Readers' Letters: Trans people are more confident in coming out today

I am sure that my teachers would report similarly that there were no pupils who identified as gay when I was at school.

Of course, there were gay pupils, myself included, but it felt completely unsafe then for us to come out.

Fortunately, things have changed, and many schools are much more welcoming for pupils who are, or think they may be, lesbian, gay or bisexual.

That the same has been happening over the past ten years for pupils who are, or think they may be, trans, is welcome. Jenny Lindsay may not like it, but, as with LGB people, trans people have always existed.

Schools should of course be acknowledging and supporting LGBT pupils, so that instead of hiding or being the target of bullies, they have a chance to thrive.

The Scottish Government had to update their guidance on trans school pupils, following the Supreme Court interpreting the Equality Act in a way that is the opposite of what the UK Parliament intended.

Nevertheless, it is welcome that the government has emphasised the need to continue to treat trans pupils, as far as possible, in line with their gender identity, and with respect and support.

Tim Hopkins, Edinburgh

Naive Nato

Regarding UK defence and conscription (Letters, 6 October), Neil Anderson is correct on our poor defences, and conscription may well be part of the answer.

Lord Robertson rightly warns the country to “wake up” to the new types of threat emanating from the five-nation Axis (not just three) of anti-democratic, well-armed powers, and “to get off a peacetime mode of thinking”.

Lord Robertson led Nato during the transition from President Yeltsin to Putin from 1999-2003, when Putin seemed fairly sensible and civilised, but surely even then he must have had major concerns about an ex-KGB officer taking over a heavily armed nuclear power, even if its economy seemed third-world.

I do not recall him ever voicing warnings; and it was always fatuous even to talk in the 1990s about “a peace dividend” after the so-called end of the Cold War, let alone to spend it. The time to “wake up” was over 30 years ago.

The West, including Nato, was unbelievably naive in Russia’s descent from its fledgling democratic developments in the Gorbachev/early Yeltsin eras, with our politicians, diplomats, military attachés, academics and business leaders apparently myopically assuming in the early 2000s that little would change, despite the rump-KGB having taken over the Kremlin.

The same naive short-termism by the same people applied to our handing over to China our technology and productive capacity with no quid-pro-quo whatever.

We are far too close for comfort to Churchill’s warning that, “if we fail to move forward into broad sunlit uplands, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science”.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Path to peace

We commemorate the October 7 attacks with very heavy hearts, but the Arab-Israeli conflict did not start on October 7. It was the outcome of more than seven decades of burning injustices, crippling occupation and a long litany of contemptuous disregard for human rights, international law and UN resolutions.

Israel has experienced one October 7, but since then Palestinians have been through 730 October 7ths. October 7 does not give Israel carte blanche to perpetrate atrocity after atrocity and to keep Palestinians entangled in a perpetual state of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Israel’s security can only be achieved through justice and a free Palestine.

(Dr) Munjed Farid Al Qutob, London, United Kingdom

Insensitive

It appears that spending so much time in an echo chamber with the clapping seals behind him has led to our First Minister, John Swinney, thinking that all his words will be welcomed, regardless of what he says and to whom (“The Jewish people will emerge stronger", 6 October).

On Sunday afternoon, Swinney joined members of the Scottish Jewish community at a vigil marking the second anniversary of the October 7 attacks. Astonishingly he used this opportunity to explain why he supports the recognition of a Palestinian state.

Palestine includes Gaza, which is run by Hamas, a terrorist organisation. Hamas, who carried out the most atrocious, despicable attack on Jews two years ago, who are still holding hostages. Hamas, who have returned hostages in a state reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps. Hamas, who raped and tortured Jews old and young.

Regardless of how you feel about the SNP’s recognition of Palestine as a state, how can our country’s leader be so insensitive as to broach this subject at a vigil to those who had been attacked in such a brutal manner?

Jane Lax, Aberlour, Moray

Badly advised

It takes a rare occasion for me to say this, but I felt very sorry for John Swinney being heckled relentlessly by Israeli-sympathising listeners to his speech outside Holyrood at the weekend.

What were his advisers thinking of, to let him be humiliated in that manner? After the synagogue killings in Manchester, it was not the time or the place for the audience to listen to an Rev IM Jolly-style sermon of gloom-laden, meaningless platitudes. His previous ordering of the flying of the Palestinian flag above a public building in Edinburgh would not in any case have endeared him to the middle road, let alone the Israeli side of the argument. I thought he was a little brighter than that.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Direct approach

Sadly, and far too often, tragically, pornography cannot be un-invented. For as long as human beings have existed, it has been there. Modern inventions, computers, laptops and tablets have simply broadened and deepened its scope.

Likewise, there have always been strenuous efforts to censor it, or at least to minimise its damage, without much success. The Online Safety Act is just the latest in a long list of failures.

The effects of pornography on gullible young people can be dire, as far as their mental health is concerned, to the point of breakdown and even suicide. As pornography will always be with us, perhaps we should adapt to its existence.

Perhaps, education is the answer, putting pornography into its cruel and stark perspective. A frank and honest approach to its dangers and side-effects might well bear some positive fruit.

Since we cannot ban it, pornography should be confronted, not least its dark side.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Thickening wedge

I wrote, somewhat tongue-in-cheek in yesterday’s Scotsman, warning about the dangers of such intrusions into our lives as ID cards. I was responding to Ken Currie's letter in which he asked, “Why should I fear another ID card?”

My argument was that there are many other intrusions into personal privacy which an elected, democratic government may introduce which, in themselves may seem innocuous, but which may be the thin end of the wedge in the wrong hands.

One thing I hypothesised about was being fined after further private information had perhaps been added to the information which would be required for an ID card, such as financial information. I suggested that in such a scenario, a breach of such possible future rules could involve fines being extracted from your bank account without your being asked.

Guess what I found out yesterday? The Westminster government has a new fraud bill on the stocks which will give HMRC the power of “direct recovery” from bank accounts! Also, banks will have to share your private financial data with the DWP and those banks are forbidden from telling you that they are doing so.

The Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary complains that the Labour Party is doing this without “proper checks and balances”. That is the danger we face from Keir Starmer’s left-wing government. Be warned.

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

On the ball

After the departure of Russell Martin from Rangers, all the usual suspects as candidates for the role of manager will be posted ad nauseam.

It doesn’t take a PhD to work out that there is something wrong with the recruitment process, given the recent not so merry-go-round of managers in the last few years.

Would it be outrageous to suggest the next incumbent might have a CV that includes an in-depth knowledge of Scottish football, and a willingness to look for signings closer to home?

They say that comparisons are odious, unfortunately, it is inevitable, when the club have had managers of the calibre of Jock Wallace, and Walter Smith, who exuded a unique passion for the club and instilled it in the players.

Unless Rangers can employ someone with that same dynamic approach, something that appears to have been sadly lacking in recent times, it is difficult to see the club getting back to its former position.

Francis Constantine, London

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