Heartbreaking column in today's Scotsman

[howonearthdidwegethere]

Columnist Susan Dalgety reflecting on the words of the Cabinet Minister Shona Robison in the Scottish Parliament last week.

www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/abusive-men-will-exploit-proposed-new-gender-recognition-law-susan-dalgety-3596504

Shame on Robison and Sturgeon. Traitors to their sex. How do they sleep at night?

When you make it acceptable for males to be in female spaces you take away another layer of protection. If people are not able to question why a male bodied person is in a place that should be exclusively for women, then it is much easier for them to be there and do what they want to do. It removes another barrier. Predators will adapt their behaviours and will do whatever they must to attack and abuse their victims. Let’s not make it easier for them. We have had abusers turn up and pretend to be a pizza delivery guy, a dpd driver and many other disguises to get at the women that they have been abusing at the shelters I work in. We take security very seriously, everyone is checked that enters the site, we only see males by appointment so that any woman who this might distress can be kept from further trauma. We don’t take deliveries through the main site and have three control points before you can even access the main building. I’d love Shona to spend a day and night with us.

women can’t talk about abusive males…at all

This is the thing. Women here, talking about abuse suffered at hands of males.

And someone has to pop up to drag trans into the discussion. Sick of it. Utterly sick of it.

Women will not wheesht. In fact we've only just got started.

Its a heartbreaking story, and my heart goes out to the author. But it has nothing to do with the existence of safe spaces, rather the protection of young people from abuse and their (female, male, trans, gay, whatever) ability to speak out about it and be listened to. No trans person was involved in the account given, nor are trans people responsible for global warming or all the other ills of the world.

Why do you think this has anything to do with trans people? Robison said there is no evidence that “predatory and abusive men have ever had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory behaviour”.

She wasn't talking about trans people, she was talking about predatory and abusive men who might pretend to be trans people. She said they wouldn't do this. All the evidence says that predatory and abusive men will pretend to be all kinds of things to gain access to victims. What makes you think they wouldn't pretend to be trans people if this gave them easier access to victims?

Self-ID gives predatory and abusive men an easy and accessible way to gain access to vulnerable women and children. All they would have to do to be legally female is sign a form. Do you really think that no predatory and abusive men would do this?

@StillWeRise

This is a moving and brave testimony But it doesn't clearly make the case it aims to unfortunately. That little girl was not protected by the single sex spaces and provisions that were commonplace at the time. The man who abused her did not have to pretend to be a woman in order to gain access to her. So (devil's advocate here) why would being kind to TW put her in more danger?

This.

Yea it would

1; evidence is that traswomen offend at the male rate not the female rate

1. Ignoring that , enabling men to access single sex spaces increases the attack space . As evident from the differences in attacks in sports centres that have mixed sec facilities compared to the sports centres with single sex facilities

Self if enables men to acces single sex spaces . Because bad men do bad things

why would being kind to TW put her in more danger?

How does allowing any man to become legally female help trans people?

I suppose lawyers are used to trying to defend the indefensible. They don't expect to win but occasionally they get some benefit

@StrangeLookingParasite

How about you address some of the actual concerns expressed, here RMW? Rather than just blithely ignoring every objection. There could be no clearer demonstration of your lack of concern, and your inability to listen, than what has been shown right here.

You know when a toddler plays hide and seek and becomes "completely invisible" by covering their own eyes and it's cute?

Toddlers also demonstrate a lack of concern and an inability to listen.

Less cute.

StillWeRise

This is a moving and brave testimony But it doesn't clearly make the case it aims to unfortunately. That little girl was not protected by the single sex spaces and provisions that were commonplace at the time. The man who abused her did not have to pretend to be a woman in order to gain access to her.
So (devil's advocate here) why would being kind to TW put her in more danger?

This.

What is different about male people who identify as women from any other male person? What difference does it make to the safety of women and girls if the male person in their female only safe space is a man,transwoman or a male person of any type of gender identity? Why be kind to one group and not all the rest?

All you're doing is demonstrating how you won't listen to women. This is all we ever get.

Arguments when women say no.
Justifications when women say no.
Dismissal when women say no.
Mockery when women say no.
Attack when women say no.

Guess what? We still say no.

