A GUEST POST BY LORNA CAMPBELL.
IT APPEARS that the recent Holyrood passing of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill (GRR) will almost certainly cause friction between Westminster and the Scottish parliament. It will not be because the Scottish parliament had the temerity to pass modifications to what is United Kingdom-wide pre existing legislation, reserved matters, but because the passing of the GRR Bill into putative law in Scotland will have effects on UK legislation that could affect female rights to equality provision. Before the UK government can invoke a S35 Order, it must be sure that the devolved administration has put into effect legislation that will affect female equality provision across the whole of the UK, and not just in Scotland.
It is immaterial whether or not the Scottish government and parliament have the competence to pass the GRR Bill into law, it remains illegal if it will affect female rights of equal opportunity anywhere in the UK precisely because it is UK-wide legislation that is being modified, and that it will, therefore, affect all parts of the UK against the interests of all females within the UK in the area of equality provision.
Let us stop and think for a moment: the 2004 Gender Recognition Act allowed for a holder of a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) to have an acquired gender that related to sex (legal) “for all purposes; the 2010 Equality Act affords specific categories protection from a free-for-all on conditions within those categories (age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation). Is it even feasible to claim that, in 2004, when it was believed that the number of ‘trans’ people was miniscule, that the framers of the law meant that hundreds of thousands of people would apply for a GRC? Is it equally feasible to claim that the framers of the 2010 EA meant anything other than biological sex or that gender reassignment meant anything other than some movement towards establishing a gender identity? I think not. The draftsmen/women who drew up these pieces of legislation never foresaw the way in which the gender identity movement would strive to encompass every aspect of identity.
If taken literally, “for all purposes” means that it will become impossible to exclude anyone from female spaces or rights, so that, de facto (in fact), if not de jure (in law), female spaces and rights cannot be other than fatally breached. We should note here, of course, that single-sex spaces are not enshrined in law, but are a privilege or convention, given the requirement for female safety in public. Only agreed justification can exclude even GRC-holding males, and that is nebulous, too. Perhaps we should be moving towards making female single-sex spaces wholly and legally exclusive to biological females?
It sounds as if this can be done easily, except that if a man becomes a woman legally, how can he be excluded from a woman’s space or right under the 2010 EA? Legally, he is entitled to be there as a legal ‘woman’ AND as a gender-reassigned person. Basically, biological women will have much more difficulty now, than previously, in excluding a biological man; indeed, it might well become impossible, under any category because his ‘gender reassignment’ trumps all other categories (women can be all other categories). Lady Haldane’s recent ruling is meaningless in the face of these hard facts.
Why did women require single-sex spaces and rights? Because they took a fancy to them? Because they seemed like a good idea to have a sewing bee in or a right old natter away from men? No, they evolved out of the need of females to have safe spaces, to have dignity and privacy while they attended to personal care, and, as such, were essential to female public existence and, crucially, still are. They were intended to keep males out who might threaten female sexual boundaries. We see now that even these small concessions are too much for some biological men to respect.
The wider repercussions are potentially destructive of all female rights. The very recent ruling against the For Women Scotland case will almost certainly lead to more and more ‘trans’ women taking over women’s spaces on public boards, which is the intention, and we could, potentially, see a 50% men/50% ‘trans’ women split, completely denying biological women any representation at all. What that would mean for women is that their hard-won equality rights in this area of public life are diminished at best, and completely wiped out, at worst. This would almost certainly affect female rights in this area right across the UK, so why would the UK government not be alarmed? More so, why would women in other parts of the UK not be horrified at the implications for them and press Westminster to “do something”?
The Scottish government, using its own research findings, estimates that the number of GRC holders will multiply by ten, and we have to believe that this number will be an underestimation, given the fact that the Scottish government has done all in its power to convince us that these modifications in the GRR Bill would not affect women at all. From all the evidence that we have from all the other countries where self-ID has been introduced, we are able to estimate with a fair amount of accuracy that a hundred-fold will not be far off the mark, and, if all men can claim a GRC with little effort, how will it be policed? What we will see is a lot of men who are autogynephiles/fetishists/paraphiliacs encroaching on female spaces and rights without a GRC because there is no way they can be policed unless a clocking-in-clocking-off system is introduced.
Did the Scottish government deliberately set out to confront Westminster? If they did, it would be a first, and it would entail having deliberately and cynically sacrificed female rights and spaces in order to achieve it. They have never chosen to confront Westminster on independence, so why would they do so on this? If women in Scotland are already withdrawing their support and votes from the SNP and Greens (I’m afraid I do not believe for one moment that they have accrued new memberships with this, and, if they have, they will be psychopaths and sadists, just what you want in your party) what is the effect going to be on rUK’s female population, many of who will have relatives up here, when they realise that the ‘feminist to her fingertips’ has done this to them?
