MurrayBlackburnMackenzie’s petition to the Scottish Parliament’s Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee on accurately recording the sex of those accused or charged with rape, was covered in today’s Herald: “Police Scotland face backlash over gender ID policy“.
The article highlighted the letter Police Scotland recently submitted to the Committee reiterating its position that “the sex/gender identification of individuals who come into contact with the police will be based on how they present or how they self-declare”. Extraordinarily, in seeking to explain this, Police Scotland said that this practice promoted “a strong sense of belonging”.
Our response was quoted by the Herald: “We thought we were beyond being shocked and dismayed by the treatment of rape victims in the Scottish judicial system, but we never expected that Police Scotland would rate a rapist’s ‘strong sense of belonging’ above the law as set out in the Court of Session’s ruling last year, and above the impact of such a grotesque lie on women who have already suffered so much at the hands of an abuser.”
For Women Scotland have written to the members of the Committee - see letter at https://forwomen.scot/08/09/2024/police-scotlands-practice-on-self-id-does-not-comply-with-court-ruling/