Mick Hartley

Nicola Sturgeon is rapidly disappearing up her own contradictions:

The first minister has said that Isla Bryson is “almost certainly” masquerading as a woman, casting doubt on the double rapist’s gender identity.

Nicola Sturgeon appeared to contradict her own self-declaration policy for transgender people by questioning the validity of Bryson’s status….

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader,…said: “Anyone who rapes a woman is a man, and they cannot be considered anything else.”

“Adam Graham was already able to access a beauty class after raping two women,” Ross said. “Twenty-one-year old Rachel Ferguson was in that class with him and told a newspaper: ‘It really scares me to look back and realise that he was watching me with no clothes on, after being charged with this. It makes me feel physically sick and violated.’

Pressed on whether Sturgeon trusted “the word of a rapist” claiming to be a woman, the first minister replied “I don’t”.

Ross went on to read out a quote from one of Bryson’s victims, who said on Sunday: “I don’t believe a word. I don’t believe he is truly transgender. I feel he has made a mockery out of abusing it. As far as I am concerned that was to make things easier for himself, I’m sure he’s faking it.”

Sturgeon said: “The quote that Douglas Ross narrated there, my feeling is that is almost certainly the case.”

"Almost certainly the case" that Bryson was lying: yet the whole gender self-ID business was based on the certainty that no one would ever lie about such a thing. The women who objected were ignored or dismissed as bigots.

For Women Scotland, a campaign group that opposes gender self-identification, tweeted: “It appears that Nicola Sturgeon has concluded there are three sexes — male, female and rapist. Of course, a tiny number of rapes are ever reported, let alone prosecuted. Does the ‘rapist’ gender wear off after time served and will Graham [Bryson] be in a women’s changing room thereafter?”