When will we see ‘trans’ men (women) lay claim to all male spaces and rights? Never, I suspect, since sex becomes only too real when, for example, we talk of placing biological women into male prisons. Putting it crudely, we would first have to sew up every orifice. Male sports? Never. Male changing rooms? Again, never. Those pieces of rolled-up arm flesh would never pass as a real penis if bared, and, even if kept within pants, the anxiety at having to pass would suggest ill-ease, and ill-ease smells, and the smell of ill-ease would alert the alert. It is similar to the female sense that clocks a ‘trans’ woman at a hundred yards. So, whether the Scottish government and the equally deluded parliament will ever see fit to admit it, ‘trans’ men cannot ever be subjected to male spaces and rights on the grounds of sex, safety, dignity and privacy unless they want to be accused of sex trafficking. How ironic. It is very unlikely that the UK government would wish to force this aspect through either, for precisely the same reasons. Immediately, we have a clash of equality.
Equality of outcome cannot be legislated for, only equality of opportunity, but, if ‘trans’ men (women) cannot be afforded the same rights as ‘trans’ women, and biological men can be afforded the same rights as biological women, we have a conflict of equality opportunity. Female rights, whether biological female rights or those female rights accruing to ‘trans’ men, are destroyed. What will the effect be on maternity leave, for example? If women have no rights left, then how can they have a right to maternity leave or benefits? If a ‘trans’ man has a baby, why should ‘he’ be entitled to maternity leave and benefits that other men have no right to at all on account of their sex? That takes us back promptly to sex discrimination, so what of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975? It affords protection mainly to females, but if female rights are all but extinguished, what need of it?
Only men and ‘trans’ women will be advantaged by female erasure of sex class. Why should any female – TERF or handmaiden – vote to extinguish their own rights? These young women who follow the activist mob of the ‘trans’ lobby are acting to erase themselves, each other, all females, present and future. Does it never occur to them to question why so many of their male friends should be so keen on this stuff? All the evidence from every country where self-ID has been introduced tends to show that the majority of ‘trans’ women show no discernible difference in their behaviour and attitudes – in other words, they behave as many men behave towards females, with lack of respect, disgust and loathing, and when caught unawares, display the same misogyny.
So, what is ‘trans’? Can we get a handle on it so that it might be reasonably described in law? It appears to be transsexuals, dysmorphic/dysphoric people, but only in very small numbers. How can we categorise the rest, the vast majority? Well, again, we need to look at the studies done and research collated by sexologists and psychologists. Most of this, which has not been updated with recent and unimpeachable scientific research, would suggest that most of the ‘trans’ community (biologically male, at any rate) are affected by autogynephilia/fetishism/paraphilia. Even the most even-handed individual would have to concede that these would suggest sexual origins for much of what is modern ‘trans’, and it would also suggest that most of these biological men are heterosexual. If so, why is the Scottish government unleashing this on women, girls and children? It is a conundrum.
If we accept that the Lady Haldane ruling will lead to great confusion about the categories in the 2010 EA, would it not be better to treat ‘trans’ people as we treat all other minorities/discriminated against subgroups – in effect, treating ‘trans’ women as a subset of men and ‘trans’ men as a subset of women, and affording them the same anti discrimination treatment as we do all other groups? This would avoid employment discrimination and make it illegal to discriminate against ‘trans’ people in all ways that other disadvantaged groups are protected? Instead, we are destroying specifically female spaces and rights when it is biological females of every category who are discriminated against most – even in the ‘trans’ community. All over the world, in every culture, race, ethnicity and class, women rights are being pushed back, making women the most disadvantaged group in any society, always at the bottom of the heap. I find this hard to understand unless we accept that discrimination against women is so entrenched that it is always the go-to solution whenever things appear to go wrong. Right now, the world is being squeezed by neoliberal economics, by climate change, by all manner of adverse occurrences, so, women are to blame?
Karl Marx stated, in his day, that women (and children) were the slaves of men, were serfs. Basically, what we are seeing with ‘trans’ is cultural Marxism of the hard left, or Queer Marxism. Odd, then, that it is so destructive of female rights and spaces, is it not? Not really, because the hard left has always been anti female, misogynistic (the unions only recently started fighting hard for women’s equal pay and conditions, and, often, because women threatened to withdraw from them). Working-class ethos was often more in tune with middle-class and upper-class ethos when it came to treatment of women than on any other topic. All classes treated women like lesser human beings, worthy of little respect precisely because of their sex, not their gender.
