There was an article in The Times Scotland about ‘Women are being put in danger because Scottish prison chiefs allow male-bodied transgender inmates to live in female-only areas of jails, campaigners have warned’ which stated –

“Scottish Trans Alliance did not respond to a request for comment last night. However the org has previously defended the SPS policy”

I’m not surprised they have defended it previously considering the policy was written by their manager James Morton.

When you click on the policy to open it up in iBooks the Author is listed as James Morton.

This is the guidance here. As with other polices nowadays such as Education and NHS it completely disregards the impact this would have on women.

Why are policies being written with NO consultation with women’s groups?

Why is the author of the @scottishprisons policy the manager of @ScottishTrans?

I understand why STA would be consulted when the policy was being compiled, but actually being written by a Trans Lobby group is a clear indication of bias against the other protected groups affected

The Equality Impact Assessment not only incorrectly names the protected characteristics, (gender and gender identity are NOT in the Equality Act 2010) it doesn’t even consider that WOMEN would be affected by this. Female prisoners AND staff are obviously going to be affected.

Who did they consult with?

The template makes suggestions who to consult like ‘Women’s Support Network’ and prisoner focus groups.

But that wasn’t done either.

No female prisoner groups nor any female staff groups were consulted.

Why did @scottishprisons not consider any women?

(NB this is lifted from a thread I did on my Twitter account @Scottish_Women on 12/9/18)


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