1./ A thread about Scotland & gender nonsense. For all those millions of people for whom THAT tweet by @jk_rowling came as such a welcome clarion call prepare yourselves for the next big eye-opener, which by an almost magical coincidence ...
2./...will be in JK's own home city of Edinburgh. Just days before the Christmas holidays and days after a fiercely contested election the Scottish government chose to publish the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. You'd think they were trying to hide something, an impression ...
3./ ...only confirmed by the fact that 2 weeks of the 3 months consultation will be eaten up by Christmas & Hogmanay. If this is a deliberate attempt to limit debate and public scrutiny it will be right out of a remarkable document that recently came to light that reveals...
4./ ...the tactics of the trans lobby. As @jameskirkup pointed out the lobby fears open scrutiny of their proposals because they know the public will be appalled by their implications. blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/12/the-do…
5./...So why should we all be worried? At the heart of the bill in Scotland is the proposal to make it easier to gain legal recognition of one's "new sex". The Scottish government suggests reducing from 2 years to 3 months (with another 3 months cooling period ) the period..
6./ ...to gain recognition. This may sound uncontroversial. The problem is the Scottish government has loudly and publicly adopted a new definition of "transgender" which essentially means almost anyone can fit the category.
7./... Gone are the days where a painful physical process involving surgery or even hormones was a necessary requirement to be 'trans'. Now the government claims anyone who says they are their new sex must be believed. The new Scottish process of legal recognition will...
8./ ..no longer be centred on medical and psychiatric assessment. Instead "self identification" (the belief in someone's head) will be the new benchmark. Why does that matter? Well, let me introduce you to Alex, the bearded lesbian.
9./ The charity Stonewall employ Alex Drummond as a trans advisor and Alex goes into schools to talk to kids about gender. What kids make of Alex I've no idea.
10/ ..Now let's be clear I've no issue with blokes wearing both beards & dresses. Eurovision's Conchita Wurst looked magnificent after all (tho he never claimed to be a woman). The problem is that Alex .....embodies a key problem with self-ID. If trans women....
11./ ...are now to look, sound and behave just like thousands of blokes then what's to stop thousands of blokes gaining entry to the spaces that are legally reserved for women, like girls' changing rooms, single sex wards, a Rape Crisis Centre or a Women's campaign meeting?
12./ The Scottish government has come up with a piece of magical hoo hah that outdoes JK Rowling. First they say they won't be making any changes to the Equality Act and women will still be able to stop transpeople entering their spaces. But how? It is currently illegal to ask...
13./ ....anyone for a gender recognition certificate. So this exclusion relies on goodwill, self-policing & the comparative robustness of the medical and psychiatric assessment of men going through a gender recognition process. Ease and shorten that and you do away with its
14./ ...robustness. The only effective protection is to demand to see a birth certificate. If many more newly changed birth certificates are to be doled out to lots of men with beards who look like blokes...well.. it doesn't take a genius to see this is going to end badly..
15./ ..So how are women's spaces to be better protected? Behold...the vow! The bill says anyone going through the process must make a solemn vow saying they intend to live forever in their "new sex". Nothing proves more that the Scottish government's policies have...
16./ ..been captured by a small group of activists disconnected from reality than this vow. If people could be trusted to stick to solemn vows there would be no need for the entire Justice System. We could empty the prisons tomorrow. Just make a vow you murderers, thieves...
17./...rapists and conmen...and go on your way to living a new life. Vows might work in the Confession box, they are not the basis of law or safeguarding. Don't get me wrong no one is saying the vast majority of trans people are anything but perfectly upright citizens and as...
18./ ..honest as the rest of us. They are. They're as good, and kind as everyone else in society. But this bill has a huge loophole: there is absolutely no way to prevent vexatious people of ill will and predators exploiting the new easier process to gain acess to ...
19./ ..places they were previously prevented from entering. Except....the solemn vow, the breaking of which the government now assures us will lead to criminal penalties. But how will we know if someone who looks like Alex Drummond has broken their vow to live as a woman..
20./...forever? If an Alex look-alike continues to say they are a woman...no matter what they do, dress or behave as ...we must believe they are a woman. And anyway what predator exploiting this loophole will be put off by the scary penalties the Scottish government ...
21./ ...now proposes: fines and possibly jail? Predatory men already face penalties, and it may have escaped the Scottish government's notice that it hasn't exactly prevented them being predatory. So why on earth is this government so obsessed with introducing their bill?
22./ The government says it wants Scotland to be a leader, all shiny and modern and an international pioneer. We Scots know that our country has indeed many times been just that, from the Enlightenment to the industrial revolution...
23./ ...when a young James Watt had a flash of inspiration walking across Glasgow Green and turned the steam engine into the powerhouse of modern world. But we have also made mistakes in our obsession to show the world how fancypants and modern we are.
24./ ..This bill may be the craziest proposal concocted by a Scottish government since the Darien Scheme when our leaders risked the country's reputation and much of its wealth on colonising a malarial marshland in Central America. No criticism was permitted. Great claims..
25./ ..were made. We went bankrupt. Just as then our leaders are in the grip of a utopian delusion, a phantasm that brooks no debate. Maybe this time the good sense of the ordinary people of Scotland will be forced to break the spell.
If you want to help stop the bill why not donate to some of the organisations opposed to it. @AllianceLGB @ForwomenScot @GlasgowMake @fairplaywomen @FiLiA_charity @Womans_Place_UK @Transgendertrd and @WG_Scotland
