The Scottish Government has been wrongly accused of putting sex-offender’s rights ahead of those of women.
I won’t trouble you with the distasteful, frankly inaccurate and irresponsible tabloid headlines fuelled, of course, by the Scottish Conservatives.
Almost entirely missing from the media reporting is the fact that all MSPs, cross-party, voted in favour of amendments, from Gillian Martin MSP, allowing Police Scotland to stop sex offenders gaining a Gender Recognition Certification on the basis of risk:
Amendments 40 to 42, in the name of Gillian Martin, would further strengthen that risk-based approach. Police Scotland, after considering the evidence of risk in relation to a specific case, can already apply to a court for a sexual offences prevention order or a sexual harm prevention order, and that would prevent a person from applying for a GRC.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/sp/?id=2022-12-20.7.0
You can read more on this at the above link.
BBC Scotland does give coverage but, sadly, only at the very end of a very long report:
The government instead backed another amendment by SNP MSP Gillian Martin that would mean anyone convicted of a sexual offence who wants to apply for a GRC will need to be fully risk assessed.
It follows concerns that predatory men could attempt to change their gender to gain access to female prisons.
If the risk is thought to be too high, their application could be refused.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-64058140
Talking-up Scotland 
The majority of women are abused in their own home.
Abused women do not get legal aid or equal rights to get out of abused situations in their own home. They lose the roof over their head because they do not get legal aid or have equalrights. Themajority of women have to stay in unsFe situations to keep a roof over their heads. They do not get legal aid or equal rights,
They do not get abused inchanging rooms.They get abused, raped and murdered in their own homes by someone they know. They do not get legal aid or equal rights, A massive problem. Women would fo itfor themselves. If they got legal aid and equal rights. Abused women get a right to legal aid in England.
Spend £Millions to save £Billions and peopleslives.
Sisters could be doing it for themselves. If they got legal aid and equal rights. A massive problem that needs Govhelp now.
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You know something occurred to me this morning. The media’s presentation can make you think (or it made me think) that GRA was an SNP only initiative. But of course it’s not. It is backed by all (four) Lib Dem MSPs, as well as Labour in Scotland.
It could also make you think that opposition was limited to the Tories (in particular) and a few opponents in the SNP like Michelle Thomson and Ash Regan, when it appears to be somewhat more than that (and I dont just mean John Mason). Labour too have MSPs who will be voting against.
I dont mean to indicate support for voting for or against, but just to make the point that the rather trivialised and infantile way the debate has been reported – sort of SNP govt against the rest – is utterly inappropriate.
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Of course it in inappropriate and wrong, but that won’t stop the press and the Tories from trying to use it as a stick to beat the SNP.
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John I think the SNP could have managed the process better. If the Act had come forward with the suggested amendments in place the SNP would have won hearts and minds rather than taking the rather arrogant approach they did. As you say hopefully the amendments will be sufficient to prevent abuse by predatory males.
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Except that . . . . they have no mandate from the electorate on this, nor from their own membership. Unlike the many mandates for independence which is No1 item in the party constitution, to which they have devoted little or no effort, let alone several debate days in Holyrood.
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It has been clear to me for some time that GRA reforms have become a political bludgeon by which to beat SG about the head.
Can anyone point to anywhere else where the passing of these reforms, a worldwide amendment to existing legislation, has met such vitriolic media and political attention ?
Whatever misgivings some may legitimately have for these amendments passing into Law, there is nothing there which cannot be refined at process level or modified at some future date, just as the current amendments modify the original legislation.
I fully expected a powerful and orchestrated campaign campaign against Holyrood’s proposals from the minute the reforms were shelved at Westminster, and have not been in the least surprised by what has transpired.
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The Domestic Abuse Act introduced that cannot be dropped or appealed. The Police are now acting as judge and jury. Arresting and charging abused women and people on the spectrum with additional needs. No diversity training. The prisons are full. One of the highest prison numbers in Europe. The prison numbers pro rata are higher in the USA and Russia.
The Law needs to be changed. People be given warnings like befòre or mild misdemeanours. Instead of innocentpeople on remand in prison. The cells are full of them. Prison £40,000 a year. Total abstinence proper rehab facilities are needed.
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Union Jack is saying that the Westminster Tory government may block this legislation.
No surprises.
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The furore about this reminds me of the hatred which erupted when the Labour/LibDem administration c 2000 repealed legislation which banned amongst other things, ‘the promotion of homosexuality in schools’. (That was not the terminology used by the Thatcher government, but it is how it was portrayed by the baleful media. We had the UNHOLY alliance bewtween Brian Soutar and Cardinal Winning, the latter describing sexual relations between people of the same gender as ‘perversion’ and the former funding a poll which claimed more than 1 million signatories.
And did the things that we predicted in all their mendacious warnings happen? NO.
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