2 weeks Ago By Euan McColm
I wonder how many public figures have to humiliate themselves before the Scottish Government steps in. For how long will ministers remain silent while men and women we should be able to trust squirm, evade, and mangle the language as they try to explain away the catastrophic consequences of an ideology impacting on public bodies in every sector? When will someone in authority come forward and say, loudly and clearly, that enough is enough? Last week it was the turn of Jo Farrell, Chief Constable of Police Scotland, to reveal the full embarrassing effects of adherence to gender ideology, as espoused by angry activists. During a television interview resembling a sketch from The Tracey Ullman Show, Farrell wrestled with the question of whether a male rapist could be a woman.
It should not be considered normal that our most senior police officer felt it necessary to clarify this matter – a man who rapes a woman is a man, no matter what he might wish others to believe – but we are where we are. The Chief Constable was keen – in a wide-eyed and terrifyingly un-reassuring kind of way – to reassure the public that, contrary to entirely justified belief, men charged with rape are not recorded in police systems as women, even if they declare themselves so to be. Farrell meandered: “So, an individual comes into custody and if the sex of that person is pertinent to the investigation they will be treated as, in the scenario of a rape, which is the example I guess was where you’re going, they will be treated and we will investigate them as a man.
” The reason the Chief Constable had to explain was that, in a letter recently sent to Holyrood’s petitions committee, Police Scotland stated that the “sex/gender identification of individuals who come into contact with the police will be based on how they present or how they self-declare”. This approach, the letter went on, adhered to “legislative compliance, operational need and the values of respect, integrity, fairness and human rights while promoting a strong sense of belonging”. There was no caveat about alleged rapists and sex offenders in the statement sent to MSPs , no indication that they should not be considered part of the Police Scotland “family”.
Farrell followed the chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, Sandy Brindley, in the ongoing parade of those who have humiliated themselves over their support for an ideology that grows more discredited by the day. Brindley, having previously enthusiastically supported the appointment of trans-woman Mridul Wadhwa as chief executive of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, was suddenly shocked by the findings of an independent report that found Wadhwa had led an ideologically driven witch-hunt against staff members, volunteers, and even rape victims, who insisted that biological sex was not only real but that it very much mattered in the context of a support service for rape victims. Defying calls for her resignation, Brindley handed out the phone numbers of rape survivors – sympathetic to her position – to a journalist.
Meanwhile, Rape Crisis Scotland continues to work on its definition of the word “woman”. And still not a word from the Scottish Government. Before Brindley, it was the turn of Creative Scotland – the national arts quango – to reveal how unquestioning adherence to gender ideology had broken its systems.
The revelation that a staff member had actively sought to undermine the career of writer Jenny Lindsay, whose forthcoming book “Hounded” looks at the way in which women have been cancelled, threatened and isolated for expressing opinions at odds the with mantra “trans women are women” was, sadly, unsurprising. And, before Creative Scotland, it was the Prison Service and, after Police Scotland, it’ll be some other organisation discovering that proceeding as if self-ID is the law when it is not can be a costly and embarrassing business. All of these scandals – and the many to come – could have been avoided if only more people in positions of authority had listened closely when former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon – the patron saint of this new culture across Scottish institutions – spoke of her support for reforming the Gender Recognition Act to allow anyone to self-ID.
Those quangocrats heard the beloved leader urge us all to be kind but remained deaf to the absolute incoherence of her position. When asked about the case of Adam Graham, a double rapist who transitioned to become Isla Bryson before his trial, the First Minister could not even answer the question of whether the offender was a man or a woman. Perhaps you recall her insistence that the “individual in question” was a rapist, as if that were a third sex? The decision by former Scottish Secretary Alister Jack to block the Scottish Parliament’s attempt to introduce self-ID on the grounds that it would negatively impact on the UK-wide Equality Act.
Some MSPs now realise that Jack helped them dodge a bullet. Those who don’t are beyond reach. First Minister John Swinney’s dereliction of duty over this matter continues to cast a cloud over his leadership.
He continues to act like nothing’s wrong, as if it’s not weird that the police sent MSPs a letter talking about making criminals feel a sense of belonging, as if it’s not horrifying that Rape Crisis Scotland can’t define “woman”, as if it’s not a matter of national embarrassment that, if it wasn’t for the generosity of the writer JK Rowling, who funds the Beira’s Place facility in Edinburgh, there would not have been a female-only rape victim support centre in the Lothians for the past two years. None of that’s normal, is it? Surely nobody can think it is? But John Swinney’s never going to find the courage to admit his party’s self-ID plans were dangerously reckless. And so the conveyor belt piled high with powerful men and women beclowned by gender woo trundles on.
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