31 Jan 15:15 Women & Equalities Committee - Scottish GRR Bill

Kirstie Allsop didn't believe @ TheCountessIE (org campaigning for single sex spaces in Ireland) describing two males' behaviour in a woman's prison last night and appealed to the bbc and guardian for clarification as she "doesn't always believe what's written on twitter."

Ireland: At least two of the men in the women’s wing ( capacity 28) in Limerick prison in Ireland, are sex offenders. They scream at female inmates in a sexual manner who then get sent to their cell should they complain. These women have already endured a lifetime of male abuse.

https://twitter.com/kirstiemallsopp/status/1620359132363767808?s=46&t=0cWeX_X0vxNl00Lpt1RS7Q

I tend to believe very little of what I read on Twitter, but if this is true it is wrong. Perhaps @guardian & @BBCr4today two news outlets I tend to trust, could look into it?

so which U.K. media outlets have covered the evidence session?
i can’t see anything in the Guardian or Bbc online. Surprise!

No.

It starts from the basis that predatory men will lie and cheat their way into women’s spaces.

Watching Bernard's post to see if it lasts the course... 👀

That is a good point, but what about the prevalence of facial feminisation surgery? It seems to be the ‘go to’, right after silicone implants.

I also imagine FFS, being so radical, would be very popular with dodgy men with a dodgy past who want to escape their mugshots in the papers catching up with them.

I know that our eyes would tell us something is off - irl, off camera, you can tell if someone has had plastic surgery, and with FFS you would be able to see the scar along the hairline. You would see also things in the body, the gait, that didn’t match.

But if this man was insistent they were a woman so forcefully that you started to question yourself, it would be much simpler if you could say “please bring in your birth certificate and photo ID” and for the birth certificate to have not been falsified.

As Nick Timothy said:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/22/britain-becoming-sick-trans-debate-facts-can-cure/

"The legislation is part of a trend in which transgenderism and gender fluidity are normalised and made mainstream in culture. This is the kind of cultural context in which charities like Mermaids and even the NHS through its Tavistock clinic helped young people to make irreversible decisions to change their bodiess_. It is how governing bodies allow female sports to be ruined by trans athletes. It is how the BBC website joyfully writes up stories about children becoming drag queens, and cross-dressing men are invited to read to primary school pupils in schools and libraries.
It is how nobody stops to ask how many such men are moved to act in these ways through their own sexual desire. Autogynephilia, the feeling of sexual arousal some men feel as they pretend to be women, is according to some researchers behind many or even most cases of gender dysphoria among those born as men. It is legitimate to ask whether non-consenting women ought to be participants in such sexual fantasies."

From the Times article

A legal expert has warned Scotland’s controversial gender laws will provide men “who cross-dress for erotic purposes” with a “magic certificate” to access women’s spaces.

so we can definitely say it’s a fetish now, right?

but called on Holyrood and Westminster to agree a gender law that protected such spaces."

I’d like to see a discussion around how this could actually be achieved in reality. HOW do service providers keep ALL men out including TW whilst being certain they are not breaking the law. It should be straight forward to do and routinely used. If a change to the equality act is required this should be done BEFORE reform of the GRA is done.

By Murdo Fraser MSP (Tory). Ouch...

www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/gender-recognition-reform-bill-may-be-nicola-sturgeons-poll-tax-moment-murdo-fraser-4007802

Schools now do enhanced searches on Google which rely on previous names given voluntarily.

If neither is in dbs or application, there's a definite loophole.

And if prison stats are to be believed 'trans identifying males'; (which could be people with dysphoria or male predators abusing the system) are convicted of and imprisoned x5 more than men.

And if Scotland has its way, grcs issued with zero gatekeeping. Medical diagnosis etc.

Too fucking right we are examining this.

I started teaching in 2002 just after the Soham murders. I've seen all these checks and laws come in as a direct result of major safeguarding failures; Soham kick started a lot if it form my memory - formal safeguarding training where scenarios and examples were given.

