Urgent action for those in Scotland

[SusanSmithFWS]

The amazing Johann Lamont has put in an amendment to the forensic medical services bill. This is a really important piece of legislation which seeks to make the process easier for rape victims and we support it. We are concerned, however, that although the women who testified that access to a female examiner was the most important concern, the bill still refers to the gender - instead of sex - of the examiner.

Sex, unlike gender, is defined in the Equality Act and there is provision for recruitment under schedule 9. We believe that a small change will ensure that there is no ambiguity.

We would urge anyone from Scotland to please write to all eight of their MSPs and ask them to support the motion.

As Susan Dalgety reported in the Scotsman:
Her amendment may be only six words long – “for the word ‘gender’ substitute ‘sex’” – but it gets to the heart of the current debate about who counts as a woman.

“Women should be able to choose the sex of the person who conducts the investigation,” Johann told me last night. “This is a key test for the Parliament, which is committed to rooting action in the understanding of experience. Women courageously and powerfully spoke up so that others might fare better than them.

“The amendment is tiny but would be a huge step in listening to survivors. The committee was convinced. The Parliament should be too.”

Six words can make a world of difference.

www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/transgender-debate-msps-must-stand-womens-sex-based-rights-key-vote-bill-help-rape-victims-susan-dalgety-3057640

There’s a bunch of Lib Dem’s

I didn't realise there was a great enough number of Lib Dems to constitute a "bunch"...

Suddenly once the wording is changed, it makes all the difference and has removed rights?

Exactly. Surely Monica Lennon and Andy Wightman, who spoke against the amendment, should have made it clear that the amendment was a transphobic dog whistle causing literal violence to transpeople. If they had made clear that this amendment would mean greater discrimination against transwomen who wanted to carry out physical examinations on raped women then perhaps the amendment would not have passed almost unanimously.

Well quite.

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

There’s a bunch of Lib Dem’s

I didn't realise there was a great enough number of Lib Dems to constitute a "bunch"...

So true😂 it’s from women(!) planning to run.

What is the complaint? That trans women might be excluded from intimately examining women who have specifically asked for a female examiner?

That is a really odd hill to die on, imo. Presumably women who don't mind males treating them would not ask for a female?

@ArabellaScott

What is the complaint? That trans women might be excluded from intimately examining women who have specifically asked for a female examiner?

That is a really odd hill to die on, imo. Presumably women who don't mind males treating them would not ask for a female?

Who knows. None of them ever actually clarify which rights exactly they think are being removed or that trans people don’t have already.

It’s all slogans and bullshit. So fucking sick of it.

The complaint is that people might be allowed not to accept that transwomen are women.
The more they can stretch this the better they feel. There's not much further to go than a woman who has just been raped and who only agrees to an intimate physical examination if she is examined by a woman, then being presented with a man on the basis he's a woman.
That's a charitable interpretation though. I imagine that some men in this situation would be getting a real kick out it.

people might be allowed not to accept that transwomen are women.

So, who's going to break it to them?

Scottisb Lib Dems, FFS.

People voted for them to mark a preference for staying in the UK and the EU. But that ship has sailed, and the arseholes opposing Lamont’s amendment show themselves ws hardcore virulent misogynists.

Let's be clear what they are complaining about....

They are complaining that a Male person is now not allowed to put his fingers inside the vagina of a female person who has been raped to examine her because the female person who has been raped has requested that the examination is conducted by a female examiner.

It is bigotry, according to some of these MSPs, to deny males the right to put their fingers inside the vagina of raped women, without their consent.

It's horrific

They are also saying, by the transwomen are women mantra, that the raped woman should have to lie in the examination table and have a biological male person who is also a transwoman, to put 《insert personal pronoun》 fingers inside her, knowing that this a biological male but she is not allowed to say this is a biological male so she has shut the fuck up and endure it.

THIS IS A RAPE EXAMININATION.

How fucking sick are these fuckers?

State Sanctioned Sexual Assault, that's what these MSPs are fighting for

Equality Act 2010 – Explanatory Notes
www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes?view=plain

Schedule 9: Work: exceptions
Part 1: Occupational requirements
786.Part 1 of this Schedule concerns requirements for particular kinds of work.

General: paragraph 1

Effect

787.This paragraph provides a general exception to what would otherwise be unlawful direct discrimination in relation to work. The exception applies where being of a particular sex, race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation or age – or not being a transsexual person, married or a civil partner – is a requirement for the work, and the person whom it is applied to does not meet it (or, except in the case of sex, does not meet it to the reasonable satisfaction of the person who applied it). The requirement must be crucial to the post, and not merely one of several important factors. It also must not be a sham or pretext. In addition, applying the requirement must be proportionate so as to achieve a legitimate aim.
788.The exception can be used by employers, principals (as defined in section 41) in relation to contract work, partners, members of limited liability partnerships and those with the power to appoint or remove office-holders, or to recommend an appointment to a public office.

