READING Shona Craven’s piece in Tuesday’s National (Don’t gloss over the risks of any worthwhile policy), it struck me that if you replaced Low Emission Zone with Gender Recognition Reform it would be precisely as apt. The GRR bill may well have been “the right thing to do” as Nicola Sturgeon says, but it seems to me that the SNP leadership did an appalling job of explaining it to the general public, and trying to bring public opinion with them.
They said the Gender Recognition Certificate would still have the exact same effect as before, but as a bald statement without backing explanation. They said “no predatory man needs to pretend to be a woman to get access to women”, but that’s not what anyone said. The worry was that if a predatory man sees an opening, sooner rather than later he will take it because he is, well, predatory.
READ MORE: UK ministers are 'making a habit' of snubbing Scottish Parliament
The worry about physiological males in women’s spaces was met by “are you saying that transwomen are all a danger to women?” No, the concern is that you can’t tell the difference, and women will feel uneasy enough to self-exclude. Even without physical danger, there are still valid reasons of privacy and dignity. And was any thought ever given to religious women who are unable to be undressed in the presence of men?
The claim that women’s right to single-sex spaces under the Equality Act is unchanged is pretty hollow when the Scottish Prison Service has been effectively been operating a self-ID system since 2014, and at Rape Crisis you may encounter a self-identified trans-woman. Single-sex spaces might be "permitted" but that doesn’t mean they are provided.
The prison service claims to have been implementing the Angiolini recommendations, from I think 2012, but at the same time operating self-ID for placing trans-women in women’s prison, which would seem to me to be in direct conflict. The Scottish Government have been quite content to allow this to happen.
READ MORE: Yes vote will bounce back – no party can please everyone all the time
Finally, it was disturbing to see Nicola Sturgeon so unsettled by the direct question “Are trans-women women?” Contrary to David Black’s letter in Tuesday’s paper, in this case she struck me as evasive, responding in effect by insisting that that wasn’t the question. It was what the interviewer asked! She has spent the last years insisting exactly that trans-women are women (hint: they are still physiologically male, that’s basic biology, and no wishful thinking can change that), and the whole logic of self-ID is that anyone who claims to be trans is trans, which is self-evidently nonsense.
The Prison Service is well aware that a fair number of prisoners claiming to be trans, and housed in the women’s estate, miraculously discovered on release that they had been mistaken! The former gatekeeping may feel “oppressive” to trans people, but it gave assurance to society at large. I forget who it was that warned against seeking simple answers to complex questions. That is surely what has gone wrong here.
Robert Moffat
Penicuik
DOUG Drever (Letters, Feb 8) maintains that GRR is not the big issue facing Scotland today. I think I know what Doug was saying, but I would suggest that GRR “should” not be the big issue facing us.
Unfortunately, thanks to our government’s mysterious insistence on progressing this bill, it has been gleefully seized on by the Unionist media and bumped to the top of their list of reasons to attack the idea of independence.
What a gift to the Unionists. Needless, uncalled for and probably unwanted by most SNP supporters – if this fixation Nicola has for the “trans community” doesn’t harm the indy vote, it will be a miracle.
READ MORE: Kevin McKenna: SNP will suffer as a result of gender bill
We had enough obstacles to overcome before this debacle. I still would like a coherent answer from the SNP leadership as to why this bill has been pushed to the fore, and has handed our detractors an open goal.
So yes, Scotland faces bigger challenges than GRR. Maybe if we ask the BBC nicely they’ll concentrate on the real issues. Unlikely though. Who hands back such a gift?
Jim Butchart
via email
I AM for low emission zones, but with the proper exemptions. There are lots of essential workers who do not want to drive into low emission zones but have to because of their jobs, eg plumbers, electricians and many others. Also people on hospital visits etc. They need exemptions.
Being reasonable is the secret to low emission zone success.
Daibhidh Beaton
via thenational.scot
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