@@JudgeRudy I’m replying to you but I suspect many will have this thought so I am really writing a very long response for the benefit of all women who do not lurk or read the demise sections of MN, or who don’t know the ins and outs of the issue.
I agree the whole thing is upsetting but I'd say the main factor was that this was a rapist rather than their gender/sex/transidentity. I'm not sure quite how safeguarding could be applied.
At face value, I can understand why you and possibly most of the public would think this, but it is more complex and nuanced than that.
It is incredibly important that women understand the nuance and how this event happened because the fact that it was able to happen at all reveals why self-id identity politics is a serious threat to women and girls. So I'm going to try spell it out as straightforwardly as I can.
First: I'm going to reply using Stonewall's position on self-id. Stonewall lobbies heavily and uses all their power and resources to get politicians, organisations, government departments, schools etc to adopt this view. This is very very important to understand.
ISSUE #1
Stonewall's position is that if a biological man says they are a women, then that is what they are. No debate. ("No debate" is stonewalls actual slogan). Further, that that biological male's 'woman' status is exactly equal to biological woman's status irrespective of everything.
Very very important: He may have a beard, male genitalia, never ever take hormones etc, but Stonewall's position is that he is as much a woman as I am. There are men who will apply lipstick amongst their male stubble and beard, and that may be their only nod towards 'womanliness'. But they are - according to radical trans activists - as much a woman as a biological woman.
On the basis of self-id, he now has the absolute right to enter all women's spaces: hospital wards, changing rooms, female prisons, girls toilets at school etc. He has a right to compete against women in sport. He can win female awards, and join in on female short lists. He can demand that he is searched by women police officers etc etc. He IS a woman. No debate.
This logic means: a woman can have a penis; rape is no longer a male crime, it can be committed by women too etc
So understanding all that ...
Isla Bryson is a woman, according to Stonewall. So is Katie Dolatowski (transgender paedophile who targets young girls); Paris Green (murderer); Charlene aka Jonathan Mallon (serial rapist); Sophie Eastwood (murderer who identifies as a baby); Karen White (rapist who went on to rape two more inmates when put in a female prison); there’s another serial rapist as well, whose name I’ve forgotten … these are UK cases. Internationally there are more.
ISSUE #2
Biological natal ‘xx’ women (I have to clarify which women I’m talking about here - normally I’d just say women) have been flagging that self-id presents a safety risk to women and girls. They have been saying that male predators will exploit self-id and use it to harm women and girls. The issue is that every time they say this, they are accused of being transphobic, of being hateful and cruel. Google ‘Lloyd Russell-Moyle’: he literally accused a female parliamentarian of dog-whistle transphobia and bigotry in parliament when she flagged concerns about risks to women. The following week Isla Bryson made the news.
Women are NOT allowed to discuss this; we are not allowed to speak up for our daughters; we are being silenced and refused the right to campaign or mobilise for the safety of women and girls. This is why J.K.Rowling is described as hateful and transphobic. The ONLY thing she has done is use her voice to consistently speak up for women and girls. This is ‘evidence’ of transphobia. Female academics have been hounded out of their jobs for daring to research this subject; women have been fired or ‘cancelled’ if they do the same. Careers have been destroyed. The campaign to prevent women from speaking out is very real, nasty and quite effective at silencing us.
ISSUE #3:
The Equality Act enshrines protections for women and even specifically refers to transgender women. For example, it acknowledges that in rape crisis counselling, it might be necessary to exclude transgender women because their presence might be distressing for victims of rape.
The EA implicitly recognises that while transgender women with a GRC are legally female, there is still a ‘difference’ between them and natal women, which relates to biology. Stonewall does not recognise this difference or any difference at all. Stonewall and radical activists consider biology to be totally irrelevant.
However, the EA is a useful deflection point for transgender activists, the Scottish government etc, who will point to the Equality Act as proof natal women are still being protected.
In practice, on the ground, it’s all Stonewall’s rules and it’s a completely different story. Organisations are too fearful to use their right to legally segregate spaces because of allegations of transphobia. Stonewall would consider a safe space for natal women as unfairly excluding some women - transgender women - who by their rules are exactly the same as natal women. In practice, Stonewall and trans radical activists would lobby for that organisation to have funding withdrawn, activists would vilify the employees, they would be targeted on social media, their reputations careers destroyed.
For example, there’s an extremely brave case going to court soon where a natal female is suing a rape crisis centre for NOT providing a single space sex. They provide segregated spaces for men, trans, etc … but not for women. Another example, JK Rowling has recently set up/funded a single sex space because women can’t access one - this is apparently motivated exclusively by pure hate for transgender women. Third example, Edinburgh Rape Crisis is headed by a trans woman who believes that natal rape survivors need to “reframe their trauma” to accommodate male bodies voices etc in their healing spaces.
Pulling all these threads together now:
BACK TO ISLA BRYSON USING STONEWALLS RULES
These young girls were watched getting naked by a serial rapist because
1: He IS a woman. He is no different to them except maybe in age. He is a woman. End of.
2: Women can have penises and rape can be a female crime
3: The girls have zero grounds to refuse to undress in front of him because that makes no sense at all - he IS a woman.
4: If they, or the college, or the teachers asked him to leave the room while they undressed on the basis of his generalist they would be transphobic, hateful and guilty of excluding a WOMAN from a WOMENS SPACE. Genitalia difference is no more important than eye colour difference. This is gross discrimination. (Genitalia and biology is irrelevant).
5: If Isla had been offended by this gross discrimination and shared it with her trans allies, the college, students and teachers would all have been targeted en masse, aggressively and quickly become known as unkind and transphobic and hateful. People would have turned up holding banners describing them as hateful, maybe even calling for death. Very very bad for business.
This is how a serial rapist gets to very easily sit and watch young girls strip to almost naked.
Had he tried all of the above WITHOUT declaring himself a women, the college would have taken sensible measures to protect the girls and the girls would have felt OK to refuse to undress in front of him, and no one would have blinked an eye at this. Had they been able to do this, a serial rapist would have been denied the opportunity to watch young girls strip. But they were not able to do this at all.
He got away with this, and the fact it happened at all, has EVERYTHING to do with trans identity politics and activism. Everything.
It is so important women understand what is happening, put to one side any worries about being transphobic, and just carefully think it through. We are not safe.