'Breaking' - Transgender rapist won’t be imprisoned in Scotland’s all-women jail, Nicola Sturgeon tells MSPs

[zaramysaviour]

Excellent news.

And Sturgeon has really shot herself in the foot here (again). Because if she really thinks 'trans women are women', why is she not allowing this 'woman' to go to a female prison?

So therefore she knows this person is not a woman.

So therefore she is being transphobic...

She's being slippery as fuck. 'agreeing with' what someone else says still gives her wriggle room to get out of it if necessary.

But one way or the other, she does seem to have come unstuck here. I assume she's been looking at the polls and the petition.

Boiledbeetle · Today 13:56

No, they don't get to do this. They have shoved down our throats the fact that if someone says they are trans they are trans.

This time they don't get to change the rules. Again.

Fuck the trans Rights lobby. This one is one of yours. Deal with it. No debate.

Oh, well said! It bears repeating.

Menawhile, in - gasp - Guardianland:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/26/trans-woman-isla-bryson-found-guilty-rape-not-be-held-in-womens-prison-sturgeon

Pressed repeatedly on the matter at first minister’s questions on Thursday by the Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, Sturgeon said she agreed it was not possible to have a rapist incarcerated within a female prison.

Emphasising this was an operational matter for the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), she added: “The Scottish Prison Service is in the process of giving effect to the decision it has taken not to incarcerate this prisoner in Cornton Vale” and that she expected the prisoner to be moved within 72 hours

Apparently it's not just a matter for the SPS, though; ministers have a veto. Twisty, Nicola, twisty!

Every single person knows why a man doesn't belong in a women's prison. Some people pretend they don't, or attempt to invalidate the reason by pretending that the objection is based on thinking all trans women are predators, but they aren't fooling anyone, not even themselves.

It's got to be a vote loser because there isn't a single person who doesn't know what the problem is. And even among people who don't care much about women's rights, it's hard to vote for someone who openly lies about something literally everyone knows to be true. It's such a blatant lie that it insults the intelligence of everyone who hears it.

Out of interest, how are the trans rights people responding to this? Are they still committed to TWAW in any circumstances and determined to argue that this rapist should be in a women's prison, or are they keeping very quiet /distancing themselves from a situation where a rapist decides to become a woman while awaiting trial? i.e. are they supporting all transwomen, including rapists?

I hope the Scottish Prison Service has kept receipts regarding why it adopted its policy on transwomen prisoners. Because NS is positioning herself to hang the SPS out to dry.

It's probably that one time when a predator tried to abuse the laws in ways that nobody could have foreseen, ever.

So well said. 👏

Is this irony? People have been saying this would happen since the beginning of self ID. Certainly not unforeseen. Apologies if I missed your joke.

NewFriday the illustrious Peter tatchell said this rapist should be in a womens prison in ‘segregation’.
I imagine the rest of TRSOH will be spluttering and raging pretty soon if not already.

Maybe it's just me but I really don't feel as though celebrations are in order. So in this one case the correct decision has been made. What about the next one, and the next? It shouldn't even be a question, one door that shouldn't be open.

I hope this means the tide is starting to turn? Please God! 🤞

Really actually shocked she has gone back on this - just goes to show that when enough people get behind something...

Or, the cynic in me thinks, because men have started to speak out too?

Yeah, it was intended as a joke. I imagine that's what they'll be saying but I do want to be completely clear that that's not what I'm saying.

That would be illegal, Peter you absolute plank.

Correct decision, but the Scotttish Government are all over the place on this issue.

Sturgeon and a Scottish Prison spokesperson said each case is considered on risk assessment. There'll still be loopholes, mistakes, and abuse of the system.

A separate wing in each prison for trans people ? This isn't a publiic spending priority. A perfect muddle.

I saw this coming a mile off, and I wasn't the only one.

It's certainly early days, but it's a major change of stance and has forced and acknowledgement that TW can't always be W

NS is so fucking disingenuous.

'Agreeing' with someone else saying ': ‘I don’t see how it’s possible to have a rapist within a female prison’. Why couldn't she just say 'I don't agree with sending a transgender rapist to a female prison? She has to be all 'indirect' about it.

And 'I don't see how it's possible' as if, as First Minister of Scotland, who has made it her personal goal to push through the GRRA Bill, she's looking around and over her shoulder quizzically, wondering 'who the hell ever thought that was a good idea?!!' Ah, that'll have been me - up until all the shit hit the fan and people started noticing the absolute unjust nonsense we've tried to get away with up here.

How much of a hoohah needed to take place before she finally, begrudgingly, indirectly and ungraciously admitted that she and her political acolytes got it badly wrong? And if I hear the words 'robust' and 'rigorous' come out of her mouth again, I'll scream.

It shouldn't have to be so hard for the women of Scotland.

😁don't worry. I got It!

You all misunderstand NS. She is merely re-aligning her core beliefs to protect her career.

Now when Westminster stamps Scotland's GR reform into the dust and flushes it down a sewer, NS can heartily approve their wisdom and back it to the hilt.

It's called having your cake and eating it.

I imagine after a while in solitary confinement he might decide he was a man again

I think it will be kept quiet where he ends up and even if it is for example HMP Edinburgh, how will we know if he is housed with men

Exactly, the FM was very careful to state this male offender would not be held at Cornton Vale, however, there are female units attached to male prisons and it will be very difficult to know if he is in with the women or men.

Every single person knows why a man doesn't belong in a women's prison. Some people pretend they don't, or attempt to invalidate the reason by pretending that the objection is based on thinking all trans women are predators, but they aren't fooling anyone, not even themselves.

Exactly. No one with the slightest amount of general knowledge really thinks people change sex, and especially no one thinks males who haven't even had surgery have changed sex.

To be a TRA or TWAW-believer you have to go along with some kind of wondrous metaphysical claim that being a woman (or man) is a mysterious innate essence unrelated to your body and dependent on your say-so. But this makes no sense and can't be tested for, and no one has ever convincingly explained how it exists or how you can guard against faking it or getting it wrong. That's how some numpties end up trying to claim that a double rapist who still has his penis is a "woman".

NS is in a ridiculous situation where she has having to pretend she thinks something that is 100% unprovable and demonstrably harmful, in order to suck up to the lobby-captured greens for the sake of votes. It's unsustainable because in her position situations like this are going to hit the fan and have to be dealt with one way or the other to reality is going to have to out.

I don't actually think she believes TWAW btw. You can see on her face that she's thinking "how the hell did I get into this stupid mess FFS", not "but they ARRRREEEE women!!!"

"Safeguarding is important but it's hard to have a sensible conversation when so many people are just anti-trans and hide behind safeguarding but they're actually bigots."

As usual no arguments, just name calling. If I am a bigot for wanting to keep a rapist out of the women's prison, so be it.

Wonder if this will be discussed on Question Time tonight? I suspect the BBC would like to avoid but I don’t see how they can.

It's also very telling that she's agreed that she can't see how it's possible to have a rapist in a female prison.

Not that it's not right to have a rapist in a female prison.

More "it's not very practical" than "that was a fucking stupid idea bound to go wrong".

I think they'll end up in the vulnerable section of another prison mixing with other very vulnerable prisoners (which is what has happened in women's prisons before with trans prisoners).

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001hfqz

From about 17.45 Rhona Hotchkiss former Governor of Cornton Vale being interviewed on World at One.