Don't Cry For Me, Spartan Theresa

Everyone get the hankies out!

The truth is, I never loved you.

On Friday, 24 May 2019, Conservative Party Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May, after months of dropping popularity, and poor handling of the UK’s exit from the EU, announced that she would resign with effect from 9 June 2019.  She gave this announcement in a long speech outside 10 Downing Street, and in which she made many claims, and choked back her tears at the end.

Here is my response, which carefully examines ever sentence of that speech, and gives my reaction to it.

“Ever since I first stepped through the door behind me as prime minister, I have striven to make the United Kingdom a country that works not just for a privileged few, but for everyone.”

No, you have not.  You have in fact created a UK that is more fractured and unequal that it has ever been in recent history.

“And to honour the result of the E.U. referendum.  Back in 2016, we gave the British people a choice.”

A choice which was ill-informed, and based on scaremongering and lies on both sides, but mostly from the Leave campaign, who have since been proven to have acted illegally during the campaign.

”Against all predictions, the British people voted to leave the European Union.”

Nonsense.  It was well known that a vote to leave the EU was more than likely.  As far back as 2014 I was warning people in Scotland that if they voted No to Scottish independence, then the likelihood would be that we would find ourselves tied to the UK, and out of the EU.   It gives me absolutely no pleasure to have been proven correct in that prediction.   Indeed, there would have not have been a EU referendum had it not been for the weak leadership of former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, in bowing to the demands of Nigel Farage, UKIP, other Eurosceptics, as well as outright racists and xenophobes.

“I feel as certain today as I did three years ago that in a democracy, if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide.”

It is always laudable to stand by a democratic decision.  However, in the case of the 2016 EU membership, no-one knew what they were actually voting for.  There was no explanation of how the exit from the EU would be achieved, or the implications of what leaving the EU would mean for the UK, or it’s constituent nations and regions.  Not to mention that those who voted to leave the EU did so on the basis of misinformation, propaganda, and in some cases outright lies.

”I have done my best to do that.  I negotiated the terms of our exit and a new relationship with our closest neighbours that protects jobs, our security and our union.”

Indeed you did not.  You presented a deal which was the worst of all worlds, which would in fact cost jobs, and has in fact already cost jobs, threaten security, and could lead to the break up of the United Kingdom.  Ever since you presented your deal, there has been an enormous rise in support for Scottish independence, the business community in Northern Ireland are now saying that perhaps a united Ireland is the answer – and the people are listening, Plaid Cymru are once more on the rise in Wales, and even Mebyon Kernow are now showing renewed promise in Cornwall.

Your ‘closest neighbours’ are in fact those constituent nations of the UK which you claim to hold so dear to heart.  Yet you consistently ignored and snubbed Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, refused her of SNP ministers a say in Brexit negotiations, and have even flouted parliamentary procedure when Ian Turnbull and other SNP MPs have been speaking in the House of Commons.  You have consistently and repeatedly been told that your deal does nothing to address the problem of the UK / Irish border in Northern Ireland, and threatens the peace and security of the province, where the Good Friday Agreement ended 30 years of bloodshed.  Instead, you have brushed the ‘backstop’ off as if it were nothing, even claiming that new technology could be used; technology which does not in fact yet exist.

“I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal.  Sadly, I have not been able to do so.  I tried three times.  I believe it was right to persevere, even when the odds against success seemed high.”

No, you simply arrogantly and ignorantly refused to listen to voices wiser than your own that your deal is completely unworkable.  That it does not address the NI backstop, that it would lead to mayhem of goods and people travelling between the UK and the EU, and that it would in fact leave the UK in a position of having to agree to EU terms, while not actually having a say in that legislation; which is precisely what many who voted Leave claimed to be against in the first place.

You are the very one who claimed earlier in this speech “if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide”.  Yet not content with the House of Commons telling you a clear and emphatic “NO” to your deal, you presented it a second time, then when it failed, presented a third time, only for it to fail again.  It therefore beggars belief that before you decided to resign, you were fully intending to present it for a fourth time.  Where then is your commitment to democracy?

