Fresh horrors for Scotland

[HirplesWithHaggis]

wingsoverscotland.com/raise-all-of-the-flags/#more-134015

"Gender expression, of course, is simply how a person presents themselves in terms of dress and general appearance. So under this law, if your 13-year-old son is meeting some friends for a movie and comes down the stairs wearing only a nappy, a ball gag and an adult bib with “CUM SLUT” printed on it, and you say “You’re not bloody going out dressed like that!”, you’ll be committing a crime for which he can have you arrested as long as he claims it’s part of his gender expression."

There's more, so much more.
😥

It's going to make rules about school uniform unworkable. Or works dress codes, actually clothes might become optional. I could see a hairdresser being arrested for cutting someone's hair too short, even if the customer was happy with the cut. Unless someone's come up with the definitions of 'gender expression', etc. this is going to have all sorts of unintended (?) consequences.

'The Scottish Government does not have an official definition of gender.'

www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202000116319/

Oh my god @arabella. Teachers expected to update SEEMiS to inform the state about our children's sexual orientation? Who owns this data? How are they going to store this data? Who gets to see it? How do we know it's secure? Because it will be cheap software and systems admin will be paid a pittance.

Same page:

'Organisations such as the World Health organisation and the Royal Statistical Society[4] define gender as:

a social construction relating to behaviours and attributes based on labels of masculinity and femininity;

gender identity as:

a personal, internal perception of oneself and so the gender category someone identifies with may not match their sex at birth;

what an individual experiences as their innate sense of themselves as a man, a woman, as having no gender, or as having a non-binary gender –

where people identify as somewhere on a spectrum between man and woman'

Sadly I am not surprised. I said on here before about a broadsheet article I read written by a woman which minimalized violence against women and basically argued women had it too good with all their rescues and focus compared to men. I was reading in horror thinking is this modern woman and then the author revealed they were a transwoman. My immediate reaction was that explains it because you grew up male bodied and I grew up female bodied.

Now I have seen those same arguments being used by men on social media - friends of my friends - arguing more men are harmed by men than women therefore why do women need special protection and provision .

Ironically when I have written to my Scottish MP and MSP they completely ignore me and I feel I have no voice - the same men who tell me we need Independence because we do not have a voice in Westminster. I don't have a voice in Scotland - the First Minister herself has dismissed any concerns out of hand.
Scotland is becoming a very depressing place to live

The recommendations wrt Education are on this page, Artfully:

'These recommendations were shaped by a paper submitted to the subgroup by LGBT Youth Scotland.'

www.gov.scot/publications/non-binary-working-group-report-recommendations-march-2022/pages/8/

Excerpt from section on SEEMiS:

'Work with the developers of SEEMiS to (a) ensure that there are options other than male or female for recording pupils, alongside a field for recording pronouns; (b) review automatic linking from SEEMiS; and (c) produce updated guidance for schools to reflect these changes

Non-binary young people frequently point out that the requirement to be recorded as male or female on SEEMiS is a considerable barrier to them participating equally at school. This issue has been raised for many years, both by non-binary young people themselves, and by schools and local authorities across Scotland.

This issue means that teachers and staff can be unaware of a pupil's gender identity, and so the pupil may be required to come out repeatedly, and to many members of staff, in order to have their identity recognised and respected. Being recorded as either male or female means that pupils are much more likely to experience misunderstanding or misgendering from teachers and staff, who are interacting with them on the basis of accessing incorrect information about them on SEEMiS.

An update to SEEMiS should also include a new optional field in which pupils may have their pronouns recorded. This would give pupils who want teachers to be aware of their pronouns the ability to do so more easily, and it would give teachers the confidence that they are addressing pupils in a respectful way. Pupils should be able to have the details recorded in this field updated on request'

@Minusthree I'm at the point where I'd be scared to contact my MSP and express my views given the direction of travel. And there's no way I'd want a Green MSP to even know of my existence, given their links to TRA extremists.
Surely it's not right to feel like this in a democracy?

This issue has been raised for many years, both by non-binary young people themselves, and by schools and local authorities across Scotland.

Really? Non-binary was a term entirely restricted to maths and science until very, very recently, surely? Perhaps the word 'many' is now transquantity.

Thank you. Lots of reading material there.

This is such a dark, depressing state to be in. People in this country are going hungry, dealing with unsuitable housing and homelessness, NHS is falling apart, teachers striking. What warped priorities these people have.

Affirmation only at any cost? Absolutely chilling. We heard from the whistleblowers at the Tavistock at the level of homophobia within families presenting there. Kids in Scotland deserve better than this.

And next on the list they ‘have accepted the majority of the Working Group on Non-Binary Equality’. Of course. The SNP, the Greens and the Lib Dems continuing their anti-reality crusade with not a care about the harm this causes to women and children.

I'm assuming this is how that teacher with the gigantic comedy breasts managed to keep teaching in Canada.

