https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/isla-bryson-and-the-madness-of-scotlands-gender-bill/Adam Graham was four years old when, according to his own account of his life, he first began to suspect he might be transgender. ‘I was always hanging about with the girls and always doing make up’, he said. It was not until he was 29, however, that Graham began to openly identify as a woman, taking hormones and changing his appearance.
By that time he had been arrested and charged with two counts of rape.
It is incredible that the sensitivities of convicted rapists are now the subject of so much official sympathy in Scotland
Appearing in court this week, Graham’s new – and putatively ‘real’ – identity took centre stage. Thus it was Isla Bryson, not Adam Graham, who was convicted of raping one woman in Clydebank in 2016 and another in Drumchapel in 2019.
It should be noted, I think, that in some quarters it is considered ‘transphobic’ to even note that Isla Bryson was once Adam Graham. Bryson insists that her journey towards her new self is not yet complete: ‘I obviously want all the surgery the NHS can provide’ she told the court.
Bryson does not appear to have a Gender Recognition Certificate of the sort which has proved so controversial in Scotland. In the future, however, there would have been nothing stopping her from acquiring one prior to her conviction. Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reforms will permit such things. Self-identification and an undefined ‘commitment’ to living in a person’s new identity for life is all that will be required. You are who you say you are and it is deeply transphobic to question such assertions.
An amendment to the bill passed last month which would have prevented people charged with rape and other serious sexual offences from changing their gender before trial was rejected by a coalition of SNP, Green and Liberal Democrat MSPs. Had it been accepted, defence counsel would have been unable to mount the kind of case presented during Bryson’s trial.
For Bryson’s advocate argued that, ‘There is no way Isla Bryson could be described as a predatory male’ for ‘If you accept that evidence, that she is transitioning, that she is aiming to continue on that path to becoming female gender, that goes a long way to acquitting her of these charges’. Bryson’s lawyer cannot be blamed for attempting to render a purse out of this sow’s ear but this seems a preposterous defence.
Bryson has reportedly been remanded in custody, pending sentencing, at Cornton Vale. Thus, extraordinarily, a convicted male rapist is now housed at a woman’s prison (albeit in a ‘specialist’ unit there). It may be that a risk assessment concludes Bryson could not safely be incarcerated on the male estate but it seems no assessment has been made of the risk Bryson poses to female inmates if housed at Cornton Vale. As a matter of priorities, this seems telling.
There are not many trans prisoners in Scotland so statistics regarding them should be treated with a measure of caution. Nevertheless, it is well-established that trans women criminals fit a male pattern of offending, not a female one. Since they are biologically male this can only surprise those already stupefied by gender woo-woo.
Moreover, some 50 per cent of Scottish inmates only discovered their new gender identity after they were charged by police. Bryson now adds to this number. This seems dubiously convenient to the point of being suspicious and it cannot sensibly be thought ‘transphobic’ to think so. Something is happening here, even if it is considered indecorous to speculate on precisely what is occurring.
In this fashion, trans people with a gender recognition certificate (which currently requires a diagnosis of gender dysphoria) are also victims, tarnished by an association with people claiming to be trans but whose commitment to ‘living’ in their new sex is, at best, questionable. Self-ID broadens the legal definition of trans but also renders it shallower than ever.
Even without a GRC, the trend is evident. Henceforth there will be few, if any, means by which service providers may distinguish between those with gender dysphoria and those without. Defenders of the bill, including Nicola Sturgeon, argue the problem lies with predatory men, not trans people. This is precisely what its critics have long argued. Maleness, not trans-ness, is the issue. And where once individuals could be excluded from female-only spaces on the grounds of their maleness, now holders of a GRC are to be considered as living in their new sex ‘for’, as the Scottish government argued in court, ‘all purposes’. That being so, it is difficult to see how such persons could be excluded from single-sex areas on the basis of their sex.
Shona Robison, the minister responsible for piloting the bill through the Scottish parliament, inadvertently gave the game away when she noted that, in certain circumstances, someone ‘might be a genuine trans woman trying to enter a service that excludes them’. Accepting there are ‘genuine’ trans people means acknowledging there are ‘non-genuine’ cases of trans-appropriation too.
Hitherto a distinction could at least be drawn between those with a GRC and those without. Now that a GRC may be acquired by anyone who wishes one, such delineations will be all but impossible. By the Scottish government’s own implicit admission, it is entirely rational to think so-called ‘bad actors’ – in every sense of the term – will exploit the fresh licence the Scottish parliament’s legislation grants them. This does not appear to trouble the First Minister.
It is amazing how often ‘something which will not happen’ does, in fact, occur. It is even more incredible, however, that the sensitivities of convicted rapists are now the subject of so much official sympathy in Scotland. This is a sufficiently hard and ugly truth that it is considered unseemly to note such things. Be that as it may, it is where we now are.
No sensible – or sensitive – person would suggest Isla Bryson is a rapist because Isla Bryson has belatedly discovered their true, trans, identity. Once again and for the benefit of slow-learners, Bryson’s maleness is the pertinent issue here.
Notwithstanding that, however, this case poses a dilemma for Sturgeon and her supporters. For them, Bryson’s self-identification as trans must be taken at face value – even if this means accepting that a biological male rapist is in fact no different, in essence, to those born biologically female. This is an objectively ridiculous proposition but it is the kind of unreality in which the First Minister and her allies are determined to believe. Those who live by the mantra of identity politics are consequently condemned by the logic of their own beliefs.
Time and time again, Sturgeon and her allies dismissed concerns about the Scottish government’s legislation. Male predators, we were told, do not require a GRC to target women. As Bryson’s case demonstrates this is plainly true. Yet it requires a touching faith in the decency of such people to assume they will not take advantage of the more liberal provisions and opportunities now open to them. The Scottish government argues its reforms are simultaneously merely an exercise in bureaucratic tidying and a magnificent, even revolutionary, leap forwards. It is not easy to see how both these claims can be true.
Current policy, as demonstrated by this case, is a disaster zone but the Scottish government’s proposals will, if ever implemented, make it significantly worse. Throughout this process Sturgeon has airily dismissed any suggestion there might be a clash between ‘trans rights’ and ‘women’s rights’. The argument has simply been assumed out of existence. The First Minister shuts down discussion with the blunt declaration her critics’ views are ‘not valid’.
But as this case – and its portents for the future – demonstrates, those concerns could scarcely be more pertinent or more valid. Ultimately, this is a disagreement between fantasists and realists and it is deplorable to realise that the majority of Scottish parliamentarians are signed-up members of the fantasy club. Well, they cannot pretend they have not been warned of the likely consequences which flow from their delusions. This is meagre comfort but in mad times such scraps of consolation are all that is available.