“But it is now clear to me that it is in the best interests of the country for a new prime minister to lead that effort.  So I am today announcing that I will resign as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party on Friday, 7 June, so that a successor can be chosen.  I have agreed with the party chairman and with the chairman of the 1922 Committee that the process for electing a new leader should begin in the following week.  I have kept Her Majesty the Queen fully informed of my intentions, and I will continue to serve as her prime minister until the process has concluded.”

There were many times you should have stepped down long before now.  The first of these was the 2017 General Election.  You called a snap General Election to prove that the UK was behind the way you were handling Brexit.  That failed miserably, and it was a clear message to you that the electorate did not in fact trust your handling of Brexit.  Any dignified politician would have taken the message, and did the honourable thing in standing down.  Instead you made a deal with the DUP to form a minority government.  And I would point out that is the DUP which has a strongly sectarian, anti-Catholic history and membership, who voted against the Good Friday Agreement, who are strongly anti-abortion, and are just as strongly opposed to LGBT+ people, with the result that Northern Ireland is now the last remaining part not just of the UK, but of the whole physical British Isles, where abortion and same-sex marriage remain illegal.  And you claim to have “striven to make the United Kingdom a country that works not just for a privileged few, but for everyone.”

You likewise should have stepped down the first time your Brexit deal was defeated in the House of Commons, by a margin of 230, making it the greatest Commons defeat in history.  That it was subsequently defeated again, that should have been a clear message to you to go.  And that is before I even mention all the other failures and scandals of your disastrous premiership.

“It is, and will always remain, a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit.  It will be for my successor to seek a way forward that honours the result of the referendum.  To succeed, he or she will have to find consensus in Parliament where I have not.  Such a consensus can only be reached if those on all sides of the debate are willing to compromise.”

Indeed, compromise and diplomacy are what makes politics.  But if your successor is to succeed, then they must be willing to listen to all sides, where you, in ignoring Scotland and Northern Ireland, and to everyone pointing out all the failures of your deal were completely unwilling to listen.  They must not, as you did, try to continually present a Bill which is unwanted, unworkable, and the worst of all worlds.  They must be willing to listen carefully, discuss and debate with all, to take their ideas on board, and to scrap plans and start again where necessary.  They must also be willing to listen to the growing number of voices across the UK calling for a second referendum on EU membership.

“For many years the great humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton — who saved the lives of hundreds of children by arranging their evacuation from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia through the Kindertransport — was my constituent in Maidenhead.  At another time of political controversy, a few years before his death, he took me to one side at a local event and gave me a piece of advice.  He said, ‘Never forget that compromise is not a dirty word. Life depends on compromise.’  He was right.”

Well, for a start, using an appeal to emotion is a low blow, even for you.  I have no doubt that Sir Nicholas Winton, who was indeed a great man, was absolutely correct.  But one wonders what he would say today if he could hear you abusing his kindness towards those children for your own selfish political motives?  I doubt he would be impressed, and neither am I.

Where was your supposed care about the Windrush Generation?  British Commonwealth citizens who had come to the UK quite legally, had lived in the UK most of their lives, and who legally had right to remain, suddenly being classed as illegal immigrants, having benefits removed, and with the NHS, landlords, and others being told to report them to the Home Office, and many means of pressure put upon them to leave the UK.  Of course, I realise that the Home Office Hostile Environment Policy, which was designed to pressurise ‘non-patrials’ to leave the UK was started before you were Prime Minister.  Indeed, it was started in 2013 under the then Home Secretary – Theresa May MP.  It was you who ordered the vans to go around the streets “asking” people to leave the UK.  It was you who was responsible for illegal deportations.  It was you responsible for deaths in custody.  It was you who said that your policy was to, and I quote, “deport first and hear appeals later”.  And of course, it was you who continued that policy into your Prime Ministership.

“As we strive to find the compromises we need in our politics — whether to deliver Brexit, or to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland — we must remember what brought us here.  Because the referendum was not just a call to leave the E.U. but for profound change in our country.  A call to make the United Kingdom a country that truly works for everyone. I am proud of the progress we have made over the last three years.  We have completed the work that David Cameron and George Osborne started: The deficit is almost eliminated, our national debt is falling and we are bringing an end to austerity.”