Surely, people will be capitalising on these rules in order to protest?

I honestly can't get over this nonsense. It's truly insane. With a hugely sinister motivator.

How can non-binary people have transition needs? What are these people who, by definition, are not binary transitioning from and to?

What specific healthcare needs are there for people who identify as non-binary? Nothing in that document gives any indication of what the transition needs of non-binary people might actually be.

Yet another government policy with a yawning chasm at the heart of it. You simply cannot make public policy without defining key terms and outlining actual needs in a way that can be operationalised and assessed.

How many MSPs are going to be all for this but totally unable and unwilling to explain what the heath are needs actually are, and how this differs from anyone else in the population?

More controversially, I think a proper conversation about trans ‘healthcare’ and fertility is long overdue. You can see so many issues that MSPs are unwilling to even acknowledge exist, despite making policy to promote ‘healthcare’ practices that will render people infertile alongside demands that the direct results of these policies must be compensated for.

This is not life/saving cancer treatment. It’s completely undefined medical and surgical ‘needs’ aligned to a completely undefined concept of ‘gender identity’ that will intentionally produce infertility. Indeed, one where the basis for medical intervention should preclude the need for fertility at all. Yet, the demands for hormones and surgery come with the requirement to shield the recipients from the consequences of that and a determination to treat mental health completely separately. Transition healthcare should be as fully integrated as possible, but mental healthcare must be firewalled as much as possible.

A discussion about whether we simply tell people that rendering yourself infertile for gender identity reasons is a choice. There’s nothing physically life threatening going on (so it’s a choice rather than a need - and I don’t care that saying so is controversial), and mental health support is the appropriate avenue for suicidal feelings. If you’d like to stay open to the possibility of having children in the future, then it’s best not to take action that will
intentionally damage your reproductive system. Indeed, proper counselling to help young people to recognise that feeling absolutely adamant that you don’t have children is very common in your 20s, but that many people do find that the feel differently in their 30s and even 40s might be in order. But, no, that’s all conversion therapy and a hate crime, isn’t it?

And there’s no second chamber to scrutinise this stuff in Scotland. To ask the questions like ’what are the specific healthcare needs of non-binary people?’

Or to ask important questions around the extent to which this stuff is trying to position surrogacy as a healthcare need and (further) legitimise profitable interests in the international baby trade.

Who is actually benefitting seems to be an inconvenient question. Because it doesn’t seem to be the people who will be receiving all this ‘healthcare’. Or society at large. Does it?

'Medical records should also be able to describe patients as non-binary. Being recorded as male or female can create barriers to accessing all forms of healthcare for non-binary people....
The CHI number system should be reviewed, and sex should no longer be hard-coded within patient numbers.'
'
OK, I haven't read any of the material linked, just the quotes here, but this is batshit. The massive barrier to accessing effective, safe healthcare is refusing to tell health professionals what sex you are!

All good points!

Just realised I'm at risk of derailing the conversion therapy thread with the non-binary working group recs - which are related, but not the subject of the OP.

I haven't even got half way through the report, yet ...

There is a whole section on sex recording, which claims at the start:

'This recommendation is not about removing sex from medical records. Indeed, it is important that this sex is recorded relevantly in health information, and that trans and non-binary people continue to be able to update their records to reflect their lives.'

This suggests, though, that when they say 'sex' they mean 'gender', as they say that people should be able to change this information. Concluding para:

'The CHI number system should be reviewed, and sex should no longer be hard-coded within patient numbers. Instead, sex should simply be included on medical records, should continue to be updateable by trans and non-binary people, and should include an option to record patients as non-binary. The sex on a medical record should not then place limitations on how individual patients are able to interact with healthcare services due to this being hard-coded into IT systems and patient markers, nor should changing the sex on a medical record require the creation of a new CHI number for a patient.'

It’s entirely disingenuous to pretend that the UNCRC is not already built in to UK and specifically Scots law.

The Children (Scotland) Act 1995 ‘enshrined’ the key principles of the UNCRC in law. Note there are 3 overriding principles in the UNCRC - not 4 as the Scottish Government are desperate to claim. Article 12 simply does not have the special status they want to claim it has. They might want to try reading the actual UNCRC.

It was updated in 2000. Then revised as the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act in 2014. Note how this is described in relation to the UNCRC and the horror that is GIRFEC in the screenshot attached. I actually interviewed the Scottish children’s commissioner in the run up to this and it was all about participation even then.

Note the religious terminology that reoccurs when talking about ‘enshirining’ an international legal document in law.

Also noteworthy that the UK was a key proponent in the measures around child soldiers and child marriage optional within the UNCRC. Both of which the SNP snd Greens seem to be very positive about - regardless of broad international consensus that both should be outlawed everywhere.

