Ruled unlawful

Good.

The Court of Session has ruled that it is unlawful for trans women to be housed in female prisons.

The campaign group For Women Scotland brought a petition for judicial review challenging the Scottish Government’s policy on the treatment of trans prisoners.

On Friday, Lady Ross published a decision ruling the guidance unlawful.

It’s pretty simple. Men are a potential threat to women while the reverse is not true. The fun of a few men should not cancel the safety of women.

During hearings in February, Gerry Moynihan KC for the Scottish Government told the Court of Session in Edinburgh it is right for ministers to take a “case-by-case” approach on transgender prisoners.

So should we also take a “case-by-case” approach to throwing toddlers into the bears’ enclosure at the zoo?

There was “no real dispute” that the seasons for sex segregation in prisons are to protect the safety of women and secure the privacy and dignity of both women and men, and at no point did the Scottish Ministers or Lord Advocate argue that a male prisoner, who is not a trans woman, could be admitted to a female prison.

Those last two commas just make a muddle instead of clarity. It should read “at no point did the Scottish Ministers or Lord Advocate argue that a male prisoner who is not a trans woman could be admitted to a female prison.”

However, it was argued that there are cases in which human rights concerns may make it appropriate to house a trans person in a prison of the opposite sex.

But human rights concerns are for women as well as men. Housing a man in a women’s prison puts women at risk. The solution to risk for men should not be transferring the risk to women.

Lady Ross also wrote: “Insofar as the prisons guidance allows SPS to accommodate trans prisoners in prisons for the opposite biological sex, it is in conflict with the requirement that prison accommodation be provided separately for men and women. That constitutes a mis-statement of the law.”

It’s a mis-statement of the law at the expense of women. Always at the expense of women, this crap.

Speaking in Aberdeen, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch was asked if it is time for the SNP to accept defeat on the issue.

She said: “Absolutely. It is time to draw a line under this. I do not understand why the SNP want to die on this hill of putting men in women’s prisons. It’s extraordinary.”

Same old same old. Germaine Greer: “Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.”