the Daily Telegraph.

"Scotland’s gender reform plans have been mired in controversy.

"The government wanted to lower the age people could change their legal gender from 18 to 16, remove the requirement of a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and reduce the time people had to live in an acquired gender. But it faced pushback from the U.K. government who blocked the bill for treading on reserved powers."