Mick Hartley

Alex Massie in the Times – Repellent policy on trans inmates shows SNP chooses men over women:

I do not know why John Swinney and his government colleagues are so very keen to house male murderers in women’s prisons, but I do know this is a question the first minister should be asked every day until the Scottish parliamentary election on May 7. If it is asked often enough, perhaps an answer will finally be forthcoming….

Voters should know that if they vote for the SNP (or the Green Party), they really are voting for men convicted of some of the most heinous crimes to be housed in the female prison estate simply because these men have decided they are in fact women themselves.

Not, one suspects, because these men are suddenly overcome by feelings of gender dysphoria. It’s a bit more cynical than that.

As a political matter, this is obtuse; as policy it is repellent. But this is the reality of modern Scotland, a place where ministers can argue they are obeying the Supreme Court’s confirmation that sex is a question of biology while simultaneously doing all they can to avoid following the law.…

The Scottish government has spent years arguing that there is no clash of rights between women and trans people and yet here it is expressly, explicitly, arguing that trans murderers’ rights trump those of women. There is a clash of rights and the government has picked a side. That is its prerogative, but SNP politicians cannot complain if and when voters notice that the government believes women should recognise that men’s need for validation is considered more important than women’s safety and dignity.

As far as the government is concerned, women who object to this should know their place and pipe down. Ministers argue that testimony from female prisoners unhappy at being imprisoned alongside men is “irrelevant”. It is hard to see how the government could more clearly signal its contempt for women. Their rights are contextual and qualified, whereas the rights of men who think themselves women are absolute and unequivocal.

We’ve been seeing this for years from the SNP, yet the Scots keep voting them in…