It cannot be argued, although I have no doubt it will, by the Scottish government and parliament that they have made no major changes to the 2004 GRA, but that is nonsense, at best, and downright ‘truth economy’ at worst. Giving 16/17 year olds the right to change sex, to make decisions that will be unalterable, is a major modification; no medical intervention whatsoever (self-ID) is a major modification; the time period for living as a woman, whatever that means, reduced to practically nothing is a major modification. What other group is allowed to self-ID their particular condition? What other group can change legal documents at will? What other group can say, I am this when the stark reality seen by everyone else’s eyes is the very opposite? What other group has been allowed to force society to conform to its language and actions with no repercussions, except for those who refuse to conform?
Easy access to GRCs will almost certainly lead to ‘trans’ people from elsewhere coming to Scotland as GRC tourists, creating escalating tensions throughout the UK. Some fools will welcome this opportunity to diss Westminster, but they have little understanding of the ramifications. It will not make independence easier. It will make it so much harder and so much more bitter because the strains on our society will bring destruction in their wake, a destruction of societal mores that will take at least a generation to repair – if they can be repaired. Some might believe that ushering in totalitarianism is a price worth paying for independence, but most reasonable people will think otherwise. My greatest fear is that, if those letters in The National lauding the Scottish government’s “cleverness” are anything by which to judge, reasonableness is in very short supply in Scotland these days. The Enlightenment might never have happened.
I do not believe that Westminster will intervene with a S35 Order, but it may if it becomes angry enough. It would be a very contentious move. It does not have to: it can introduce legislation to protect females, specifically, and female rights, that will negate many of the worst aspects of this GRR. The Scottish government informed us that Dame Helena Kennedy was to bring in female-specific recommendations in light of the ‘hate crime’ legislation and GRR. We are still waiting for them. Do they think we have forgotten? That type of legislation can wait, apparently, or never appear, but not ‘trans’ rights extension, widening and broadening. That must be ushered in quickly, with only one side being heard properly.
If this latest fight has done anything, it has forced women to focus on how they must unite and gather to fight the good fight all over again, as their forebears did in the early 20th century. Perhaps Holyrood has done us all a great service, for it has brought biological women from every part of the UK together in ways that would have been unimaginable only a couple of years ago. We are researching ways in which we can, as a sex class, and across borders, take advantage of our votes to use them in our best interest, in the West, and across the globe. A global sisterhood is forming, under the radar, away from men and ‘trans’ women. Strong females are rising in the ranks and, for maybe the first time in female history, we are looking at ways to help ourselves that go beyond votes and political parties.
That is not meant as any kind of insult to good, decent men. It means only that we need to do it for ourselves, take our lives into our own hands, demand an equal share of resources, wherever in the world we are, and an end to our sex subservience to some men’s all-encompassing sexual desires that rarely take our shared humanity into account. The Western sisterhood is going to embrace the sisterhoods of other parts of the world. Our lived experiences might be very different in many ways from theirs, but, at the end of the day, we are all females and we all come up against the same problems and realities that only our sex can ever experience. I hope that Scotland will become independent very soon (I believe it will because the time feels right) but not at the expense of female spaces and rights. No independista man has the right to expect that of us, and nor will we comply. Mutual support it must be, and, maybe together we can leave the Union, and all parts of the UK can find their own feet, as females in Scotland must find ours.
A brilliant piece of writing! Thank you, Lorna. And thanks to Roddy for his support.
Agreed Jan. Let her critics tie themselves in knots trying, but none of them will ever equal the strength, passion or commitment in her voice to the cause of real women and girls!
I agree. Lorna makes a number of good points But I am particularly concerned about the appointment of trans-women on boards and commitees with a policy of a sexual balance as I do not believe that a man who has not experienced the restrictions and problems girls and young women face routinely can possible represet a woman’s point of view, I think it was Patrick Harvey who stated that he did not see a problem with a board consisting of 50% men and 50% trans women. Well, I think that would be a travsty of the intentions of the legislation that recommended a balance of the sexes.
Just one of the very many reasons this abomination of a Bill must be struck down.
Ann: the loss of that case (For Women Scotland’s courageous and brilliant stand) was extremely disappointing, but the Lady Haldane ruling cannot be allowed to stand because it will open the door to every other area where women have 50% representation. If a man can become, for all legal purposes, a ‘woman’, there can be no area where he will be refused admittance. To boot, her comments about the protected characteristic of sex in the 2010 EA cannot stand either because of the gender reassignment characteristic. What has happened is that gender reassigned people, ‘trans’, will have the luxury of both categories, or, at least, that is how I read it, and, since a woman can also have all the other characteristics, none except gender reassignment is, in fact and in law, protected.
