Jo Bartosch – The SNP’s Gender Recognition Bill is a threat to women:
The Scottish government published its Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill last week. This bill will make it easier for adults in Scotland to change their legal gender, even lowering the age – from 18 to 16 – at which they will be able to do so.
After listening to Scotland’s social-justice secretary, Shona Robison, introduce the bill on Thursday, an important question was left hanging in my head – is the minister just a bit dim or is she being disingenuous? On reflection, she may be both.
Robison explained that the bill ‘just simplifies a process that has been in existence for 18 years’, and reassured listeners that it would have no impact on other groups. She made no reference to the rising number of young de-transitioners – that is, those young people who believed themselves to be the opposite sex as teenagers, sometimes undergoing medical procedures, only to experience regret and often infertility as adults. And she dismissed as unfounded warnings from women’s groups about dangerous men exploiting the process to abuse women.
Robison even ignored a formal letter from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) which cautioned against a legal change without further consideration, and argued that the current system offers ‘the correct balanced legal framework that protects everyone’.
Robison's exact words: "There is no evidence that predatory and abusive men have ever had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory behaviour" – a remark betraying an astonishing level of stupidity and/or ignorance about how common it is, in fact, for predatory and abusive men to do exactly that: pretend to be something else. From Jimmy Savile as your lovely cuddly Jim'll-fix-it uncle and charity fundraiser to "trans-women" like Karen White, who sexually assaulted inmates in New Hall women's prison, the list goes on and on. Does she think all abusive men introduce themselves to their victims by noting that they are indeed abusive and predatory, but, you know, only occasionally?
Glinner has part one of an incomplete list of "predators pretending to be something they are not"
Update: JK Rowling is not giving up the fight.
Exactly this. The law @NicolaSturgeon's trying to pass in Scotland will harm the most vulnerable women in society: those seeking help after male violence/rape and incarcerated women. Statistics show that imprisoned women are already far more likely to have been previously abused. https://t.co/LPN8cx1Vf4
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 5, 2022
Mick Hartley 
Leave a comment