Scottish GRC debate: amendment to bar sex offenders blocked

[Sidaway]

I saw this this on Twitter:

"Really shocked by this. Scottish Labour backed an amendment to stop sex offenders self-id'ing as women - but SNP and Greens blocked it."

twitter.com/SusannaRustin/status/1592634313258184704

It's encouraging that Scottish Labour backed it - at least it's a move in the right direction. It's such an obvious safeguarding measure - I too am shocked that anyone would oppose it. Scottish Labour/Tories should be shouting about this.

I feel it's actually more important than the scarf row - that's symbolic and easily remedied. Whereas this will put women and girls in actual physical danger and have a lasting effect in law.

What???

If this is true, it is shocking.

I guess that is where ideological capture gets you. To allow this they would have to admit TW are not actually women. They would rather protect their ideology than women.

Did they say anything about how they intend to protect women and children?

When this question comes up the trans lobbyists always shrug and say “that’s a criminal issue, if a woman is raped she should tell the police.” Yeah right, she’d probably just get raped again, by the police.

And even if it does get taken seriously there’s a 1% chance of the rapist being found guilty.

And even if he does get found guilty he’ll just identify as a woman and carry on raping.

It is such an obvious safeguarding issue. Someone could just choose a new name that could work for either sex and continue to live exactly as before (once they had got past the original "living as the other sex" period, whatever that means).

Susanna Rustin is a Guardian journalist (ie. not the Daily Sport), so it's probably true.

The TWAW lobby could have said "not every male applying for a GRC is necessarily a TW, we have to be on our guard for abuse of process" and got round it that way, thus saving face. But they didn't. (Yes we all know it's possible for "actual TWs" to be sex offenders too, but at least it would achieve the right result).

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4678056-scottish-grr-bill-sex-offenders

I find it the opposite of heartening that Labour claimed that they would protect women by putting in these Amendments to try and fix the terrible glaring holes in badly made legislation - we all knew fine well they would get voted down by SNP/Greens.

It shows up Labour's talking out of two sides of its mouth, here, trying to placate everyone and failing everyone.

Ah - sorry ArabellaScott I didn't see that yesterday. Good thread.

The TWAW lobby could have said "not every male applying for a GRC is necessarily a TW, we have to be on our guard for abuse of process" and got round it that way, thus saving face.

No, because some sex offenders applying for GRCs will be transwomen, and you can't bar a transwoman for any reason in their logic. The "right for a transwoman to be treated as a woman" is utterly fundamental for them. They don't view it as a privilege that can be withheld, but as a right.

They are compelled to block any restraints by the ideology.

Yes of course, silly me - they may may be sex offenders but they're women sex offenders. Makes sense. Gah!

In fact, it's worse. At the very least, the Greens and SNP have been open about how anti-women they are. We know what they are trying to do, they make no bones about it. (The ejection of a woman for wearing the colours associated with women's rights was a perfect illustration - women are allowed in Parliament so long as they don't threaten to agitate for their rights). Scotgov claimed very clearly, in court last week, that sex is completely analogous to gender, thereby entirely negating all the same sex protections in the EA in one stroke.

Labour, meanwhile, have said on one hand 'yes, we will protect women's single sex spaces' and also 'transwomen are women and can therefore access women's single sex spaces'.

It was almost enough to lull some into a false sense of security, but the debacle in Scotland has probably shown exactly how far these attempts at sophistry will take us. So they supported the Bill, but said they'd fix all the issues by proposing Amendments (over 100 Amendments were proposed, most seem to have been swiftly dismissed). And now what? Shrugs, presumably. They can say 'we tried', sorry wims.

Please get in touch with your MSPs, your MPs especially Labour.
Please keep up the pressure, let them know we women aren’t giving up & going away.
The committee was rigged from the start with Chapman, Adam & Fitzpatrick. The MSPs who put forward the amendments were not allowed to vote, only the committee members. The committee room was full of MSPs, but only those on the GRC reform committee could vote.
I couldn’t get my head around this complete lack of democracy & accountable, I still can’t.
There is no Second Chamber to deal with checks & balances at the Scottish Parliament.

Donald Dewar & Margo McDonald will be spinning in their graves to see what has become of the Parliament & country.

Just heard that a trans identifying man , “ Katie”( the one who is often pictured with cats ears) who has sexually assaulted more than one child has been sent to a women’s prison in Scotland...

Fuckadoodledoo 😡

Wonderful😡

Sadly not a surprise.

The committee was rigged from the start with Chapman, Adam & Fitzpatrick. The MSPs who put forward the amendments were not allowed to vote, only the committee members. The committee room was full of MSPs, but only those on the GRC reform committee could vote.

A Soviet-style troika? We are "Back in the USSR"...

The MSPs who put forward the amendments were not allowed to vote, only the committee members.

That is a pure disgrace.

After assaulting another male prisoner. Not being assaulted and moved to be kept safe. Blew up after comments made by the other prisoner.

This defies all logic. This guy is a convicted sex offender whose victims were girls aged ten and twelve. He has consistently violated conditions imposed by the courts for the last four years.

But yeah let's make sure we protect him from hurtful comments so he doesn't have to assault anyone else.

So, let’s ask ourselves an important question.

What sort of person would want to make it easier for sex offenders to access women and children?

What sort of interests does that sort of person have? Who is is they are trying to help to do what?

Who don’t they care about? Why not?

Why would a government want to support that sort of person?

And let’s not stop repeating those questions because they shine a clear light on what is going on here.

Yes it was an utter disgrace, a travesty of democracy & a tragedy for women and children in Scotland.

However we are not beaten and we won’t stop.
Please write to your MPs & MSPs especially Labour & Scottish Labour. They are the ones who said “ we will sort it out with amendments “ all of which were ignored.
The Conservatives were excellent, Rachael Hamilton wore one of our scarfs in the Parliament debating chamber when the presiding officer apologized for telling us to take off our scarfs, oh the irony was wonderful.

Throw back to 2003 when the left wing press could at least discuss safeguarding and loopholes without the omnipresent layer of an insane ideology.

www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/dec/17/soham.ukcrime2

We need a list of all of them in the papers.

These are the people who think it's fine for male sexual offenders to be in womens prisons.

Every single fucking one of them needs to be held accountable. Especially their First Feminist Umbridge Leader.

I am English and have always wanted the United Kingdom to stay together. Now I am looking at Scotland in absolute shock and panic. Maybe this is the SNP ploy. It’s just barbaric. I don’t want anything to do with it anymore.

Could those of you who have suffragette scarfs or scarves in 💚🤍💜please wear them next Tuesday morning? Women will be back in the committee room to listen to the next round of amendments and it would be great to know that many others are supporting us. TIA

It’s why I voted against the parliament to begin with. I’m mighty pissed off at Donald Dewar. It was set up without the proper checks and balances and this is the result - more utterly shit legislation that isn’t properly thought through