Forensic medicine Bill Scotland

It was evidence from Rape Crisis Scotland and some really brave women who shared their stories that convinced the committee that female examiners were of paramount importance.

Yet, while RCS are rightly celebrating that many recommendations have been taken on board, they are saying nothing about this sex/gender issue despite the centrality to the evidence they themselves presented.

It isn't hard to see why. The CEO of RCS was, only a few days ago, threatening to report women for questioning why she was prepared to appoint males to supposedly female only positions in the organisation. She has made it clear that she believes being a woman is wholly dependent on self-id. It's a horrible betrayal.

Has anyone already emailed their MSP about this who wouldn’t mind sharing their text? I don’t want to copy it as I want it to be personal but a starting point would be really helpful as I’m not as good at these things as some others are!

"You'd have to be a complete sociopath to be male, and determined to work with women rape victims who have specified that they only want female provision. Precisely the sort of person, in fact, who has no place in any such role."

Thank you, wellbehavedwomen. I agree 100%, not just as a woman working on the outskirts of this field, but as an empathetic human being.

I don't even know how I'd feel if I ever encountered a transwoman practitioner who felt that they were suitable for (entitled to?) this role.

Revolted, tbh. /awaits deletion.

And for anyone reading this who assumes that this is never going to happen in practice, and that this claim is an over-wrought over-reaction: you're wrong. And the wording has been deliberately altered to allow this.

This is saying that when it comes to the intimate vaginal examination of rape victims, their feelings matter less than the feelings of any males who want to intimately examine those rape victims, just as long as those males assert a woman's gender identity.

You'd have to be a complete sociopath to be male, and determined to work with women rape victims who have specified that they only want female provision. Precisely the sort of person, in fact, who has no place in any such role.

Males are prioritised over females, even in this context, as soon as the trans figleaf is applied. It's almost as though they know precisely who is who, and who matters most, isn't it?

Byebyetrump Yup! Welcome to progressive regressive Scotland.

If people are writing to their MSPs, please ask them to forward your concerns on to Jeane Freeman, Cabinet Secretary for Health. She is named on the Government document which turned down the committee's recommendation for gender to be changed to sex.

This is beyond fucked up.

Wilfully refusing to correct gender to sex is willfully keeping a safeguarding loophole open.

I’m in Scotland. Why the fuck do they keep doing this?

It’s becoming increasingly clear that there is a strong misogynistic drive in the SNP, and the Greens, and no effective opposition.

I’m going to get on this and write to everyone. Shared the bill to my sm and no one interested 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think people are scared to comment. And also just don’t believe the proposed legislation as it seems so ludicrous.

Betsy A scheme to increase the number of female examiners that is not restricted to FEMALE practitioners?? Have I understood you correctly?

Well that's the next problematic area Bybyetrump. As part of their aim to increase the number of female examiners the Scottish Government is funding a specialised training course at Queen Margaret's University in Edinburgh. The first course starts in January.

However, ForwomenScot have confirmed that the places on this course are open to all - they are not restricted to females only. And of course they are, as how can the Uni make use of Schedule 9 of the Equality Act to make it a genuine occupation requirement that they be female ie. SEX, when the Forensic Bill says gender!

Having been involved in the (non-forensic) medical care of sexual assault survivors - I just wanted to note that male survivors often also will express a preference to be examined by females. By default, in the service where I work, sexual assault survivors are assigned to the care of female practitioners unless requesting otherwise. But we don't have any trans practitioners. Yet.

I'm not in Scotland, but it's stuff like this - and the discovery of this board! - that has making me seriously consider undertaking forensic exam training. (I'm a bona fide cunty woman, fwiw).

Thanks for suggesting that fatblackcatspaw. Definitely worth doing.

The cruelty of specifying gender and not sex cannot be underestimated. Evidence given by Rape Crisis Scotland states that “the single most common complaint we hear from survivors of sexual crime about their experience of the forensic examination is lack of access to female doctors”

seeing rape victims as collateral damage in your path to a brave new post modernist world takes a certain lack of humanity no?

admirably clearly written article. very clear about the sex of men who wish to examine rape victims. Their gender is irrelevant.

Ah yes, the newest civil rights frontier! Male people simply MUST have the right to attend female rape survivors who have asked for a female doctor

Sadistic. It takes a real fucked up person/mind to force traumatised women to be attended to, possibly intimately, by a male against their wishes. There's a word for people who get a kick out of that.

Indeed. Never lose sight of the fact that many men like that exist in the world, and that women often enable them.

I think a thing I read the other day is pertinent.

The whole thing is considered in terms of, often men, thinking how hard it is to be a GNC male. They automatically empathise with their own sex and think wow yeah that's really hard let's help.

The impact on the women in the mix is not even considered.

Sadistic. It takes a real fucked up person/mind to force traumatised women to be attended to, possibly intimately, by a male against their wishes. There's a word for people who get a kick out of that.

It's basically taking away women's consent, isn't it? Their choices will be to reluctantly accept a male, potentially leading to more mental trauma, or reject and be labelled a hateful bigot, maybe even have their refusal to deny reality recorded against them as a hate crime

If they ask for a woman, it should mean woman. Sex and gender are not, and never will be, the same thing.

Oh and thank you Betsy for the link.

I simply can't understand why they keep doing this.

They know what they're saying and what the questions and consequences could/ will be.

What's in it for these lawmakers etc?

The prisons thing in various countries including England is bonkers. Ask any passer by what the consequences of putting an intact male convicted of rape into a women's prison could well be and they will immediately know what the risk is.

But it's fucking happened. Policies quietly changed etc.

What happened to common sense? So many people involved. And it still happened with barely a peep.

That's what I find very unsettling and depressing. Do so many people care do very little about women and girls? Answer seems to be yes.