Are women in Scotland aware of how bad things have got?

[Leafstamp]

I hang out on the Feminism board a lot, and I know not all MNetters care for that section. Which is fine. But I am continually appalled at how bad things are for women in Scotland - compared to England.

For example, this, from Feminism thread:

www.spiked-online.com/2022/02/01/the-thought-police-are-here/

To briefly summarise:

• Mridul was born male

• Mridul is legally male with no GRC

• Mridul is the CEO of Edinburgh Rape crisis

• Mridul claims women who want female only rape crisis services are bigoted and should 'reframe their trauma'

• The CEO of a domestic violence charity Nicola Murray stopped referring women to Mridul's rape crisis service due to Mridul's misogyny

• Mridul reported Nicola Murray to the police for committing a hate crime

• The police actually visited Nicola Murray to question her thinking

Please can any not-particularly-feminist women share how you feel about this?

I hate what is happening in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon is up in her ivory tower with no care of how she will be exposing girls and women to predatory men.
I ended up on Mumsnet because of the gender issues.

When I first was concerned it was with regard to women's sport but I was reassured that men would never put themselves "through all of that" operations etc just to get a medal. At a later date I discovered I had been misled/gaslighted as men were not going through "all of that" to access women's sport.

Then I read an article in a broadsheet minimizing the threats from male to female and suggesting that refuges and rape centres were to women centric. I couldn't believe what I was reading, that this was the view of 21st century women. It made me upset and angry . The last paragraph the author revealed themselves as a transwoman.

There are predatory men who get off on having power over women and children. Nicola Sturgeon is going to allow them even more power, she doesn't care and she thinks someone like me is transphobic. As a child I experienced more than one man (not family) behaving inappropriately around me. I know fine well how they would feel being able to access women only spaces and that the women and girls would be powerless to get rid of them. They would be ecstatic . I know this because one such man when he put me, a child, in an uncomfortable situation that I couldn't avoid, was delighted to tell me amongst other things it gave him a hard on that would break bricks. He wasn't touching me, he didn't have to. He wasn't the only one.

These threads give me a cold sweat. There is not point in writing to my SNP MP, he would either ignore me or be dismissive just re-enforcing the previous feeling of powerlessness.

Boundaries are blurred and if people think it will make it easier for children to speak about inappropriate behavior I think you are delusional at best and enabling at worst. SNP government I am looking at you

I probably should have put this in my OP, NS seems to be quite friendly with the transgender male CEO of ERCC

• do a quick Google image search of their names together : nicola sturgeon amd mridul wadwha

A police car drew up outside my house today. My immediate thought was that they had come for me. Although I am very law abiding and couldn't think of anything I had said to anybody. Then I realised that you don't actually need to say anything. If anyone would like to cause trouble for you, they can just get a friend to agree with them that you said something to the 2 of them that was derogatory about transpeople, and report it to the police. The possibility of a SEVEN YEAR sentence is really shocking to me. Is this anything other than a the kind of fear tactics you see in dictatorships?

I was in Edinburgh recently and went into a public toilet marked as being for women, with one for men next door to it. There was a man in there. Dressed as a man, etc. He was presumably in there just for a power kick.

@Eggsplanation

I was in Edinburgh recently and went into a public toilet marked as being for women, with one for men next door to it. There was a man in there. Dressed as a man, etc. He was presumably in there just for a power kick.

What do you actually do about that if you’re in this situation?

There's nothing anyone can do about it. That's what makes it so much fun for a certain type of man.

That's why the erosion of single sex spaces is so dangerous for women. This was demonstrated by the Wi Spa incident in LA where a man (later revealed by Police to be a sex offender) revealed his penis in the single sex area of a spa in front of woman and girls and the women complaining were told that they were bigots because 'it might be a transwoman'.

The University of Edinburgh produced a guide for staff about microaggressions against trans people which included 'avoidant behaviour' as a microaggression. Put simply, if you feel uncomfortable in a toilet with a male (and remember that self id means there needs to be no changes to appearance or clothing), then even leaving the area without saying anything is a transphobic act.

Tbh, if it happens to me (a man in the women’s toilet) I will make a lot of noise so that everyone knows, follow it up with a written complaint to premises owners and a report to some sort of authority - local council, EHRC or potentially the police.

Enough is enough.

@sweetpetrichor

So many places for abused/raped women to go in Scotland when the main rape crisis centre takes men and is run by a transwoman who persecutes those who disagree with her? How many? easy to get to by foot or bus?

@Eggsplanation are you sure the man in the toilets wasn't the cleaner? @Leafstamp this thread is an utter pile of dog whistle shite. I wish everyone who clutches their pearls over this would have a wee think about what trans people did for years prior to all this fuss. No one was able to transition legally or get surgery without living as whatever gender they identified as for a good length of time. That means, going to toilets, changing rooms, pools etc so WHY is it an issue now that the Scottish Government is trying to bring legislation in line with the rest of the UK and also to add in human rights so that trans rights become a protected characteristic just like women's rights.
Your rights are not something that diminishes anyone else's, it's like having 2 children, you don't love the first one less.
Why does it matter that this happens in Scotland more than other parts of the UK? It's a thinly disguised attack on the SNP again, blah, blah, blah.
The idea of the police rocking up at your door to arrest you for anti trans thought crime is laughable but maybe think about WHY you believe that trans people are such an abomination.
However, if you tweet discriminatory statements about any protected minority, including women, you can expect to be sanctioned by twitter and possibly in law.