Indeed, the deficit is down.  It fell to £24.7bn – which is actually short of the government’s own forecast to bring it down to £22.8bn for the 2018/19 tax year.  And due to this, your government is talking of revising the budget.  That is moving the goalposts, and it fools no-one.  And how has that deficit been brought down?  By swingeing cuts in public spending, which has seen local authorities across the UK, the NHS and the police in England suffer as a result.  London can barely get through a weekend without a stabbing, and you pretend that has nothing to do with government cuts to the police budgets.

The national debt is falling?  Then perhaps you would like to explain how it recently surpassed the £2 Trillion mark, £2,17 Trillion to be precise?  I can explain it; it was due to uncertainty over Brexit – uncertainty which you created.

Bringing an end to austerity?  Really?  Except in 2017 you told the 1922 committee that austerity was over.  On 3 October 2018, after dancing onto the stage at the Conservative Party conference, you gave a speech in which you declared, quote, “a decade after the financial crash, people need to know that the austerity it led to is over”.  On 28 October 2018, your then Chancellor, Phillip Hammond, stated, quote, “hard work is paying off and the age of austerity is coming to an end”.  In January 2019 you again reiterated that austerity was at an end.  Which is it?

“My focus has been on ensuring that the good jobs of the future will be created in communities across the whole country, not just in London and the southeast, through our Modern Industrial Strategy.  We have helped more people than ever enjoy the security of a job.”

There is no security of a job.  Go and have a look at the job boards.  Most of the jobs on offer are poorly-paid agency contracts, which are mostly temporary, many are part-time, and some are on zero hours contracts.  By using agencies, employers can get around the usual safeguards which ensure job security and workers rights.

“We are building more homes and helping first-time buyers onto the housing ladder — so young people can enjoy the opportunities their parents did.”

The Help to Buy scheme came not out of any caring initiative, but was a mark of desperation out of pure necessity when your government was shamed into action by a shocking housing shortage, caused by Margaret Thatcher’s failed “right to buy” policy.  Your government and past Tory – and Labour – administrations failed to build new homes, or to address the problem of rich absentee landlords snapping up properties, then letting them out at rents which few could afford.  This has been a particular problem in London, where entire communities have been completely forced out of the city, while the rich have moved into their place.  So much so that there are now calls from white, middle-class residents in Notting Hill suggesting that organisers take the Notting Hill Carnival elsewhere.

“And we are protecting the environment, eliminating plastic waste, tackling climate change and improving air quality.  This is what a decent, moderate and patriotic Conservative government, on the common ground of British politics, can achieve, even as we tackle the biggest peacetime challenge any government has faced.”

That would be under legislation which was ruled by, ermm, the European Union, which you have been trying so hard to get the UK out of.

And of course under the Kyoto Accord of 1992, long, long before you were even in government, let alone Prime Minister.  Every country which signed the Kyoto Agreement has to reduce carbon emissions and carry out other environmental improvements, so quit trying to tell us that you and your government came up with it.

And actually, England is trailing behind the world in environmental issues.  According to the European Environmental Bureau, England is 18^th in the world league table on recycling.  Meanwhile, a rise in VAT on solar panels, introduced by your government, has made installing them impractical for many home owners.  Compare that to Scotland where most or our electricity is now produced by renewables, and we are already ahead of our carbon reduction targets.

“I know that the Conservative Party can renew itself in the years ahead, that we can deliver Brexit and serve the British people with policies inspired by our values: security, freedom and opportunity.  Those values have guided me throughout my career.”

Actually, Brexit may be the complete undoing of the Conservative Party.  The divisions which it has driven, and with members defecting to other parties, may yet prove terminal to the Conservative Party.  As to security, there have been a spate of terrorist attacks in England under your premiership, which police were powerless to stop.  Many freedoms have been curtailed under your watch both as Home Secretary and Prime Minister, and your own government’s Online Harms White Paper, in openly seeking to restrict “behaviours which are harmful but not necessarily illegal” is little more than an Orwellian ‘thought police’, which will intrude upon and affect the perfectly legal online behaviours of millions.  As to opportunity, what opportunity?  The opportunity to work in temporary, dead-end, poorly-paid, agency contracts, and keep doing so until you are 70 years old, or drop dead doing so?  Certainly don’t look to better yourself in England, because with crippling tuition fees, there is little incentive to go to university.  And even if one does, where are the jobs befitting those graduations?  I do not doubt that those values have guided you, because when you talk of “security, freedom and opportunity”, it seems to me it is purely your own you are thinking of.