Background

789.This paragraph replicates the effect of exceptions for occupational requirements in current discrimination legislation, and creates new exceptions in relation to disability and to replace the existing exceptions for occupational qualifications in relation to sex, gender reassignment, colour and nationality. It differs from the existing exceptions for occupational requirements in that it makes clear that the requirement must pursue a legitimate aim and that the burden of showing that the exception applies rests on those seeking to rely on it.

Examples

The need for authenticity or realism might require someone of a particular race, sex or age for acting roles (for example, a black man to play the part of Othello) or modelling jobs.

Considerations of privacy or decency might require a public changing room or lavatory attendant to be of the same sex as those using the facilities.

An organisation for deaf people might legitimately employ a deaf person who uses British Sign Language to work as a counsellor to other deaf people whose first or preferred language is BSL.

Unemployed Muslim women might not take advantage of the services of an outreach worker to help them find employment if they were provided by a man.

A counsellor working with victims of rape might have to be a woman and not a transsexual person, even if she has a Gender Recognition Certificate, in order to avoid causing them further distress.

I went looking for this to confirm that the terribly important ability to hiring waiters who look right for the ethnicity of the cuisine, is considered significant enough to allow an exception to the Equality Act.

But here it is. In black and white. There is an Occupational Exception to the Equality Act for people working with rape survivors.

(I know this isn't news to the OP, and Schedule 9 is specified in the opening post, but it does no harm to have the details on the thread.)

perking
So basically the Scottish Government were trying to undermine or nullify The Equality Act's explicit protections for raped women?

Whose rights are human rights?

Is it a human right for raped women' not to have Male fingers inserted into their vaginas against their will? No, not according to all those MSPs etc STILL shouting about it on Twitter

here it is. In black and white. There is an Occupational Exception to the Equality Act for people working with rape survivors.

No harm whatsoever to repeat it. Or to note that it is compassionate common sense.

I don't know if Frances Lumsden is on here, or if anyone knows her on Twitter, but I wanted to say thank you for her letter.

twitter.com/FrancesLumsden/status/1337772642930216962

Recent comments from these people in the SNP have been unconscionable, in what they've said about rape survivors/victims.

Rhiannon Spear seems to have deleted her Twitter a/c.

Rhiannon Spear is one of the worst opportunists I have seen, shitting over women in her clamour for position and power.

She will be cleaning house, deleting etc. I dont think for a minute this will be the last of her.

She'll be back with a woe is me, the nasty bullies chased me off twitter just like they did RCS soon enough. She's had her arse handed to her again because she keeps posting outrageous claims, smears & down right false information cos she's not as clever as she thinks she is. She posted claims about feminists 'settled' the sex v gender discussion in the 1990s & thinks she can tell far more experienced experts they're wrong! When she had the audacity to think she knew more that an experienced discrimination lawyer & couldn't even engage with her to clear up her own mistakes on how she interprets the law, you knew it's got nothing to do with naivety or ignorance, but being wilfully obtuse to serve her own agenda.

Well, I don't know what happened, and I hope she wasn't bullied off Twitter. It is a toxic and horrible site, particularly for women.

I do think part of the problem is people running campaigns on such a misogyny-soaked platform.

From what I've seen of RS, every time her woke beliefs face mild criticism on Twitter, she flounces off in a major huff, accusing everyone (bearing in mind the majority of folk in her mentions are GC women) of rampant misogyny. She does it so often you can't help but think it's straight from a political playbook.

And then last month NS stuck up for her, specifically singling her out as someone who gets a lot of abuse on Twitter! The abuse, again, being criticism of and disagreement about her ideas.

Her ego seems enormously fragile and she's had two major blows in the last month - losing a constituency election and her role as women's convener, not to mention the recent six-word amendment. So I'm not surprised she's deleted her account to save face.

But she'll probably be back again once she wants to poke the nest and feel vicitimised.

That is a really odd hill to die on, imo. Presumably women who don't mind males treating them would not ask for a female?

If they concede this the whole house of cards collapses.

So TRAs can't concede that a woman who has been traumatised by a male and therefore declines to be examined by a male (even if the male has a certificate to say said male is female) should have that right?

Incredible.

Thank everything that's holy the vote went the way it did. I can barely believe anyone would argue this in good faith.