A women’s rights group that secured a landmark UK Supreme Court ruling defining sex as biological sex is back in court—this time challenging a Scottish government policy that allows male prisoners who identify as women to be held in female jails.
The campaign group For Women Scotland has launched a judicial review against Scotland’s prison service rules, which permit some biological men to serve sentences in women’s prisons if they identify as female. The case was heard at the Court of Session in Edinburgh on Tuesday, February 3rd.
According to a lawyer representing the group, the leftist Scottish National Party government is treating women prisoners like “pawns for political gain” and taking an “Orwellian” approach to equality. “All women are equal,” the lawyer said, “but men identifying as women are more equal than others.”
For Women Scotland arrive at Court of Session in Edinburgh this morning at start of judicial review of the Scottish Prison Service Policy for the Management of Transgender People in Custody. @ForWomenScotpic.twitter.com/8M316ysY6P
Court officials were also told that those defending the current policy had advanced arguments with a “total lack of legal substance” and were ignoring the interests of women who have been subjected to abuse by men.
And the Equality and Human Rights Commission said in a written submission that if biological men were permitted to serve time in female jails, such facilities would no longer be considered “single-sex” spaces.
It is incumbent on the respondents [the government], in managing the prison estate in Scotland, to ensure that the rights of all are properly observed. That includes, crucially, the rights of women prisoners to safety, privacy, and dignity. If that requires the making of bespoke arrangements for trans prisoners then that is what it requires to happen.
Current rules state that “when staff have enough information to reach a decision that a trans individual can be safely accommodated, they will be placed in an establishment which matches their affirmed gender.”
Further hearings and submissions are expected in the coming weeks as the legal challenge continues.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
