MurrayBlackburnMackenzie policy analyst Lucy Hunter Blackburn is speaking out against Scotland’s gender identity protections because biological male inmates are taking advantage of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS). .“Every case transferred into the female prison estate will have been through an individual ‘case by case’ assessment about their suitability for transfer, by those designated as appropriately expert by the prison service,” said Hunter Blackburn in a tweet. .Hunter Blackburn noted how one inmate said she feared the transgender prisoners had conned the SPS. .“The last one to get out, back living as a man,” said the inmate. .“The one before that got out, back living as a man.” .While this transgender inmate was in the hall, the female inmate said she was telling people she had stopped taking her medication because she could not have an erection. She said she has no problem living with transgender people, but she is concerned about those manipulating the system and pretending to have gender dysphoria. .Another inmate said she feels like it was “a bit of an act.” .“Because she had a beard and didn’t try,” said the inmate. .Hunter Blackburn said Scotland needs politicians and officials “to take proper responsibility for how policies adopted here have affected women in prison.”.These cases were passed through the individual case assessment process, where professionals with a mix of backgrounds have access to all the information held about a person who has been through the court process right up to sentencing. .She said there ought to be a fuller history, with more details on offending history and including any background reports produced for sentencing. .“The SPS has more information and can if necessary take longer to make decisions here than is true for most other settings,” she said. .“It has institutional expertise at dealing with offenders, including the most manipulative, that others do not have.” .The Scottish government approved plans to make it easier and less intrusive for people to legally change their gender, extending the new system of self-identification to 16- and 17-year-olds for the first time, on December 22. .The bill was passed by members of the Scottish Parliament in a special extended session after being proposed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon six years ago, after two of the largest public consultations in the history of the Scottish parliament, and amid a toxic, polarized political discourse. .As a mark of the escalating disagreements surrounding the changes, the debate was disrupted minutes before the final vote by protesters in the public gallery shouting "Shame on you" and "This is the darkest day."
