Before the rally started is what I handed to one of the police on duty. I have his badge number. I asked for it to be given to the most senior officer present. It took some discussion to get him to take it from me, but eventually he took it and separately recorded my details./
Today, I will send it to my MSP, copied to all those who MSPs who I know attended, with all the responses I got to my question here about the impact on those present of the police taking no action./
I will add some of the other things I have seen on here about people’s experience of interacting with officers attendance. I think that’s about as much as I can do, and the ball that goes into the court of what, for want of a better term, I’ll call the system./
It’s a simple question, at the base. Who is more protected by law outside the Scottish parliament. Hundreds of women attending a peaceful rally about obeying the law, or one hostile man with a sound system, seeking to disrupt that?
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Unbelievable. We included a chapter in The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht about these kind of allegations. There’s a huge sexism and ageism in the offensive assumption that the only way we could all do what we have is because of access to huge secret funds. Bollocks./
But, as we say in the book, also revealing. People for whom this stuff is a day job, with employment contracts, and six-figure budgets, literally can’t believe that it’s not like that for everybody else.
I have the last few years surrounded by bright, energetic, determined women of all backgrounds with years of campaigning and work experience in all sorts of fields. It’s been the only really positive side of dealing with this stuff.
A short story about this line, given to The Times by the National Library of Scotland (NLS) on 12 August.
A fishy tale of a red herring, but more than that, a red herring with a bit of a whiff.
Are you sitting comfortably etc etc 1/14
The NLS line about reading room is obviously a red herring - as the issue is reversing its the decision to put the book on open shelves in the centenary exhibition, after staff complaints - but even taken on its own terms, it's not what it seems./
Background: NLS is one of the UK's copyright libraries. Publishers are obliged to lodge books they publish with this network. NLS's large physical collection is mostly kept in stacks, and most items have to be ordered up to the reading room./
Good to see Janey Sutherley getting this attention. It took two years to clear her, in court, of criminal charges. She had refused to say that a man with whom she was imprisoned under Sturgeon’s self-ID policies, was a woman. She lost parole while awaiting trial.
Oh no, wait.
Sutherley’s experience runs almost exactly parallel to Sturgeon’s, from spring/summer 2023 to spring/summer 2025. But she spent the period in prison, for longer than she should have, and formally charged; and definitely not earning £75k pa plus a £300k advance.
Over about 20 years of office life I worked with lots of people, some I really liked, some I rubbed along with fine, some I didn’t warm to, and the feeling was evidently mutual. And one who nearly broke me, who was not junior to me./
The last is the only one where I ever looked for formal processes to sort out the situation.
And possibly once or twice I addressed what felt like an uncomfortable working relationship, if it was with somebody I had to deal with a lot, by asking for a conversation with them to see if there was anything that we might between us due to improve things./
Let’s say, for a moment, you are someone who thinks this is good decision and is concerned about the quality of Dr U’s experiences in the hospital. But you know that Upton is not like the other users, because when did you last have to have a discussion like this/
about somebody’s use of the female changing room? Possibly even on a witness stand you may later give away that you clearly can tell Upton’s sex, by language you use without thinking. So/
wouldn’t one of your questions be, as a good ally, what was being done to prepare other users, not because you care about them, but to pave the way for a smoother experience for your colleague, who you realise may otherwise have to deal with encountering people who are surprised/
Just to remind everyone, Janey Sutherley was in court in Scotland this year accused of a hate crime (ie aggravated offending) due to her refusal to pretend a man she was imprisoned with was a woman. The SPS were willing to report her. The police were willing to charge and/
COPFS to prosecute. Like Sandy, she was given no chance to tell her side before the full weight of the process descended. Though found not proven, she lost a chance of earlier release while waiting for trial./
Don't assume a report to the police by NHS Fife management would have gone entirely nowhere.