I WRITE in response to Stephen Paton’s piece on Friday (Gender Recognition Act is being used to roll back trans rights, October 19).
Stephen makes a number of claims in this fundamentally dishonest piece that wilfully misrepresent the position of feminist women who have genuine concerns about the poorly-thought-through proposed amendments to the GRA.
I would like to respond to two points in particular.
Firstly, Stephen says that transwomen are already accessing women-only space. We know this. Women and the small number of genuine transwomen who suffer dysphoria have been co-existing happily for decades.
These are transwomen who simply want to live their lives quietly, and who do not aggressively make claims on womanhood and women’s spaces through bullying, threats, violence and silencing.
They are horrified by the activity of this new, misogynistic breed of transactivist whose behaviour not only hurts women, but trans people too.
Women generally do not mind sharing spaces with transwomen. What we do mind is sharing space with predatory men, who will treat sex self-ID as an open invitation to invade women’s spaces. Not even the most naive liberal could imagine that sex self-ID laws will not be abused, when abusers can simply identify into the protected sex class they want to access.
Secondly, Stephen cites a list of feminist organisations who agree that self-ID is a good thing that will not hurt women. This is often used by those who would strip women of their hard-fought-for rights as a “gotcha” to prove that we are hysterical and that the feminist organisations who represent us think it’s OK, so so should we.
The major point that Stephen misses is just how reliant on trust and statutory funding most of these women’s organisations are.
Just a few months ago Glasgow Rape Crisis lost funding, reportedly for not being inclusive enough of men. These are organisations that exist on a shoestring as it is, and they cannot afford to do anything other than toe the party line. I’d suggest that a better, more honest exercise, would be to ask the service users of these organisations – real women, who have often been abused horrifically by men, and who are left vulnerable and afraid – how they feel about men being allowed to share women-only services and spaces.
I would love to sign this letter with my name and address, as I am proud of my pro-women stance. But as an employee of the University of Edinburgh, unfortunately I do not feel able to do this, in fear of my job and my own safety. Such is the climate created by bullies who aggressively promote trans rights at the expense of women, where in a democratic Scotland in 2018 women cannot safely stand up and be counted to defend their rights, and must hide behind anonymity instead.
Name and address supplied
READ MORE: Gender Recognition Act debate is being used to roll back trans rights
VAL Dobson (Letters, October 20) complains that the proposed reform to gender recognition law will mean that “men who have no intention of relinquishing their male genitalia” will be allowed legal recognition as women.
In fact, it has been possible since 2005 for trans women in Scotland to obtain legal recognition of their lived gender without needing surgical intervention. There are various reasons why a trans woman, living as a woman, might not have such surgery – it may be medically impossible for her, for example.
It is also a requirement of the European Convention on Human Rights that trans people’s lived gender should be legally recognised, including for those who don’t have this kind of surgery.
What Val Dobson suggests would turn the clock back decades, and put Scotland in breach of the Convention.
Our gender recognition laws do need updating though – they are intrusive, stigmatising and relatively inaccessible. Let’s follow the examples of Ireland and other progressive countries, and bring them up to international best practice.
Tim Hopkins
Equality Network
THON wes a braw pistill frae Bryan Aucherlonie upheizin Lesley Riddoch whan shae dang doun the daft concep o “coorie” ben The National (Letters, October 19). Lesley wes gangin alang on hir ain insicht at pruived ti be richt as uiswal (Why I won’t bother to coorie down with this book on a non-existent trend, October 18).
The erest menin o “coorie” in the Concise Scots Dictionary as ane adjectif is “timid, cringing”. A mair solit Scotch wird is “couth” at is explainit as “sociable or snug”, tho naither o’m is nouns at “hygge” is, sae in course ti be jonik hit suid be “couthieness”. Anither menin o “couth” is as ane auld pairt o the verb “can” at is ben the dictionar as “to be able”. A pit forrit couth as a nyow an mensefu Scotch noun, fur exempil “The mairch doun the Ryal Myle ane ouk syne wes ryfe wi couth.”
Iain WD Forde
Scotlandwell
READ MORE: Why I won’t bother to coorie down with a book on a non-existent trend
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