”But the unique privilege of this office is to use this platform to give a voice to the voiceless, to fight the burning injustices that still scar our society.  That is why I put proper funding for mental health at the heart of our NHS long-term plan.”

Except you did not.  Far from it, you have continually cut back funding in mental health in England.  The number of beds allocated to mental health patients dropped by 30% in 2018, while mental health nurses dropped by 15%.  And in the same period, 400,000 young people in England were referred for mental health issues.  These figures all have one common factor behind them; the continuing austerity and cutbacks imposed on the NHS, communities, and young people by your government were a huge contributory factor.  You only started pouring money into mental health after these things were pointed out to you.  So far from being a “long-term plan”, it is a kneejerk reaction.  And given you made this statement just a week after the UK Mental Health Awareness Week, that was another low and cynical move.

“It is why I am ending the post code lottery for survivors of domestic abuse.  It is why the Race Disparity Audit and gender pay reporting are shining a light on inequality, so it has nowhere to hide.”

You, in fact created the ‘post code lottery for survivors of domestic abuse’ during your tenure as Home Secretary, and you have done nothing to address until recently as Prime Minister.  Absolutely the same can be said of race disparity and the gender pay gap.  You have had 10 years to sort things out that you and you alone were largely responsible for creating, or at least did nothing to address before, and it is only now, that your popularity is in the bin, that you are pretending to care.

“And it is why I set up the independent public inquiry into the tragedy at Grenfell Tower — to search for the truth, so nothing like it can ever happen again, and so the people who lost their lives that night are never forgotten.”

This has got to be the lowest blow of them all.  Whoever had been Prime Minister, there would always have been some sort of investigation into the causes of the Grenfell Tower fire, whether that be by inquiry or inquest.  And in fact, you created the independent public inquiry into it only after London Mayor Sadiq Khan and others pressed you to do so.  But let us just look at Grenfell Tower.  Here was a tower block filled with some of the poorest and most vulnerable in UK society; the unemployed, refugees, former homeless, single mums – all of whom had suffered at the hands of your government’s policies, placed in a dangerous slum dwelling, which was surrounded by the lavish apartment blocks of the rich and privileged.  Grenfell was a disaster waiting to happen, and Kensington and Chelsea Council – ran by your party, the Conservatives – did nothing to address that.

Meanwhile, while you make sanctimonious statements about remembering the dead, I notice you say nothing of the survivors, who two years later still suffer the trauma of that terrible fire, 96 of whom are still living in temporary flats, hotels, serviced apartments, and some even ‘couch-surfing’ with friends.  This in addition to those who were offered accommodation which was completely unsuitable, including one person offered a house which was in desperate need of repair, a disabled person who was offered an upstairs apartment without a lift, and one person who is suffering PTSD from the fire, and was offered an upper storey apartment in another tower block.  Your words are empty.  Your party created the circumstances which made the Grenfell Tower fire not only possible, but inevitable, and which have done nothing to address since, except your inquiry attempting to place the blame on the brave firefighters who tried their best to fight an impossible situation that night.

“Because this country is a Union.  Not just a family of four nations.  But a union of people — all of us.  Whatever our background, the colour of our skin, or who we love.  We stand together.  And together we have a great future.  Our politics may be under strain, but there is so much that is good about this country. So much to be proud of. So much to be optimistic about."

The Union of nations you claim to care so much about, may well be undone, by your very own hands.  Your continued unwillingness to recognise the wishes of over 60% of the Scottish electorate to stay in the EU, and to snub the First Minister of Scotland in Brexit talks, has already lead to a backlash which may yet see Scotland leaving the Union.  Likewise, your ignorance of the NI backstop is leading people in the province to question whether a united Ireland may be the answer.  The EU referendum itself has sown the seeds of division which has seen many vicious attacks upon people for their ethnic background, and the colour of their skin.  Your own government’s policies have seen many torn from their communities and deported.  As to “who we love”, may I remind you that in your political career you supported Section 28, voted against adoption by same-sex couples, and opposed equal age of consent?

“I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold — the second female prime minister but certainly not the last.”

