John Swinney is risking his political career to put trans women in female prisons
A biological male who identifies as a woman has no place in a female prison, writes Susan Dalgety
John Swinney is a classic hypocrite. If Robert Burns was alive today, it would be Swinney, not William Fisher, who would be the subject of Holy Willie’s Prayer, Burns’ greatest satirical poem.
Harsh? Perhaps, but the First Minister’s behaviour this week suggests that beneath his dour, respectable countenance, lies a hard-hearted, cynical politician, willing to sacrifice some of the most vulnerable people in our society to score a tawdry political point or secure another few votes next May from so-called progressives.
In the same week that a pious Swinney posted on social media that his Christian faith is “one of the things that shaped who I am”, his administration went to Scotland’s highest court to defend the indefensible – the right of biologically male criminals who identify as women to serve their sentences in female jails. Where were the core Christian values of respect and compassion in the Scottish Government’s defence of the indefensible, I wonder?
Undeniable logic
This latest case in the battle to secure women’s rights has been brought by campaign group For Women Scotland, whose historic Supreme Court victory earlier this year confirmed that for the purposes of equalities legislation, sex is based on biology, not identity.
The undeniable logic of that ruling by the UK’s highest court is that biological men – no matter how they identify – cannot be allowed into female single-sex spaces, including prisons.
The Scottish Government policy, updated after double rapist Adam Graham (Isla Bryson) was initially and controversially housed in a female jail, states that a man who says he is a woman can be accommodated with women if there is compelling evidence that he does not pose “an unacceptable risk”.
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Court costs mounting
For Women Scotland argue that this policy is now “wrong in law”. The Scottish Government disagree, and the case will proceed to a judicial review – at further cost to the public purse and For Women Scotland.
The group, who are funded solely by donations from the public, has to decide whether they can afford to keep on fighting through the courts. The Scottish Government has so far refused to hand over the hundreds of thousands of pounds they owe the group after losing the Supreme Court case.
A more cynical commentator would suggest that the government is deliberately refusing to pay its debt to stop For Women Scotland from further challenging it in court. A nasty, small-minded tactic that I am sure John Swinney – a good Christian man – would never countenance. And one that will not stop For Women Scotland from doing the right thing, no matter the cost to them personally.
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Importance of prisons to gender campaigners
Housing men in women’s prisons has long been a key objective of gender-identity activists. In the book Trans Britain, campaigner James Morton boasts how, more than a decade ago, they strategised that by working with the Scottish Prison Service to “include trans women as women on a self-declaration basis within very challenging circumstances”, they would be able to ensure that all other public services could do the same.
In other words, if a male offender can share prison accommodation with women – including some abused since childhood – then a man can use women-only refuges and other single-sex support services, or teenage girls can be forced to a share a toilet with adolescent boys.
Until April this year, and the Supreme Court ruling, that is exactly what happened. And can still happen in Scotland’s prisons.
‘A man with an erection’ in a woman’s cell
Rhona Hotchkiss is a former governor of Corton Vale, Scotland’s female-only prison. She knows better than anyone the risks entailed in placing men in women’s prisons. In her essay for the book The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, she describes the reality of life in prison, where women have no choice whom they live beside, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“They must say nothing while a man with an erection… enjoys their obvious discomfort. They must say nothing while an aggressive man punches the walls, triggering adrenaline rushes of fear as women relive the male violence and abuse they suffered in the past… And they must remain silent when a ‘trans woman’ tells them he has no intention of living as a woman in the community,” Hotchkiss writes.
Swinney’s self-enforced silence
Swinney chose to remain silent when asked about the court case. “That’s a live legal case, I won’t be commenting on live legal cases,” he said through gritted teeth on Thursday, insinuating that he was restricted by law.
Nonsense. For Women Scotland’s case is not a criminal matter, it’s in a civil court and there is no legal reason why the First Minister cannot tell the country why his government is defending the right of biological males to be housed in women’s prisons.
Perhaps his self-enforced silence is evidence that even he is beginning to realise that he cannot justify sacrificing the welfare of vulnerable women for the sake of a long-discredited policy – one that brought down his close friend and colleague Nicola Sturgeon. We can but hope.
A question of values
In the same social media post to mark Interfaith Week where Swinney wrote of his Christian faith, he preaches of the need to bring our society closer together, to hear each other and to listen with care to each other.
He boasts that the values of respect and understanding are those that underpin his administration. It was a masterclass in couthiness that Robert Burns would have relished for its satirical opportunities.
Meanwhile, more than 300 of Scotland’s most vulnerable women are prisoners of Swinney’s political dogma, trapped in jails where their human rights matter less than the demands of men who masquerade as women. What respect, what understanding, do these women get from you First Minister? Or do your Christian values not extend to women with no voice?