@blueberryporridge
I appreciate that there remain concerns about this legislation, and I am always willing to engage in the spirit of good faith with those who hold a differing position on this from myself. As a disabled woman and a feminist, however, it is clear to me that securing the human rights of another marginalised group takes nothing from my own.
This from the woman who is well entrenched as an SNP woke, and likes to use the transphobic card to shut down any discussion she doesn't like.
My reply to the woman well entrenched in SNP woke: (sorry about the length - you should have seen the first version):
Thank you for your email and I am encouraged that you are willing to engage in debate on this subject. However, I am not encouraged by the way SNP has treated one of your own who has expressed reservations on the party’s position. It has been extremely difficult to have any public debate, as anyone who is perceived to be gender critical or even asks questions about the consequences of current and proposed law is ‘cancelled’.
I hope I have made my position regarding trans women clear; ‘real’ trans women, I.e. those who have medically/surgically transitioned, are not likely to pose a threat. Indeed, they are likely to be as much the losers in the current climate as are women.
My main concern is that we have seen for some years now how men who intend harm to women have used loopholes in the law to access vulnerable women. We have seen it in prisons and in refuges, and we now see it in public toilets, retail changing rooms and schools.
It is possible for a man to receive a GRC without changing any aspect of his male body. The two year ‘living as a woman’ requirement has not prevented abusive men to gain a GRC and go on to assault and rape women. Reducing the time to three months will increase the numbers exponentially. As you recognise, trans women are already accessing women’s safe spaces, which mean that men in dresses are also doing so.
I am aware that SNP and the Scottish Green Party committed to the change in the law, but as both parties have signed up to Stonewall’s Equality Index, of course you would. What I am asking you, begging you, is to listen to women’s voices, particularly those who speak for the vulnerable women who cannot speak for themselves.
You say that ‘ the people of Scotland have already expressed their resounding assent to these plans’, but GRA reform was not mentioned in any of the electoral information that came through my door. Most of your votes were from those for whom Independence was the priority, and this was the main message you delivered.
Although not directly covered by the law, I am extremely concerned about the welfare of young girls. Many of the young people who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria have multiple issues and concentrating solely on their expression of ‘born in the wrong body’ is not helping them in the long term. I would hate to think that our government is not concerned about the number of young people who are encouraged to undergo traumatic surgery and hormone treatment, and about the numbers who are now detransitioning. I have teaching friends in the central belt who say 20% of their female pupils are now dressing and attempting to behave like boys. We have been aware of semantic contagion for decades and have seen the effects in e.g. self harm. Of any group of young people declaring they are transgender, there will be some who are still saying it in five, ten, twenty years’ time, but most realise it isn’t really what they feel. The problem is that no one knows initially which of these groups any individual child falls into. This is why the Government’s and Local Authorities’ ‘affirm and celebrate’ approach is so dangerous.
Stonewall has managed to infiltrate (I do not use this word lightly) so many of our public institutions, political parties and businesses that very few of you are standing back and thinking objectively about the dangers of allowing predatory men into women’s spaces. Phrases such as ‘sex assigned at birth’ and ‘same gender attraction’ have become common parlance, despite neither being correct. Words matter; sex matters.
I do hope that you have listened to the Nolan Investigates Stonewall podcast on BBC Sounds.
Please, please reconsider the GRA reform and develop a working strategy to combat the rising rates of violent crime against women and girls perpetuated by men, some of them pretending to be women.