@MumsnetHQ could this thread please go in the feminism board ?

Why does it need to go on the feminism board? This is about Scotland.

Or don't you want people to know about the issues Scotland are facing? Is that it? Sweep it up and hide it away?

The idea of the police rocking up at your door to arrest you for anti trans thought crime is laughable

Fucking hilarious. Tell that to the people it's happened to. 🙄

For anyone interested in this topic, I would suggest you check out the Break it Down for Me thread or the It'll Never Happen thread on the FWR board. It will reveal why there is such a push to stop women talking about this.

And as an aside, women (as a sex class) were not included in the Hate Crime Bill. Misogyny is apparently perfectly acceptable.

@Waitwhat23 I think they planned a separate misogyny bill.
@Rheopecticfluid if people have made anti trans statements that have broken the law, I don't have a problem with that. Would it be ok for that to happen if they were homophobic, or racist? Or do you just have a problem with trans people?

I think this should go on the feminism/ gender critical board because this is one kind of discussion that really brings mumsnet into disrepute. So if you want to talk about it let's limit it to the one board where everyone who has an anti trans agenda can hang out together.

No, there is a 'Misogyny Working Group' who may have come to some decisions sometime next year. Women (including politicians) asked for sex to be added to the Hate Crime Bill in the meantime. This was denied.

Marion Miller was investigated by the Police for 'anti trans comments' on Twitter. The case was dropped because it was all nonsense. That particular case was an example of an TRA using Police Scotland as their own personal enforcement arm.

Or do you just have a problem with trans people?

Did I say I have a problem with trans people? Or did you just decide to make that up? Is that how you approach everything in life when you don't know the actual answer? Make it up? Makes you sound like a dick.

People haven't been arrested for anti trans rhetoric. They've been arrested for standing up for women's rights.

Plenty of information out there about what really happened. If only you could be bothered to look.

@visitingagain

I think this should go on the feminism/ gender critical board because this is one kind of discussion that really brings mumsnet into disrepute. So if you want to talk about it let's limit it to the one board where everyone who has an anti trans agenda can hang out together.

Although it's not an anti trans agenda is it. It's about women in Scotland. You're trying to derail this thread and get it moved. Deliberately. Is this acceptable behaviour @MNHQ?

If anyone would like to cause trouble for you, they can just get a friend to agree with them that you said something to the 2 of them that was derogatory about transpeople, and report it to the police

It's terrifying, isn't it? "We saw Goody Smith with the devil".

I would like this discussion remain here thanks, it's appriopriate to the Scotland section.

Your rights are not something that diminishes anyone else's

Of course they are, if it means losing same-sex spaces.

Marion Miller was investigated by the Police for 'anti trans comments' on Twitter. The case was dropped because it was all nonsense. That particular case was an example of an TRA using Police Scotland as their own personal enforcement arm

Yep. The process is the punishment.

I think the OP has started a bit of a dog whistle thread. She disappeared when she was told the reality of what is happening in Scottish schools and also was unable to explain exactly how we actually have it so much worse in Scotland.

I'm not completely on board with the whole TWAW thing but I do wonder as @visitingagain has pointed out, what do you think used to happen and what exactly is it you are so scared of now?

[quote visitingagain]**@Eggsplanation* are you sure the man in the toilets wasn't the cleaner? @Leafstamp* this thread is an utter pile of dog whistle shite. I wish everyone who clutches their pearls over this would have a wee think about what trans people did for years prior to all this fuss. No one was able to transition legally or get surgery without living as whatever gender they identified as for a good length of time. That means, going to toilets, changing rooms, pools etc so WHY is it an issue now that the Scottish Government is trying to bring legislation in line with the rest of the UK and also to add in human rights so that trans rights become a protected characteristic just like women's rights.
Your rights are not something that diminishes anyone else's, it's like having 2 children, you don't love the first one less.
Why does it matter that this happens in Scotland more than other parts of the UK? It's a thinly disguised attack on the SNP again, blah, blah, blah.
The idea of the police rocking up at your door to arrest you for anti trans thought crime is laughable but maybe think about WHY you believe that trans people are such an abomination.
However, if you tweet discriminatory statements about any protected minority, including women, you can expect to be sanctioned by twitter and possibly in law. [/quote]
No, the man in the women's toilets wasn't a cleaner. He was using the facilities.
You accusing me of believing that "trans people are such an abomination" is a straightforward lie that you have just made up, and is libellous.
Your statement "The Scottish Government is trying to bring legislation in line with the rest of the UK" is also a straightforward "untruth". There is nothing like this legislation in England - not for trans people and not for other people either.

what do you think used to happen and what exactly is it you are so scared of now?

There used to be provision for single-sex spaces and for me personally, I'm scared of the current situation where going against the SG narrative and stating even quite factual things, not even anything hateful and abusive, can bring the police to your door. And that's with good reason, we've seen it happen not just in Scotland but in Wales.

I also think there are a lot more people now openly identifying as a gender other than their birth sex, and some of them are extremely militant and are pushing this agenda hard.