Topic: Scottish politics [brought to you in association with Walkers shortbread]

[liverbloke]

At risk of stomping into this with size 19's, isn't the issue that most women have not with transitioned women, but with people who are still biologically men who 'self-identify' as women? It's certainly open to abuse by men who are not transgender but claim to be for nefarious reasons.

isn't everything open to abuse by men sadly

education is needed by all sexes and laws needed that are sympathetic to all but...

women keep on getting marginalised - see award categories that no longer accept female only acts which are then flooded with male (or other) genders and the disaster that was mixed changing rooms (!!!)

so as i always say...  when you want to understand what is best for women - ask them

there's enough of them to vote on decisions - remember when they couldn't vote (seems insane these days)

female input throughout society needs to be encouraged and respected and their wishes and demands treated the same as in any democracy

[ChrisLFCKOP]

At risk of stomping into this with size 19's, isn't the issue that most women have not with transitioned women, but with people who are still biologically men who 'self-identify' as women? It's certainly open to abuse by men who are not transgender but claim to be for nefarious reasons.

Majority of women support trans rights, but please follow some trans people on social media to learn before commenting on the issues.

[Mumm-Ra]

Majority of women support trans rights, but please follow some trans people on social media to learn before commenting on the issues.

That seems like a terrible approach to learning anything 

[Red-Soldier]

isn't everything open to abuse by men sadly

education is needed by all sexes and laws needed that are sympathetic to all but...

women keep on getting marginalised - see award categories that no longer accept female only acts which are then flooded with male (or other) genders and the disaster that was mixed changing rooms (!!!)

so as i always say...  when you want to understand what is best for women - ask them

there's enough of them to vote on decisions - remember when they couldn't vote (seems insane these days)

female input throughout society needs to be encouraged and respected and their wishes and demands treated the same as in any democracy

I agree.  Look at the all male nominees in the Brits, for example.  That's why we need seperate categories for genders and safe spaces for women.  Women have been shat on for centuries, they don't need more of the same here.

Having a seperate 'open' category would solve many issues with the trans debate.  Many sports are now adopting it as a way of protecting womens sport, while also giving trans athletes the opportunity to compete.

[PatriotScouser]

Just listening to her speech which sums up her time in office. Few achievements lots of hot air. There we have why Scotland is in the dire circumstances it is, it’s all about Sturgeon, not a word about Scotland.

The truth is this she is a twisted, bitter narcissist, a betrayer of confidences. The one who uses personal attacks as part of the job.

The country she leaves has 1 in 7 people on an NHS waiting list. Well done. It’s not a new SNP leader that the country needs, it’s a new government.

[Bobsackamano]

Majority of women support trans rights, but please follow some trans people on social media to learn before commenting on the issues.

Depends what you mean by "trans rights". The majority of people in Scotland oppose the new self iD legislation. Think the last poll had it about 60 against, 20 for with 20 don't knows.

[Elmo!]

Depends what you mean by "trans rights". The majority of people in Scotland oppose the new self iD legislation. Think the last poll had it about 60 against, 20 for with 20 don't knows.

It's a perfect example of why we have representative democracy. My experience talking to people in real life up here (not those constantly debating it online) is that people oppose it out of ignorance of what the status quo is, and what the bill actually does. When you actually explain to people they usually change their tune.

Polling on the general issue of introducing self ID has consistently shown majority support up until the whole thing blew up and the media induced moral panic.

[ChrisLFCKOP]

Depends what you mean by "trans rights". The majority of people in Scotland oppose the new self iD legislation. Think the last poll had it about 60 against, 20 for with 20 don't knows.

Majority of people opposed the repeal of section 28, so does that mean we should not have done it?

Also do you know what the GRA actually does?

[Iska]

Fwiw my experience is the opposite.  People will live with the status quo and will want people who are suffering to be able to access support, but set out any specific reform and they are strongly anti.  Bob’s 60/20/20 figure looks right to me (in fact I think he gets those numbers from actual polls), and I’d guess that if the middle 20 had to choose they’d break strongly anti too. 