Patrick Harvie is a piece of work: a real deep-dyed misogynist. There appear to be two types pf gay men: the ones who befriend and like women; and the ones who despise us. The economies with the truth that these politicians make is beyond endurance now. They know perfectly well that, of the two sexes (oh, don’t be fooled anyone, they know their sexes when push comes to shove, and it’s women being shoved out) men are usually more dominant, probably through ancient biology, and, since this ‘trans’ movement is hellbent on power and control, 50% and 50% ‘trans’ identified men is all too likely. That is just one of the laughable, but serious aspects of this madness is that these ‘trans’ ‘women’ behave exactly like men at all times. Also, the politicians are perfectly aware that ‘trans’ ‘men’, because of their vulnerability, hormones or no hormones, are vulnerable precisely because of their sex.
Harvie may have said it, but Kirsty Blackman tweeted it a while ago – they are both dangerous but Harvie has always been a misogynist while Blackman seemed okay at first but has well and truly drained the cup of TRA Kool Aid and gone back for several refills since
The GRRB is the worst piece of legislation Holyrood has ever debated and it passed the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act and tried to pass the Named Person Act. I disagree that Westminster won’t intervene. They have to, given that GRRB directly interferes with Equality Act 2010 and other areas. If a Scottish GRC is not recognised in England, Wales and NI because they don’t have self id, then how is the holder to get a passport, driving licence etc in their new legal fiction of sex? Will someone by legally female in Scotland and legally male in England? That can’t work.
There is a petition for Westminster to amend the EA to make it clear the protected characteristic of sex refers to biological sex. The drafters never thought that would in dispute but Lady Haldane’s ruling disagrees.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/623243
I’d urge those who haven’t signed it to do so. If you look at the “heat map” Scotland is lit up like a Christmas Tree! Which is another reason Westminster might intervene. They know it isn’t popular and see it as an easy way to attract votes from “cervix owners!” We need to let Scottish women who are pro indy know that Alba and the ISP both disagree with self id.
All this would have been avoided in several ways. Even now it could. The Single Sex exemptions in the EA allow you to exclude trans women from single sex spaces on the basis of gender reassignment (the relevant protected characteristic) though not ironically sex if you hold a GRC and a legal sex – that’s why Beira’s Place is legal. HOWEVER, the Scot Gov will only fund rape crisis centres, refuges, etc IF they are trans exclusive. So if you want to take advantage of the legal exclusions you need to have deep pockets and luckily JK Rowling does.
Thanks to Lorna for writing and Roddy for publishing.
Women Won’t Wheesht.
PP: I agree with all you say, and you may well be right that Westminster will intervene. I’m not so sure. They won’t want another quarrel with Holyrood and they are in the midst of cutting back on all kinds of welfare benefits, too, such as automatic holiday pay entitlement. Getting a few costly benefits to women off the books might persuade them. It all depends on how the powerful Tory ladies’ lobby reacts. Also, they have their own ‘trans’ problems and this might be one way to let it seep through into the rest of the UK, and they can then blame Scotland. I never believed that our politicians would have passed this vile nonsense, but they have. With so many politicians, it is me, I and myself.
An excellent post Lorna, thank you. Let us hope that those who need to read about the female side of this bill will read it, weep and become very angry. I consider this bill the most wicked piece of legislation I have ever encountered in the UK, not just in Scotland. There has been other legislation from legislators that I have thought unconscionable but this one stands out as the most appalling, with its intended consequences on women, girls and children. I use the word ‘intended’ deliberately because Holyrood MSPs knowingly voted for male sex offenders to be able to obtain a GRC, change their name and sex and wipe their criminal slate clean. What type of person would vote to make it easier for sex offenders to access females, for the purposes of rape, violence and sexual assault, and for women to be accused of a hate crime if they complain about men in their single-sex spaces? The SNP, Greens, Lib Dems and Labour, those 86 MSPs are that type of person and voted to do this to women, children, their mothers and all of their female relatives. Shame on them.
Yes, Rosemary, I, too, cannot quite get my head round the sadism and cruelty involved. It will be their death knell.
Forgive me if this has been covered before. I’m writing this as a layperson and haven’t fully thought it through but surely there are implications under ‘positive discrimination’ legislation.
I caught an episode of ‘Eggheads’ on BBC (yeah I know – me bad) where the challengers team included a ‘transgender’ type person in full attire and, I’m sorry but she was ‘toe curling’ and cringeworthy thick – a trait also found in reality TV stars.
I’ve also heard that book publishers are scared to turn down work from trans type persons for fear of retribution’
I
Much of the laws relating to females is positive discrimination, Andrew, because it is female-specific: welfare benefits such as maternity leave, maternity benefit, baby boxes, equal pay, sex discrimination, and so on. All these will be adversely affected if biological men become ‘legal women’. Similarly, laws relating specifically to males will also be adversely affected by ‘trans’ men (women). However, it is unlikely that ‘trans’ men will have anything like the impact on male lives that ‘trans’ women will have on female lives. When it comes to ‘trans’ men, sex kicks in very rapidly. For example, is anyone going to suggest seriously that we throw ‘trans’ men in with biological male prisoners? Strictly-speaking, that is what we are obliged to do by law, but how long would a ‘trans’ man last in a male prison? So, we can see how the law is already being undermined across a host of areas. It is going to become much, much worse.
