Funding women’s organisations

The first began with a group of voluntary sector organisations that either campaign for women’s rights or provide services to women who have experienced gender-based violence writing an open letter to the UK government’s Scottish Secretary, Alister Jack, querying the veto.

This prompted a group of anti-reformers to look into how those signatory organisations are funded, and get a story onto the front pages of the Scottish Express and the UK-wide Times newspaper with the respective headlines “SNP handed millions to lobbyists who criticised UK Government over gender reform veto” and “gender lobbyists get millions from the SNP”.

These headlines imply:

• the women’s organisations that support gender recognition reform only do so because they receive some funding from the Scottish government, which is SNP, and they are not therefore impartial, i.e. they follow the SNP line to avoid losing funding;
• the SNP only funds those women’s organisations so that they will support gender recognition reform; and
• the bill’s passage through the Scottish Parliament was therefore undemocratic.

This seems to be an attempt by anti-reformers to offer an alternative explanation as to why women’s organisations, particularly those that provide “safe space” services to women who have experienced gender-based violence, could possibly support trans rights, and make their services trans-inclusive. (They don’t like the actual explanation those experienced equalities experts and experts in gender-based violence provide, which is that they have never seen evidence to suggest that trans women pose a threat to cis women, whereas they do know that many trans women experience gender-based violence, and therefore need their services).

In doing so, anti-reformers have tangled themselves up in another dichotomy, though: on the one hand they describe themselves as women’s rights campaigners, while on the other they are suggesting there is something wrong with the Scottish government funding organisations that support vulnerable women and campaign for women’s equality.

I say “another” because they have form for this – one group of anti-reformers brought a judicial review against the Scottish government some time ago in relation to its Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act, because it expressly included trans women in a measure designed to increase the number of women on public boards in Scotland. That group sought either the exclusion of trans women from that equal opportunities measure or reduction of the whole Act, indicating they would rather cis women lose out than trans women be included.

Implying that the Scottish government shouldn’t fund the charities that actually offer the safe spaces to the vulnerable women whom they purport to speak for (and argue are in jeopardy if trans rights are increased) is even more counter-intuitive – those safe spaces wouldn’t be available if the Scottish government didn’t fund them.

An apparent willingness to accept safe spaces closing for cis women rather than including trans women again indicates that anti-reformers are not motivated by protecting cis women at all. Instead, they seem to be motivated by convincing others that trans women should be treated as men in all circumstances, and limiting trans equality, because they do not accept that gender reassignment is a valid Equality Act protected characteristic.

Regarding the framing of the Scottish government’s relatively generous funding of equalities work as politically motivated – eradicating discrimination and disadvantage, and keeping everyone safe, is in the interests of every member of society. I don’t know of anyone other than anti-reformers who believe this funding is anything other than progressive. I’m proud to be part of a voluntary sector which includes the fantastic organisations anti-reformers are seeking to denigrate. Long may their vital anti-discrimination work continue to be funded (if any illustration is needed as to why trans rights must be protected, as well as the rights of people with all the other Equality Act protected characteristics, I heard a particularly harrowing one at a meeting of discrimination lawyers practising across the EU, involving a trans girl who was forced to use the boys’ toilets at her school being set on fire by the boys in there).

As to the allegation of the bill’s progress through the Scottish Parliament being undemocratic, that has simply not been substantiated. The usual process was followed, there was lengthy, in-depth stakeholder consultation, anti-reformers got to have their say just as everyone else did, some amendments were made, and the bill was then voted upon in the normal way.

Prisons

Again demonstrating their media savvy and influence over the gender recognition reform discourse, anti-reformers have managed to get something else they submit supports their position into the UK-wide headlines, including on the BBC website and broadcasts, this time to do with prisons.

The BBC headline reads: “Jailing of trans rapist Isla Bryson is ‘shambles’, says prison chief”, and the following piece then includes a longer quote saying that, in her opinion, this “unnecessary shambles” could have been avoided with specialist units for transgender prisoners, and that she would not have had this person in Cornton Vale when she was its governor, as “it just goes against all natural justice”. The rest of the piece then links this incident with gender recognition reform.

What has happened, factually, is that a man charged with rapes in 2016 and 2019, Adam Graham, is now known as Isla Bryson, and was therefore initially held at a women’s prison following conviction last week, for a 72-hour segregated assessment period, before being moved to HMP Edinburgh’s men’s prison.

As public bodies, prison services are bound by the Equality Act. Therein, along with the safe space exception to the default rule that trans women should be treated as women, there is also a specific exception that applies to prisons. The Scottish Prison Service applied it in this case — having undertaken a segregated assessment to consider the potential risk posed to the individual and other prisoners by their long-term placement, and whether it was a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim to breach the default rule and treat this particular individual differently, a call was made that it was, because of the risk they appeared to pose to other prisoners.

This one-off incident has no bearing on gender recognition reform, despite being exploited by anti-reformers to allude to the supposed harm cis women prisoners are likely to come to if more trans women can get gender recognition certificates (GRCs) in Scotland. As with safe spaces, there is already an exception in the Equality Act covering this, which applies UK-wide, that applies regardless of whether an individual has a GRC or not. As with the safe spaces exception, the Scottish Bill does not affect its application at all.

I would encourage people to go behind what is being said in the media about anything to do with trans people at the moment, and consider whether it is neutral, factual reporting or a manipulation of discourse.

Gwyneth King is a solicitor at the Legal Services Agency. The views in this article are those of the author and do not represent the position of the organisation, or the opinion of any other individual members of its staff.