[liverbloke]

And yet here you are, handling it badly.

i'm not handling it badly mate

i'm saying how it was handled

i'm all for trans rights - but also for women's too

nice to see you offering your own input though

[Elmo!]

To be honest, I have my doubts the GRR bill is actually the real reason she is resigning.

There is some stuff going on with party finances in the SNP which could well turn out to be nothing (there's always a sense of boy who cried wolf here because there have been so many "scandals" over the years that apparently would be the SNPs downfall that have turned out to be absolutely nothing burgers), but I do wonder if some scandal is about to drop.

[Bobsackamano]

Majority of people opposed the repeal of section 28, so does that mean we should not have done it?

Also do you know what the GRA actually does?

I don't have an opinion on it, I was pointing out your assertion that the majority of women support trans rights is not factually correct if you define support for trans rights as support for the new self iD legislation in Scotland. Most oppose the new legislation.

[TepidT2O]

To be honest, I have my doubts the GRR bill is actually the real reason she is resigning.

There is some stuff going on with party finances in the SNP which could well turn out to be nothing (there's always a sense of boy who cried wolf here because there have been so many "scandals" over the years that apparently would be the SNPs downfall that have turned out to be absolutely nothing burgers), but I do wonder if some scandal is about to drop.

I very much doubt it’s the cause ….. there’s always a “thing” that comes up in politics that’s tricky to deal with…
I think it’s just more a case that she’s had enough … which is quite normal really isn’t it?

[CowboyKangaroo]

How confident are we that the transgender persons debate had anything to do with her resignation? Seems more like dogwhistle issue for the right than anything which would affect her belief in her ability to continue as leader

Edit: As I type Elmo has said what I imply!

[Elmo!]

Fwiw my experience is the opposite.  People will live with the status quo and will want people who are suffering to be able to access support, but set out any specific reform and they are strongly anti.  Bob’s 60/20/20 figure looks right to me (in fact I think he gets those numbers from actual polls), and I’d guess that if the middle 20 had to choose they’d break strongly anti too.

Well I guess we all live in our different bubbles.

I'm not disputing the polling figures, I'm just talking about how informed the electorate is on the issue and therefore how much we should use those polling figures to influence policy.

[ChrisLFCKOP]

I don't have an opinion on it, I was pointing out your assertion that the majority of women support trans rights is not factually correct if you define support for trans rights as support for the new self iD legislation in Scotland. Most oppose the new legislation.

People oppose GRR, mostly because they don't know what it does.  And if you were to look at polling away from the GRR women majority support trans rights.  Just because a majority oppose one tiny right does not mean they oppose all.

And asking about section 28 because thankful the government went against polls...which they should do with these reforms.

[ChrisLFCKOP]

How confident are we that the transgender persons debate had anything to do with her resignation? Seems more like dogwhistle issue for the right than anything which would affect her belief in her ability to continue as leader

Edit: As I type Elmo has said what I imply!

It's not, just people are using trans people to distract from other things esp the Scottish Tories (e.g. the UK governments scandal after scandal)

[classycarra]

To be honest, I have my doubts the GRR bill is actually the real reason she is resigning.

There is some stuff going on with party finances in the SNP which could well turn out to be nothing (there's always a sense of boy who cried wolf here because there have been so many "scandals" over the years that apparently would be the SNPs downfall that have turned out to be absolutely nothing burgers), but I do wonder if some scandal is about to drop.

I was wondering if that was linked. She does seem to have become the story lately.

I haven't looked in depth, but from memory (please do correct me) her husband gave the SNP a 100k loan but didn't declare it on time three times, and initially didn't reveal it was from him -  and this occurred the day after the SNP had to reassure donors that 600k people donated for independence campaigning was used elsewhere. And Police Scotland are investigating the 100k, and Electoral commission the 600k?

[KillieRed]

Just listening to her speech which sums up her time in office. Few achievements lots of hot air. There we have why Scotland is in the dire circumstances it is, it’s all about Sturgeon, not a word about Scotland.