Why was this reform even suggested? It cannot just be blackmail from horrific Harvie surely? Evans was bringing diversity into civil servants HR policies at Whitehall. Was she behind this too? An FM who struggled to win a seat in her own right for decades, suddenly all the doors opened? Kompromat? Now it is time for her to pay the piper?
Are they really this stupid, or incompetent, or just downright nasty and vengeful? It sure feels like revenge. We have to stop this bills progression to an Act. International Gold Standards my Ar*e!
It all stemmed from the Yogyakarta (Indonesia) Principles, Tenv, and was adopted by the international community, specifically, the West. It became ‘best practice’ as Stonewall, via the instructions in The Denton’s Document, infiltrated every international body on human rights, before that vile organisation moved on to individual, mainly European and Anglo-sphere countries.
I believe that, in England, it proved to be a hard sell, so Stonewall concentrated on Scotland, and, again, specifically on the SNP and the Greens. This may well have been because these parties have more homosexuals within them who might be more sympathetic to ‘trans’ rights, having had to endure discrimination themselves. However, I think even homosexual men and women are seeing through the disguise of the ‘puir wee sowel’ of a movement which is all about power and control. If you look at all the countries where this has been introduced (self-ID), you will notice that it is in the smaller, less self-confident, once or still in thrall to a bigger neighbour, that have been targeted first: New Zealand more than Australia; Iceland more than Denmark, Norway more than Sweden; Canada more than the US. I am certain that this is no coincidence, but a deliberate strategy.
You can see by how it has worked in Scotland, the implications for the rest of the UK. I think that we are beginning to get a handle on it and understanding it for what it is now, not for what the propaganda tells us it is. It is very similar in motive and tactics to the Tliban – authoritarian, women-hating, fundamentalist, men’s rights and sexual desires first at the expense of the entire economy. In the end, it is about the need of an elite to control the next century’s economic drivers across the globe because this movement is funded by billionaire Americans (mainly). Females need to be removed from public life, the youth and children need to be indoctrinated into placing themselves under medical supervision for the whole of their lives. Guess who want their hands on our NHS? If we thought Thatcher/Reagan neoliberalism was bad, we ain’t seen nothing yet.
I think we all owe Roddy and the other bloggers, women’s organisations, individuals, a huge thank you for being willing to put their heads above the parapet on this issue – and others. Without them, we would be much futher down this road than we are, currently.
As a 71 year old male I have always supported the opposition to this reviled legislation and have commented on it repeatedly when SC first posted about it and many males and females were happy to ignore the warnings with the usual wheesht for indy mantra , as I have posted before Lorna your comments on any forum on any matter were always respectful and considerate of others feelings , it is only since the determination of the scum nonce party to FORCE through this abhorrent legislation against the electorates opposition that you have become more vociferously enraged and outspoken which is a credit to your patience
Unfortunately my patience and respect for imbecilic morons is not as democratic as yours , I detest the protagonists for this pervert and deviant’s charter and cannot wait to celebrate when sturgeon and her taliban deviants are destroyed by the electorate
twathater: I agree. I assure you that patience is not what I feel for this bunkum. I honestly believe that we are being manipulated by very clever and utterly ruthless psychopaths who, themselves, have no real interest in ‘trans’ except that it provides an opportunity for maximum cruelty and sadism again the two most vulnerable sections of humanity – children and females. There might be money in it, too, for them, but I doubt that they have any interest in actual ‘trans’ itself except as a vehicle to do their worst.
I think we are a very long way from understanding what tis type of person can do on a local level, on a community level and on a national and international level – if they are powerful enough. Several American billionaires are wealthy enough and probably psychotic enough to do this. I know people get all sniffing at conspiracy theories – I do myself, because it is mostly down to idiocy – but there can be little doubt now that this takeover by ‘trans’ is an international takeover, well-planned and executed. We need to remember, too, that politics, big business, the judiciary and those professions that wield power often attract psychopaths. If we put as many resources into recognising these extremely dangerous people early on, we would all be much happier.
Without beating about the bush Sturgeon and her Scottish Government have much in common with the Taliban who also seek to destroy women’s rights.
They are both of the same horrible mindset. And let us make no mistake, women and girls particularly, are going to be harmed by this legislation and the impacts are just beginning.
Spot on, Willie.
