I HAVE taken a couple of days to respond to Toni Guigliano’s article in the Friday National edition (Those who support rights of women AND trans people will not be silenced, Sep 24). I am well aware of the response from activists who accuse women raising any concerns about the Gender Recognition Act reforms as being bigoted, transphobic, fascist and even Nazi! The threats of physical and sexual violence to women by activists cannot be denied and there can be no false equivalence of “one side as bad as the other”. The evidence is there not just in print but of physical attack.
I support trans rights. I do not believe that anyone should be discriminated against on the basis of how they present themselves. I support the right of any person to identify as they so choose and to live their life accordingly. However I do not agree to the giving away of my sex-based rights. There are also a great many trans people who do not support the activists’ campaigns to enforce the ideology that only gender matters and is real whilst sex is not. Sex is real and it is a protected belief to state that humans cannot change sex. Sex is also a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.
READ MORE: Toni Giugliano: Those who support rights of women AND trans people will not be silenced
I am an adult human female, a woman. I am not a body with a vagina, as the Lancet now terms me. A recent edition of the same publication had no problem referring to men and not “bodies with penises”. It is not some crazed fearmongering to state that politicians and the media cannot or will not identify women. Just watch Keir Starmer and Ed Davey on that one, or a recent Green politician who believes that being a woman is a “feeling”.
Women have very valid concerns which Mr Giugliano and the First Minister should not be brushing aside but instead should be listening to and starting to address.
I could write a very long letter identifying the concerns that the erasure of sex-based safeguarding heralds for women . However I will highlight a couple of current issues which I find deeply disturbing.
READ MORE: Stephen Paton: Those who dismiss transgender people as a fad ignore history
The fact that the CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis centre has openly labelled women as bigoted if they in their trauma wish to access female-only spaces. If they access support they can expect to be re-educated and challenged. The CEO has since acknowledged that women are self-excluding from services due to this policy.The CEO is Mridul Wadhwa, who was born male and identifies as trans. Mridul is using the position of CEO at Rape Crisis to enforce gender ideology.
I find these facts extremely distressing. Highly vulnerable women are no longer able to access a safe space but if they do then they can expect to be “challenged”. How is this situation being tolerated? In fact not just tolerated but lauded!
Regarding Scottish prisons, are people aware that female prisoners are sharing what should be safe spaces with male, female-identifying prisoners and it is Scottish policy that these prisoners do not need a Gender Recognition Certificate to be placed in a female prison?
READ MORE: Stephen Paton: Be braced for a fight – but gender recognition reforms WILL happen
The chief executive of the Howard League for penal reform has stated that “there is emerging evidence that certain men are jumping on the trans bandwagon to access and harm very vulnerable women”. Is this not a very valid concern?
Unbelievably, a woman who was assaulted was reprimanded by a judge in a UK court when she referred to her obviously male assailant as “he”. The victim has to refer to the person who assaulted her as “she” as that is the assailant’s preferred pronoun. I can think of no response to this other than this is totally Orwellian.
Is this enforcing of ideological language not a valid concern?
Let me state again that sex matters. It matters for example for health, sport, employment, and in particular with regards to safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults. I urge readers to make themselves aware of what is happening regarding the identification of trans children resulting in increasing medicalisation with life-long consequences. Mr Guigliano should take heed of the views of Keira Bell and many other detransitioners and the whistleblowers at the Tavistock before he derides women who are listening and are horrified by the lack of safeguarding.
Women like myself and others are not shutting up, even if we are told by the First Minister that our concerns are not valid. My answer to that is prove it! Tell us clearly that you will protect our rights under the 2010 Act to female-only spaces!
The First Minister shouted “shame” at an MSP for attending a recent women’s protest. I say shame on those politicians and others who refuse to listen to the valid concerns of women.
Jean Marshall
Glasgow
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