The truth is this she is a twisted, bitter narcissist, a betrayer of confidences. The one who uses personal attacks as part of the job.

The country she leaves has 1 in 7 people on an NHS waiting list. Well done. It’s not a new SNP leader that the country needs, it’s a new government.

I think you’re pretty ignorant. You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about and seem to have a personal hatred of the woman. The SNP have run progressive campaigns-that’s how they took so many Labour votes & seats-and have progressive policies. You could argue that they’ve not been successful in implementing them, but that’s a different matter. They’re certainly to the left of this current labour iteration. The people of Scotland will decide if they have failed and vote them out just as they have with the other parties that have ignored them. I think she’s the most gifted politician of her generation and always in the face of a media that 9/10ths unionist. But the struggle for independence goes beyond her and the SNP, it’s a coalition of many different types of people. As a Bostonian perhaps you should have an inkling why.

[Elmo!]

I was wondering if that was linked. She does seem to have become the story lately.

I haven't looked in depth, but from memory (please do correct me) her husband gave the SNP a 100k loan but didn't declare it on time three times, and initially didn't reveal it was from him -  and this occurred the day after the SNP had to reassure donors that 600k people donated for independence campaigning was used elsewhere. And Police Scotland are investigating the 100k, and Electoral commission the 600k?

Something like that, have to say I haven't followed it too closely. As someone who votes SNP in FPTP elections (though I am more closely aligned with the Scottish Greens), it does look pretty dodgy... they basically took the £600k which they said was to be ringfenced specifically for an indy campaign, spent it and are basically said they will build up the fund again through future revenue.

I guess it's a bit like Everton selling future TV revenues.... 

I don't really know the details of the money loaned by Murrell.

[Iska]

How confident are we that the transgender persons debate had anything to do with her resignation? Seems more like dogwhistle issue for the right than anything which would affect her belief in her ability to continue as leader

Very confident.  I was expecting her to have to resign over this, she forced the bill through at massive opposition and it’s blown up in her face continually ever since.  I’ve never seen a political suicide like it, it’s Suez-level stuff.

I guess it’s possible there’s a different scandal afoot, but she’d have had to resign over this anyway imo.

[ChrisLFCKOP]

Very confident.  I was expecting her to have to resign over this, she forced the bill through at massive opposition and it’s blown up in her face continually ever since.  I’ve never seen a political suicide like it, it’s Suez-level stuff.

I guess it’s possible there’s a different scandal afoot, but she’d have had to resign over this anyway imo.

It had cross party support...so not really forced through.

[Elmo!]

Very confident.  I was expecting her to have to resign over this, she forced the bill through at massive opposition and it’s blown up in her face continually ever since.  I’ve never seen a political suicide like it, it’s Suez-level stuff.

I guess it’s possible there’s a different scandal afoot, but she’d have had to resign over this anyway imo.

She passed the bill with every single Green and Lib Dem voting for it, a higher percentage of Labour MSPs voting for it than SNP and even 3 Tories.

It's not really forcing it through, is it?

[LuverlyRita]

Fwiw my experience is the opposite.  People will live with the status quo and will want people who are suffering to be able to access support, but set out any specific reform and they are strongly anti.  Bob’s 60/20/20 figure looks right to me (in fact I think he gets those numbers from actual polls), and I’d guess that if the middle 20 had to choose they’d break strongly anti too.

Perhaps it's more accurate to say that the majority of (decent) people are in favour of the requirement that trans people be better supported and that their lives be made simpler. The trouble arises when you put forward a solution for what is a complex issue. Any solution (or design in computer speak) should always be examined with a critical eye - to ensure that it meets the requirement AND that there are no unintended consequences. Too often politicians fail to do the latter or when issues are raised, they ram through legislation anyway (I think Sturgeon may have been guilty on this one). What makes it worse is that the debate is often dominated by people who take up extreme positions i.e. "you're either for us or against us", who regard any criticism of a solution as being against the requirement and who show no desire to compromise or find a "win-win" situation.