An extremely powerful analysis which serves as a shocking indictment on the SNP/Green led Government which brought this bill before the Holyrood Parliament.
We must however serve in the most serious terms our own indictment on the MSPs who slavishly voted in favour of this obscene legislation and who rejected key amendments during the passage of this bill.
This post necessarily deserves the widest coverage possible over and above which it will receive on this Blog.
Would you Lorna consider an approach to Mandy Rhodes @Holyrood Magazine to republish? Just a thought.
Robert: thank you. I quite deliberately did not put any restrictions on the circulation of this piece because it is so important an issue that any personal kudos are meaningless. I would be happy for anyone who feels it might add something or anything to the issue to use it/pass it on/place it elsewhere. I am not on Twitter or FaceBook or any other social media. Roddy was kind enough to publish it. I cannot thank him enough. He has saved my sanity on a number of occasions now through his own work, and his kindness is very much appreciated. Nowadays, I rarely venture out much beyond my own front door, and have lost contacts, so I do not know Mandy, though I have read many of her pieces in the mag. I believe she is not personally in favour of this GRR.
As is usual from you, Lorna, an excellent and powerful piece of writing. I have female friends down south who appear unable to see what threat legislation such as this poses to them. I shall direct them to this piece which will I’m sure clarify the issue for them.
Thank you, Davey. Many in England are now just beginning to understand the threat this is to them, too.
How about this then as one specific example of how bad could happen.
A secondary school near me has recently confirmed to teachers, and incidentally all pupils to, that and I quote :-
” Be understanding if a pupil asks you to use another name to make them feel comfortable ”
” if you make a mistake about a pupils name or pronouns just apologise and correct yourself ”
And then, here’s the absolute pearl –
” check when and where the pupil is comfortable with you using the names/ pronouns they have requested ( Can you use the new name / pronoun in front of other pupils, other staff, parents?) ”
Now I don’t know about other folks, or parents, but encouraging secret one on one, teacher on pupil names is a sure fire recipe for disaster. It is an aide to inappropriate secret relationships and no less than a groomers charter.
But that is exactly what is in the guidance toolkit. That is what teachers are being told to do. A groomers charter mandate, with other staff and the parents knowing nothing.
And here’s another disaster coming down the line.
Children are just that, children. They range in age from tots at pre-school, to primary school children to secondary school teenagers ranging from twelve to seventeen years of age. Legally they have different capacities. Individually they are vulnerable, impressionable.
And now the whole school system is designed to encourage or support alternative sex orientations. But what happens with a child supported and encouraged to adopt an alternative orientation, or even change their orientation legally or in practice, or pursue a course of action such as hormone therapy, then on adulthood decides that they were wrongly encouraged or induced to a orientation that they now reject. Where does everyone go from the their. The child who now says he is a biological man and not the orientation he was encouraged or induced to adopt. Who picks up the wreckage. And will he have recourse to sue for damages.
Or the parents who were excluded, kept in the dark. What of the wreckage there. And will they sue school and or teacher.
But that is the road we go down. In schools in some eleven out of the thirty two local authority council area, and without any recourse to parents, a Health and Wellbeing Census, asked every school child over 14 years of age about their experience and indulgence in anal sex. oral and vaginal sex.
As a parent and now a grandfather I find this absolutely outrageous. But it doesn’t even stop there because when you then consider children as young as seven or eight years of age, how many parents know that teachers having teaching aids that use a banana and a jar of Nutella to develop an awareness of sexual practice that is considered by the authorities to be normal. It’s worse than insane.
Thank you Lorna for a thoughtful piece. You do not need to look too hard to see the institutionalised disaster that is heading down the tracks.
And the teachers, and police, who are being told to keep quiet on sexual relationships as young as eleven years of age if the conclude that its consensual and no harm is being done. Maybe someone could pick up on that one.
Willie: out of all this mess, it is the children that we must protect most. That is why there can be no middle ground, no compromise on this issue. We will create a generation of young people who are maimed for life, experiments in something they are far too young to understand. It is beyond criminal: it sadistic; it is psychopathic; it is adult narcissism gone insane. I wonder whether they will recreate the freak shows: the bearded lady; the man with breasts? It is sick. I am so afraid for the young in my own family and in everyone else’s family.
And one last comment if I may without hogging the comments, but it is this.
Someone earlier raised the issue of people coming from out with Scotland to avail themselves of a Gender Recognition Certificate. Now without trying to make light of an absolutely grim set of circumstances folk might not know it but Gary Glitter is going to be released from jail.
So what is to stop him moving to Scotland and apply for a Gender recognition Certificate to change him from man to woman.
