The revision of the rules is due to the cases of Tiffany Scott and Isla Bryson, two transgender women who were accused of committing crimes against women while they were still men.
Scotland paralyzed the transfers of all transgender prisoners on Sunday while carrying out an “urgent” review of the rules regarding the establishments where they should be housed, according to Sky News. The controversial cases of Tiffany Scott, accused of harassing a 13-year-old girl, and Isla Bryson, who raped two women, are at the center of the controversy. The two transgender women committed these crimes against women while they were still men.
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“We have embarked on an urgent review of all the cases of transgender people currently managing our facilities,” said a spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service, quoted by the same newspaper. “Our primary concern has always been, and continues to be, the health, safety, and well-being of everyone in our care and that of our staff.”
This review will take into account each transgender inmate’s history of violence against women and the “associated risk” of placing her in a women’s prison. Until the review is complete, these cases will be held in facilities for men.
Keith Brown, the attorney general, said he understood the issue was “very emotional.” “As the Prime Minister stressed last week, we cannot allow any suggestion that trans women are an inherent threat to women to take root. Predatory men are the risk for women.”
Since 2014, the Scottish prison system’s guidelines have been to place inmates in facilities according to the gender with which they identify, but the cases of Isla Bryson and Tiffany Scott have been embroiled in controversy.
The court ruled last Tuesday that Bryson, 31, was convicted of crimes of rape against two women, which were committed when she was called Adam Graham and was still a man. During the course of the process, he justified that he wanted to change his gender and that he had always felt in the wrong body, which led to the determination that he was committed to a women’s prison, although, legally, he is still not a women. Less than 24 hours later, Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, told parliament that the inmate would finally be in a men’s prison.
The case of Tiffany Scott came to light on Saturday, when it was learned that her transfer to a women’s prison had been authorized. The transgender woman had already received a denial in a previous transfer request. Before coming out as transgender in 2016, his name was Andrew Burns and he assaulted a nurse while fleeing a hospital in 2010, after being convicted in 2013 of harassing a 13-year-old girl. Although she comes out as a trans woman, she has not yet made any medical transition.
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Source: Observadora
