Being called a dolly isn’t usually something one wishes to be called in Scotland.

To be hard of thinking. To be logically deficient. To be immune from the impacts of knowledge.

It’s an insult that’s usually directed towards women and is always derogatory.

But being Dolly? That’s something else entirely and I, for one, would wear the moniker with pride.

As has been the case with innumerable notable passings before, tributes are posted, tweets are drafted and even a column or two dedicated to them.

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The passing of Dolly Parton hits more deeply, though, and for good reason.

For many, especially those in our union movement, the LGBT community and beyond, there’s now a void where Dolly once stood. The world, when it needed it least, quite frankly, just got a little heavier, and the burden carried by those suffering the anguish of intolerance and persecution, who once had an unrepentant champion of women’s, gay, lesbian and transgender rights on their side, has increased with the loss of an ally.

In the context of the world in which she operated for the majority of her life, a music industry dripping in misogyny and second-class citizenship for women, coupled with a Hollywood film and TV culture that could reduce the value of women to looks and figure size alone, conformity would have been an easier route to........

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