[ChrisLFCKOP]

Anyone talking about the GRR bill, should at least be able to say what the GRA ACTUALLY does, anyone?

[Iska]

17 seconds apart, not sure where you get your talking points from but I’m impressed.

I’m teasing but seriously, I really don’t think we should debate the merits, we’ve tried at least three times before and it gets so toxic so quickly, the mods are right to stamp on it.  It’s just too big an issue, once people pick camps on it it destroys whatever was there before (including Nicola Sturgeon).

[classycarra]

Just trying to circle back to Sturgeon, with as little a risk as possible of things getting incendiary, I have to say I haven't heard much about the GRR bill in the last two weeks but last news round I saw her do really didn't go well. I saw the C4 news report that I've found (will link below) and on ITV news I think she struggled to express her view on trans women in prison when pressed.
https://www.channel4.com/news/nicola-sturgeon-explains-scottish-governments-decision-to-pause-transfers-of-some-transgender-prisoners-to-womens-prisons

It showed that she'd personally intervened in circumstances that she had previously said she wouldn't (and didn't need to), and incendiary comments she initially made about people who raised some concerns before ultimately u-turning and acting upon those same concerns.

I saw the news report on twitter and some people on comments below it (on one side of the debate) massively overstated things suggesting she and the GRR bill were finished - but regardless of that, she did very much become the story at least on that day in terms of flip flopping and not being able to explain something to two interviewers. So it may have contributed to this resignation. Truth is we'll never know though. By all accounts SNP sources are very shocked - think that leans balance of probabilities slightly more towards electoral commission/police investigation into her party and husband.

[CowboyKangaroo]

Very confident.  I was expecting her to have to resign over this, she forced the bill through at massive opposition and it’s blown up in her face continually ever since.  I’ve never seen a political suicide like it, it’s Suez-level stuff.

I guess it’s possible there’s a different scandal afoot, but she’d have had to resign over this anyway imo.

Leaving aside the merits of the bill, did it not also achieve its secondary (perhaps principal he says cynically) aim of passing bill in the grey area of Scottish competence, thus forcing the UK to make s35 order reaffirming the case for independence?

[ChrisLFCKOP]

17 seconds apart, not sure where you get your talking points from but I’m impressed.

I’m teasing but seriously, I really don’t think we should debate the merits, we’ve tried at least three times before and it gets so toxic so quickly, the mods are right to stamp on it.  It’s just too big an issue, once people pick camps on it it destroys whatever was there before (including Nicola Sturgeon).

I don't want to debate it, but it annoys me when misleading or false information is presented.

The fact that most people who oppose the GRR do not know what the GRA does because it shows the false information they are spreading.

[Elmo!]

Leaving aside the merits of the bill, did it not also achieve its secondary (perhaps principal he says cynically) aim of passing bill in the grey area of Scottish competence, thus forcing the UK to make s35 order reaffirming the case for independence?

This bill has been on the cards for 6 years, when even the Tories in Westminster under May were proposing similar legislation and had support across the board. It isn't, and never was some trick to boost support for independence. It was always going to cause division with the SNP and the indy movement, rather than boost it, and they progressed with it anyway, as it was party policy and a manifesto commitment.

[TepidT2O]

Say what you like about Sturgeon, but anyone who pisses off Trump like this isn’t doing too much wrong

[Iska]

Leaving aside the merits of the bill, did it not also achieve its secondary (perhaps principal he says cynically) aim of passing bill in the grey area of Scottish competence, thus forcing the UK to make s35 order reaffirming the case for independence?

It did, but since for that to be effective it would require fencesitters to line up in support of putting rapists in women’s prisons, I really don’t think they thought it through.  Maybe we all do have our own bubbles, but I suspect this is what comes of having your political class live in one.

Anyway I think they won’t even challenge the s.35 order, this has gone so badly.

[Elmo!]

It did, but since for that to be effective it would require fencesitters to line up in support of putting rapists in women’s prisons, I really don’t think they thought it through.  Maybe we all do have our own bubbles, but I suspect this is what comes of having your political class live in one.