Willie: your point is a very fair one. It is likely that someone of his notoriety would be winnowed out, but can we be sure? How will they do that? Someone with far less notoriety or none at all could easily slip through the net. It makes me so angry when it is stated with all the care of placing tatties in a soggy bag that nothing has happened abroad where this stuff has been introduced. It is simply not true.
Stuart Campbell, Graham Linehan, Genevieve Gluck, Karen Davis, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull and many, many others have archives full of ‘this never happens’. Only a week or so ago, footage of a raging ‘trans’ identified male, with full beard, frock and make-up appeared on social media. He threatened a young girl student because she had said he was in the wrong bathroom. He stalked after her, calling her filthy names, and it was obvious she was intimidated. I think it was in Brazil, not sure.
It is the complete disregard for female safety and privacy and dignity coupled with the knowledge (they must know or are incredibly stupid and uncaring) that so many of these biological men are driven by sexual feelings. Holyrood can only have decided that it was a risk, but that, hopefully, no one would be injured or killed because these men become enraged, like mad bulls, when they are challenged. I am quite certain that some MSPs (and MPs) in all the parties are ‘queer’. It must definitely be part of the explanation. What is never explained is why everyone else must bear witness for queer, kink, sissy queer and applaud it as ‘stunning and brave’ when it is flaunted in public.
Any Pride rally in any town anywhere in the UK will prove just how many fetishes are on display openly, in front of children, too. Some of them wear baby’s (adult version) nappies and suck dummies and want their bottoms to be cleaned by – guess who? Women, of course. Now, that might be okay between consenting adults in the privacy of their own home, if that is what turns them on, but in a street where ordinary people, men, women and children are walking around? They want to make all this perfectly normal in public. That is the aim.
I feel some sympathy for transsexuals who have gone through the works, and for those who have fetishes but keep them private, but part of me wonders just how low down the scale of human value females are because so much of this stuff is about making us feel unwanted, ‘other’, of no consequence at all, our boundaries breached with impunity and no thought to how we might be affected.
Superb expression, Lorna. These issues are not academic, they will change the world, and as in all things, it will be the poor they will most affect… but poor state schools, dealing with this stuff; women in need of safe spaces in multiply deprived areas… It’s all something that another half don’t need to think about, that in those areas our gps, schoolteachers, police officers, social workers will all have to take on as part of the 9-5. And strangely enough, it’s those areas that would swing independence if they all got behind it.
However sanity returns, Lorna… whether by the work of women on their own, or whether by a combined effort from all of us, it cannot come back quick enough.
Have a happy, prosperous New Year when it comes, Lorna. And all.
Thank you, tombkane, and the same to you all and yours, and to all on here and theirs. You are so right: it will affect working-class communities so much more than middle-class ones, as most adverse things do and, yes, it will be those working-class areas’ votes, especially in the cities, where independence will be won or lost, where we need to get the vote out as we did in 2014.
First of all Lorna can I say how refreshing it is to find someone else who doesn’t do social media. I gave up Twitter and Facebook after a month.
Now isn’t the time and this isn’t the forum to expand on my conspiracy theory but I did get a bit of a shock when, in an effort to find out if I’d missed any further blogs from Gordon Dangerfield, I googled him and found that ‘Historywoman’ the arch enemy of the Yes movement had liked and shared his article on this subject.
I’ve bumped my gums re articles by Kenneth Roy on 2 other sites but make no apologies for doing so again. I know that in the past he was regarded as another enemy of the Yes campaign, but he was spot on regarding Nicola Sturgeon.
https://www.scottishreview.net//KennethRoy49a.html
There is a precedent for this madness. In the late 50’s, early 60’s a large majority of the country were taken in by Billy Graham. Then, as now, anyone who dared question the perceived wisdom was shunned, humiliated and in some cases jailed.
https://www.scottishreview.net/KennethRoy416a.html.
That is why the work that you do Lorna is so important.
Sanity, now as then, through your efforts, will return.
PS.. In the one in a million chance that I do return to Twitter, I’ve got my tagline ready
‘If one is quite prepared to be force fed bullshit, one only has one person to blame when one becomes ill’
Thank you, Andrew. I am just one wee, ordinary wifie and there are many, many people out there trying to make a difference. I’m so afraid of where this can lead. Being able to see through bull is both a gift and a curse. Although I have always been a nationalist, I have never been fooled by some of the people in the nationalist movement. It behoves us all to keep an open mind and to question, and, above all, not to be terrorised into accepting something we know is utter bilge. The terror squads of the ‘trans’ movement are frightening people into compliance with a pile of manure, basically. It is quite sensible to have empathy and compassion for those who are different, and want to recognise their rights, but that empathy and compassion has its limits when those same people trample over the rights of others.