We were taught to be suspicious and collect niggles. We had triplicate books, now it's online apps. Information is kept for 100 years due to historical csa cases. No sacred castes, including teachers and heads.

On the thread linked above RMW says

There is no loophole. Trans individuals are checked to the same standards as anyone else. But the certificate does not reveal previous identity to the recipient organisation if the individual does not want it revealed. Perhaps all those expressing (misguided) outrage might want to put down their megaphones and examine their reasons for jumping to the conclusions they have?

The whole country are examining those reasons right now.

Trans law is a ‘magic key’ for predators

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0e198896-a1ba-11ed-befb-a61c39e55892?shareToken=797b8375b2266231eb66c322ec2dabe5

"Cunningham said: “The mental picture when that legislation was passed was of someone who would not cause any upset in a women-only changing room, toilet, ward or prison, because everyone would just accept he was a woman. Events of the last few days should have made it vivid to everybody that that is not the cohort we are dealing with now. The trans umbrella is now taken to include people . . . who cross-dress for erotic purposes.”

Bryson enrolled in a beauty course at Ayrshire College’s Kilwinning Campus while awaiting trial. Cunningham said a GRC would make it more difficult for course providers to stop Bryson taking part in intimate beauty treatments such as applying fake tan. She said: “He would have this magic certificate that says he is woman . . . Nobody is allowed to mention that he is really a man.”

Lord Falconer, who served as justice secretary under Tony Blair, dismissed Cunningham’s claim that a GRC was “a key” to women’s spaces, but called on Holyrood and Westminster to agree a gender law that protected such spaces."

What I have never understood is that if TWAW they should know that they need to 'be kind' and to budge up if men tell them to. I amnot seeing a lot of that.

(Disclaimer, there have been some TW who got womens concerns from the start. We hear less of Fionne Orlander or RoseofDawn and others now, but credit to them for calling out some worst behaviours of some TW way back when self ID started kicking off.)

Men can be predatory torwards women, way to frequently.

Men cannot be women.

Therefore any man saying that are a woman is lying.

So why would I trust them? It's not like I trust any other group of men. What's so different about this group that i should assume they are truthful and harmless?

Once again a poster starts from the basis that transwomen will lie and cheat their way into women’s spaces so we need a fool-proof way to guard against that. Isn’t rather transphobic to make out transwomen are predatory in this way? Surely if they know they are single sex spaces for women that they are not allowed in then they would respect that and stay out? Wouldn’t they?

Sal ? uses facial recognition technology for her app giggle.

Those of use without this technology can use eyeballs which can also see things.

Yikes

I've just started re-reading the thread I posted above.
I was a bit surprised to see barrister of the hour RMW on there after only 12 posts!!

It’s like it the privacy clause was written to get around ‘List 99’.

Here's a link to the KPSS report -

kpssinfo.org/reports/

Interesting to see that the idea of the DBS started in 2002 as part of the DfE.

In May 2002, the Department for Education began maintaining a list of individuals who are not suitable to work with children. This list was originally named List 99, later named the ISA Children's Barred List (maintained by the Independent Safeguarding Authority) and finally, the DBS Children's Barred List (maintained by the Disclosure and Barring Service.[13]

Under the Care Standards Act (2000), the Department for Health introduced an adult version of List 99 named 'POVA first' on 26 July 2004,[14] this was later renamed 'ISA Adult First' and finally; 'DBS Adult First'. The Adult first and List 99 services allow registered bodies (when eligible) to check whether an applicant appears on the DBS Adults' or Children's Barred List through the online checking system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disclosure_and_Barring_Service

That’s a year before the Sexual Offences ACT

Which was a year before the GRA

Been doing some searching, here's the thread I was thinking of

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3690840-Reply-from-Home-Office-re-DBS-and-GRC#90058244

i know.

I would really love to interrogate the activism and lobbying around the Sexual Offenses Act 2003, which was so integral to the formation of Scottish trans activism according to James Morton. Who were the players, etc.

They either couldn't or wouldn't see the two incredulous (and incredible) women behind them! It's not about the men it's about the women and girls.