Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon has been accused by opposition parties of “botching” policy on the placement of transgender prisoners with records of violence against women, deepening the controversy around Edinburgh’s recent gender reforms.
Last week, it emerged that Isla Bryson, who was convicted of raping two women when still living as a man, had been remanded in an all-female prison.
While Bryson was later moved to a male-only facility, the Scottish government said it was against doing so as a blanket policy and that the prison service was capable of assessing individual cases.
Labour’s Ian Murray, shadow Scottish secretary at Westminster, said on BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland on Monday: “It’s quite clear this whole issue has been botched by the Scottish government and the Scottish justice secretary.
“The Equality Act is clear that single-sex spaces, including women’s prisons, have got to be protected under the law and it looks in this case people have been put in danger.”
The criticism comes as Sturgeon’s party faces a constitutional fight with the UK government, which has blocked Scottish legislation to make it easier for people to change their gender, saying it would impact UK-wide equality law.
On Saturday, pressure on the Scottish government to clarify its policy grew after the Daily Record reported that prison officials had agreed to transfer another transgender prisoner, Tiffany Scott, who had stalked a 13-year-old girl while living as a man, to a female jail.
In response, Scottish justice secretary Keith Brown announced that no transgender offender with a history of violence against women or girls would be placed in a female-only facility.
Brown had last week defended the Scottish prison’s service right to assess cases on an individual basis and called its record “exemplary”.
The UK government is seeking to block Scotland’s gender recognition bill arguing that it could have adverse consequences for equality protections, such as those covering equal pay.
Critics of the legislation insist it will endanger women by allowing any male who self-identifies as female to gain access to women-only spaces.
The Scottish government has argued that holding a gender recognition certificate did not guarantee access to such places. It is still to decide on whether to legally challenge London’s decision to invoke Section 35 to block the bill.
The Scottish Conservatives on Monday accused Sturgeon’s government of presiding over “chaos, confusion and U-turns”. The party said it would push for a permanent ban on the placement of violent transgender offenders at female prisons.
“The last few days have exposed Nicola Sturgeon as being completely out of touch with public opinion,” said Russell Findlay, Scotland’s shadow community safety minister.
Mark Diffley, founder of the polling company Diffley Partnership, said that Scottish voters broadly supported people’s right to change their gender but added that there were still “significant public levels of concern”.
These, he said, related to specific measures in the legislation such as lowering the age when people can legally change their gender from 18 to 16.
“For the public as a whole, this is not a salient issue . . . But clearly with the media coverage and everything that’s going on it will rise in salience over time,” said Diffley.
“We’ll need to wait and see if it has had any wider impact in terms of political support.”