Molly’s mum: absolutely. The Greens are even more vile than the SNP these days. Harvie is typical of that part of the gay male movement that loathes women. He’s a vicious wee scrote at times. The gay men I have come into contact with have all been sweethearts, lovely guys. As for Blackman, she always struck me as not quite on the ball. She is well-educated, but there is a massive difference between passing exams and being really intelligent. I just think she lacks depth, and is often out of her depth, but that would appear to be the qualification required by today’s party. Most of them appear to have no sense of the implications of the legislation they would impose on others.
Hi, Roddy. May I apologise to you, Molly’s Mum and Ann Rayner for answering Molly’s Mums comment to Ann? Peered at it without my glasses. Sorry, folks. Just disregard my comment. Doh! Getting too full of myself there.
No need to apologise, indeed, I do not even know what you are apologising for😳
For jumping in, Roddy. It was rude. That’s it.
You didnt jump in, it is your article and this is a reader’s comment section.
Deems that in major Police Scotland report the police are using the term MAP ( or Minot Attracted People) to describe pedophiles.
Seems also that the report was also about how the police could help and support MAPs to prevent crime
Seems also that the Chief Constable Iain Livingston says he didn’t want to use the term but that he had to.
All I can say is what the hell is going on. Coming on top of the Police being told to keep secret any underage school children sexual relationships of children as young as 13 years of age if its considered a sound relationship, this is further proof of the slide to legalising sex with young children.
Here’s a Telegraph piece on the story.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/30/scottish-police-call-paedophiles-minor-attracted-people-major/
I wonder how many of the wise old sayings apply to this nonsense. I can list a few:-
‘Pride comes before a fall’
‘Give an inch and they’ll take a mile’
‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’
‘Empty vessels make the most noise’.
‘Diving to win a penalty’ (for football supporters).
I’m sure there are many more. These are just off the top of my head.
Also off the top of my head Lorna. Have you considered contacting James O’Brien at LBC or better still Private Eye?
Andrew: both are well on top of this. Every source in England knows what is going on in Scotland. Apart from the Telegraph, and one or two other titles, this stuff is being accepted and even pushed. We have to remember that the newspaper magnates are often shareholders and CEOs of other corporations, and their money may well be sunk in this. The Lib Dems (Westminster) received a large donation from a pharmaceutical company last year. Corruption and graft are now rife in Blighty right across the board. The BBC is captured, as are most of the other channels. I just do not believe that so many intelligent people can be that stupid, but I’m afraid being a virtue-signalling moron is an equal opportunities phenomenon.
Sorry meant to leave a link to LBC
Here’s James getting stuck into Farage.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/best-of-lbc/2022/top-brexit-moments/
Willie: MAPs is used to try and gradually normalise what is a very serious and dangerous paraphilia/fetish. One police area has made a study of child porn – I’m sorry, my memory is not what it used to be, and I cannot recall which one – and they discovered that many of these men are not paedophiles, as such, in that it is a deep-seated paraphilia. Many of those caught accessing child porn or trying to approach children are men who are addicted to porn and need to keep on pushing the boundaries. Many of the fetishists have pets, too, and they rape them, too. Bestiality is also on the increase.
When a woman or child or a gay person is murdered and there are sexual overtones – when are there not? – it is almost certain that the perpetrator will have an escalating scale of fetishes/paraphilias on record: public masturbation, flashing, unwanted touching, filming in toilets/changing rooms without permission and for sexual gratification, bestiality, stalking, cross dressing in public… the list goes on. Many will not go on to kill, but some will. Others will sexually assault and rape. No one is claiming that this is a feature of the ‘trans’ community, and only the ‘trans’ community, but it is a feature of the ‘trans’ community as well as the straight community, and lends the lie to ‘this never happens’ and men don’t need to dress in women’s clothes to do these things.
No, they don’t, but they are men and all men are a potential danger to women for the very obvious reason that females and children do not know who the good guys are in either community, straight or ‘trans’ , so all males must be denied access to female spaces, rights, etc. We must make it plain, though, that men who behave badly towards women and children are a minority of the male population, but the evil they do contaminates society. Some ‘trans’ women behave exactly like straight men – in fact, most do, even though they think they are passing, some of them. 99.9% do not pass, and one of the immediate reasons why they do not pass is because, a) women sense they are men, even if they do not say outright; b) they look like, and. crucially behave like men.
They are caricatures of women, as are the ‘trans’ men (women). There is nothing kind in pretending that this movement is not a dangerous societal movement (cultural, queer Marxism which attacks liberalism and democracy) and a massive danger to female existence and gay existence in the public sphere, and, as the transhumanism (some of which could be medically helpful) aims to cut females out of sexual reproduction and even male-female sexual and loving relationships entirely, not to mention driving a wedge between parents and child, and the subsequent destruction of the family as the primary cohesive unit. What is happening in schools is already the front line.