Mick Hartley

Euan Malcolm in The Scotsman on the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre farrago, and the silence of Scottish politicians:

The intellectual vacuity is bad enough but it’s the moral cowardice that really sickens. More than a week after an independent review found rape victims were damaged by catastrophic failings at Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, senior politicians remain silent on the matter.

Of the parties represented at Holyrood, only the Scottish Conservatives and Alba have spoken out on a scandal that others would very much prefer to simply vanish….

This is entirely unsurprising from a parliament full of inadequates who have bought in wholesale to dangerous gender ideology which seeks to erase the rights – indeed, the very existence of biological women.

In December 2022, amid jubilant scenes at Holyrood, MSPs backed reforms of the Gender Recognition Act that would permit anyone to self-identify into the legally-recognised sex of their choosing. Campaigners against the change in the law, including lifelong feminists whose entirely legitimate concerns over making it easier for trans-identifying males to enter women-only safe spaces have been proved right by the scandal at ERCC, were ignored by the majority of MSPs. Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon did not keep quiet. Rather, she cruelly and arrogantly condemned those dissenters as bigots.

On the afternoon of Thursday, December 22, 2022, before MSPs voted on the Gender Recognition reform Bill, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton was especially oleaginous. In a performative speech, he told MSPs: “I am clear that no provisions in the bill on changes to gender recognition create a new or additional threat to women.” There you go, ladies – Alex has had a look into it and there’s nothing to worry your pretty little heads about.

Cole-Hamilton and 85 other MSPs voted in favour of the bill, while 39 were opposed. When the result was announced, the Lib Dem leader and other frontbenchers stood and turned to face a group of trans rights activists – including a number who had posted abusive and threatening messages about biological women online – and applauded. It was a nauseating display by slow-witted men and women whose desire to be seen as being on “the right side of history” trumped any serious consideration of the matter or any concern for women whose right to female-only spaces they were thrilled to remove….

The failure of senior MSPs to address the scandal at Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre means the head of Rape Crisis Scotland, the national charity that sets standards for support centres across Scotland, has been allowed to continue in her post.

Sandy Brindley – a great ally and supporter of Wadhwa – has spent the past week defending herself.

In 2021, Brindley took gender ideologue Sharon Cowan, a professor in feminist and queer legal studies, to a meeting with rape survivors, concerned about self-ID laws. Cowan was not identified to those concerned women, who believed her to be a fellow survivor.

This shocking betrayal of trust should be enough to see Brindley resign in shame. It is certainly more than enough for First Minister John Swinney to call for her to go.

Instead, Sandy Brindley – whose organisation continues to work on its definition of “woman” – remains in post and Swinney remains silent.

And the harm to rape victims, abused by gender ideologues, remains an afterthought.

To make matters worse Sharon Cowan, the queer legal studies professor, is in fact Sandy Brindley's partner.

Meanwhile Brindley has been offering reporters the phone numbers of rape survivors who she thinks will support her.