But the main point is that it is completely bullshit that Scotland only legally adopted the UNCRC in 2021 and has been thwarted by nasty Westminster. Westminster actually implemented the UNCRC in the Children Act 1989. None of this fits with the Scottish Government’s chosen rhetoric.

Thanks, onyttig, the whole affair seems slightly baffling and pointless as far as I can see.

The lack of curiosity is baffling. No attempt to understand why gender identity is now such a widespread issue when just 15 years ago it was a problem for a tiny minority. No attempts to understand how changes with how we view sex in medical situations will impact healthcare, when we have so much hard evidence to demonstrate that sex has a significant impact on so much of medicine. No curiosity about the interaction between gender identity and sexuality when we know the huge stigma attached to minority sexual orientation. None of this stands up to any scrutiny or critical thought. It’s like none of these people have ever studied any history of sociology or psychology both of which are littered with the poor treatment of women and minorities which at the time seemed entirely reasonable to those in power.

You look back at PIE for example and think how on earth was that ever OK and then you see this and think we never learn from history at all.

Even the pronoun/name change thing, which seems fairly harmless is actually problematic in schools, I work in a large and fairly sensible secondary, I do lots of educational assessments and several times a referral has come in, and I don’t understand why I’ve missed this kid, can’t find any history, turns out I do know them, but they’ve changed name and often pronouns and it’s so confusing and time consuming and has resulted in delays to support as as far as I can see one child vanishes from reporting and another appears. We used to get one surname change in a year maybe, now it’s half a dozen first name and pronoun changes a term. This must also be an issue for social services and medical care.

I don’t see how it can be in a child’s interests to have them changing their name repeatedly.

In DS’s school, an extremely troubled young person (background: parents in and out of prison/drug and alcohol addicted, public violence, prostitution from a caravan on their driveway, parents somehow involved with a high profile murder with shocking court accounts of children’s exposure to drugs and sexual practices) who is now trans and seems to change name all the time. It all sounds like the child is screaming for help and support but the adults around them are not just ignoring it but celebrating and affirming this stuff.

I’m amazed by the multiple safeguarding failures, first by leaving the child to grow up in an environment that was visibly problematic to the whole community (and the dysfunction outlined in the paper from
court proceedings!) and then by celebrating the effects of this.

The child’s mother is loving the new attention. Of course.

Can we make it clear this is SNP and not ‘Scotland’. We need a new government who actually trusts people and in particular, parents!

Remember this whole debacle/waste of money:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-49757890

I'm really glad you posted that about the UNCRC, onyttig. I knew this was the case but hadn't the full timeline to hand. It's so frustrating to see this being used, or, picked up and put down in favour of the next thing they think will drive a wedge for independence.

Even the pronoun/name change thing, which seems fairly harmless is actually problematic in schools, I work in a large and fairly sensible secondary, I do lots of educational assessments and several times a referral has come in, and I don’t understand why I’ve missed this kid, can’t find any history, turns out I do know them, but they’ve changed name and often pronouns and it’s so confusing and time consuming and has resulted in delays to support as as far as I can see one child vanishes from reporting and another appears. We used to get one surname change in a year maybe, now it’s half a dozen first name and pronoun changes a term. This must also be an issue for social services and medical care.

This is a really good point, @wonderstuff. The flipside of the problem we already know about with DBS where a change of name and pronouns is obfuscating whether someone has a criminal record.

I just think most MSPs and people in the Scottihsh Government are thick as mince.

You have some definite zealots who are able to control things. Can't actually make up my mind if Sturgeon is one, or just a dictator who has figured that using these zealots will help her get her independence.

I don't actually get why these people are so thick. Many are a similar age to me so they were educated before the SNP destroyed the education system. They have had the access to a better education than most of those who grew up on other parts of the UK. Many of them would have went to 'better' school than I did.

I just think the sensible people already had jobs, and the fall in the fortunes on Labour have allowed some really thick people to become SNP MSPs (And MPs too). But that doesn't explain the Labour MSPs who voted for Self ID and will no doubt agree with this too.

I note that in the last few years (it’s pretty recent) UNICEF have promoted participation to a core UNCRC principle.

However, the actual convention is pretty heavily caveated about how participation intersects with development and capacity, and strongly affords adults the right to act on behalf of the child.

The actual international agreement is a long way from the version that has been promoted by activists and academics.

Also a direct quote of relevance for this thread:
“Convinced that the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community,”

That’s in the preamble.

I’m not convinced that the Scottish government are on board with that.

The promotion of participation to a core tenant of the uncrc in the last decade is interesting and important because the act document this statement is describing and to which almost all states agreed has not changed. I doing all states were consulted on the promotion of participation to this extent.

The SNP have such a dearth of talent as the power switched from Labour to them so quickly. Essentially anyone with a yellow rosette was elected not in their own merits.

As for the rest? Why anyone would want to be a politician is beyond me. The abuse they get these days is awful. Anyone with half a brain should be staying well away.