We know, heartbreakingly, that safeguarding measures don't work in every single case. Attempting to use the instances when bastards manage to break through the shields in order to argue for the removal of the shields entirely is not only illogical but utterly despicable.

Robison ignores the fact that many abusers are sadistic and manipulative. These types of abusers don't just want to physically abuse females.They want to see and savour their victim feeling humiliated and destroyed.

I think a lot of people don't really grasp this. Or they don't care.

@OperationDessertStorm

Women’s spaces have been safe up to now because they’ve been single sex, not because everyone in there has looked feminine. How is that so hard to understand.

“London zoo has never had a incident of a lion eating a gazelle in its 100 year history and so concluded that this only happens in the wild. It has therefore decided it would now be safe to put both in the same enclosure to give them more space...”

Excellent analogy. Of course those charming lions wouldn't dream of hurting a gazelle anyway.

@thinkingaboutLangCleg no because they are far too busy indentifying as gazelles!
But seriously, disguise is the key, trying to hide in plain sight. That is how predators predate - human ones anyway. And in reply to @Ereshkigalangcleg you are damn right. Power, sadism, destruction. Those are the drivers, sex is 'just' the means to achieve that.

I'm so sick of women feeling like they have to share personal information in order to push this stuff forward in order to benefit the little girls of today and tomorrow.

Thank you, Susan. You should not have had to tell us all, because it should not have happened to you, and it should have remained your own business. However, it is a powerful read, and I'm sure that it will do good for women and girls - and I am grateful for your bravery.

I would support any measure that was likely to reduce child abuse - the subject of the article.

But to take an example related to the subject matter rather than randomly affecting other groups, I understand it to be the case that a high proportion of child abuse is committed by male relatives.

No one would be suggesting that all male relatives should be denied access to children.

Rather we need empowerment of children to report abuse, appropriate steps when we do and understand of warning signs to identify potential perpetrators.

I support the need for women’s spaces in some circumstances. I don’t support the demonisation of men or trans women that some folk here argue for.

@MNadactyl

It seems our main hope of being saved from this unjustified and unevidenced law is an author whose job it is not to protect the public. I salute Dalgety but I'm tired of seeing women having to bare their souls over this (also: JKR, Bailey). We should not have to.

Politicians are either MIA or AWOL. Take your pick.

I was one of the many women who told the Scottish government of how far males will go to abuse children when I completed the second GRA consultation, testifying to the what I suffered at the hands of my abuser as a child.

Did the Scottish government listen to the testimonies of women? Of course not.

They didn't even reference the 16000 + responses, and completely misrepresented the results as being supportive of the GRA based on the results from 200 organisations, many of which are funded the Scottish government on the condition of their being 'inclusive'.

Susan, thanks so much for writng this article, you shouldn't have had to. The Scottish government will still ignore it, but like you, so many of us will never stop fighting this and we won't ever shut up.

Rather we need empowerment of children to report abuse, appropriate steps when we do and understand of warning signs to identify potential perpetrators.

…I don’t support the demonisation of men or trans women that some folk here argue for.

It might be helpful to understand how that would vary from what is currently available to empower children to report abuse.

How very familiar that a discussion of safeguarding invariably involves the misrepresentation of women discussing their concerns in a public forum as demonisation of other parties. I wonder how that supports empowerment and the sharing of how to identify predators. In that, I would include adults who are groomed to allow predatory adults to be around their children and normalise unacceptable behaviour (I have in mind some recent threads with very difficult stories).

Look at the monitors, who come on here, a site called 'Mumsnet to stop wonen talking about the abuse they suffered as children, and tell them that they are mistaken and it happens only from relatives.

Why are they so invested in telling women to shut up?

I am quite fascinated by the lofty tone used too. They quite genuinely think they have the right to tell women to shut up and accept any males to women's spaces on their say so.

No one would be suggesting that all male relatives should be denied access to children.

No, because that's ludicrous. But you know that. Your use of hyperbole in this case is sickening.

Rather we need empowerment of children to report abuse, appropriate steps when we do and understand of warning signs to identify potential perpetrators.

No, we need safeguarding in order to stop this abuse from happening, including not creating sacred castes of people (in this case predatory males taking advantage of self id) who are exempt from safeguarding because of a ideologically driven mass delusion which calls anyone raising concerns a transphobe.

I support the need for women’s spaces in some circumstances.

Which ones, specifically?