Anyway I think they won’t even challenge the s.35 order, this has gone so badly.

You're once again demonstrating you don't understand the existing processes, and what effect the bill has, which demosntrates the whole issue here.

[Iska]

No, you are demonstrating that you don’t understand how people feel about this stuff.  They hate it.  They don't treat it as an exercise in tidying up formalities about things that were somehow settled long ago, which is how you always try to portray it.

[Elmo!]

No, you are demonstrating that you don’t understand how people feel about this stuff.  They hate it.  They don't treat it as an exercise in tidying up formalities about things that were somehow settled long ago, which is how you always try to portray it.

You're missing the obvious point that rapists go into womens prisons all the time - women do rape other women. But all those people who care so much about women's rights don't care about that.

The case in question of course happened under existing legislation, and the process went exactly how it was supposed to go, and always has happened, but the media jumped on it seeing an opportunity. The person in question was initially put in the womens prison, but segregated from all other prisoners, until an assessment took place, after which they decided to put them in a male prison.

The mistake the SNP made was caving into the nonsense and announcing a change to this process.

Nothing about the GRR bill changes any of that process.

[ChrisLFCKOP]

No, you are demonstrating that you don’t understand how people feel about this stuff.  They hate it.  They don't treat it as an exercise in tidying up formalities about things that were somehow settled long ago, which is how you always try to portray it.

why do they hate it though? mainly because of the misinformation that even yourself are peddling.

The GRR does not change anything about the outcome of the GRA since it was passed into law in 2004, it changes how someone gets a GRC not what the GRC does, which it appears not many people know what it does.

[TepidT2O]

You're missing the obvious point that rapists go into womens prisons all the time - women do rape other women. But all those people who care so much about women's rights don't care about that.

The case in question of course happened under existing legislation, and the process went exactly how it was supposed to go, and always has happened, but the media jumped on it seeing an opportunity. The person in question was initially put in the womens prison, but segregated from all other prisoners, until an assessment took place, after which they decided to put them in a male prison.

The mistake the SNP made was caving into the nonsense and announcing a change to this process.

Nothing about the GRR bill changes any of that process.

I know this is off topic, but do women really go to prison for rape all the time?

How many cases of women raping women have ever been convicted?

[Iska]

I know this is off topic, but do women really go to prison for rape all the time?

How many cases of women raping women have ever been convicted?

Of course they don’t.  He’s just reading off a Greens crib sheet I think.  It’s possible eg as a joint enterprise, but rare, and the real obvious point is the risk posed by a woman who’s been convicted is massively different from that of a male rapist.  Everyone knows this, it’s real off-the-deep-end stuff to think that ordinary people would buy this sophistry.

[Elmo!]

I know this is off topic, but do women really go to prison for rape all the time?

How many cases of women raping women have ever been convicted?

Well techically what I said isn't true, but it's semantics. Women technically aren't capable of rape under UK law because it is defined by the use of a penis. But it's pointless semantics.

Women do rape women, and go to prison for it, in women's prison. Just doing abit of googling, seems like 2% of reported rapes were committed by women.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/natureofsexualassaultbyrapeorpenetrationenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2020

Age and sex

In the years ending March 2017 and March 2020 combined, the majority of victims who had experienced rape or assault by penetration since they were 16 years old reported that the perpetrator(s) were male (98%). Almost two-thirds (65%) reported that the perpetrator was a male aged between 20 and 39 years (Appendix Table 3).

At the time of the most recent incident, most victims reported being assaulted by a male of a similar age to themselves (Appendix Table 4).

[TepidT2O]

Of course they don’t.  He’s just reading off a Greens crib sheet I think.  It’s possible eg as a joint enterprise, but rare, and the real obvious point is the risk posed by a woman who’s been convicted is massively different from that of a male rapist.  Everyone knows this, it’s real off-the-deep-end stuff to think that ordinary people would buy this sophistry.

I don’t think that’s a fair thing to say about Elmo..

But I’ve never heard of a woman being convicted of raping another eons so wondered how often it had ever happened