Indeed, I certainly hope not.  Nicola Sturgeon has shown just how effective a woman leader can be.  However, I remember the last woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, all too well.  Having survived her misrule, I never thought there could ever be a worse Prime Minister.  But Thatcher was a saint compared to you, the pound shop Thatcher.  It is no lie that you have done much more damage to some of the most vulnerable in UK society in only 3 short years than Thatcher managed to do in 11 years.  Thatcher was a complete bastard, but she had an idea of what she was doing.  You have been completely out of your depth, and wholly incompetent at your job – and the poorest of the poor have suffered for that incompetence.  Great leadership comes from ability to do the job, not from gender.

”I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love (sobs).”

Yeah?  Well, while you claim to have no ill will, I have plenty.  So, dry your eyes.

I will save my tears for the children who will go to bed hungry tonight.  For the severely disabled, and those desperately and even terminally ill who have benefits cut, because they have been deemed fit for work.  For those who faced with benefit cuts or just plain austerity could go no further, and took their own lives.  For the 1.2 million – including some working but on low wages – who have to rely on handouts from food banks.  For the 320,000 homeless who will be sleeping on the streets, in graveyards, in shelters, or couch-surfing tonight.  For every person of an ethnic or racial minority who lives daily with the threat of violence.  For the families and friends of yet another young person stabbed to death.  For those torn from their families, friends, and communities and deported from the country they have come to call home.  And for the millions of other lives that your disastrous tenure as Prime Minister has destroyed.

These too are people of the UK.  You don’t love them; you care absolutely nothing for them, you have shown them utter contempt, and you certainly were not weeping for them.

Your tears were for yourself, and no-one else.  I am not at all impressed, and I shed absolutely no tears for you.

Our Need for the Serpent's Cunning

A mild example from a well-known Indy blogger

No room for online abuse which only harms the independence movement.

Senior figures within the Scottish National Party (SNP) have called for a crackdown on online abuse, and for independence supporters to call out and distance themselves from those who engage in such behaviour.  Alyn Smith MEP, Stewart McDonald MP, and Angus Robertson, former SNP Depute Leader have called out online abuse that may harm the independence campaign.

In an interview, Alyn Smith told the Herald on Sunday (5 May 2019), “in the same way the Tartan Army had to clean up its act in the 1980s and then became a massive ambassadorial source for Scotland… …We all need to step up. This is allowing us to be portrayed in a certain way that's damaging… …call them out and send them to Coventry. Make them persona non grata forever - off you pop, you aren't one of us if that's how you behave”.

Angus Robertson stated, "I'm expressly underlining the fact that this is an issue for both sides of the constitutional argument in Scotland, and more generally internationally where on social media, often because of anonymity, some people think that they can insult, attack and offend with impunity… …I think these people are cowards and wouldn't be prepared to continue posting in the same way if they were identifiable, quite often because what they're saying and doing would be considered illegal. We need a cultural change… …There's been reticence by senior Yes supporters to call out abuse for fear of undermining the more general debate about Scotland's constitutional future, and rather than highlight the levels of abuse they received by unionist trolls to let it slide, or to avoid criticism because one is wanting to protect the reputation of public discourse more generally.  This can't go on. People can't go on thinking they can sit in front of their keyboards and do nothing but send abuse to people they don't agree with. You wouldn't do it in public, you'd be thrown out of a pub for doing it, you'd never do it at a family event, why on earth would you do it online?"

I have seen angry responses from some in the Indy camp, who somehow feel betrayed by these comments, but the fact is that the SNP trio are absolutely correct, and I applaud all three for calling out those who are potentially damaging the independence cause.  And those angered may have missed the point that the three actually called out those on the unionist side who partake in the same behaviour.

What does Internet abuse achieve?  Does it change the hearts and minds of the people who are being attacked?  Does it make salient political points that the opponents are likely to take on board and consider carefully?  Or is it just an excuse for at the least a slanging match, or to rant at someone, which may make the person doing so feel good at the time, but which ultimately reflects upon all of us in the independence movement, and has the potential to damage our campaign.

I saw one typical example on Facebook just today.  A friend posted screenprints from a private messaging conversation with a unionist woman, who was not abusive, but really was just mistaken in many of her comments.  There were comments below this of people saying they were going to go to her Facebook timeline to “put her in her place”, “give her a piece of my mind”, etc.  One person who had previously been blocked by the said woman stated that they intended to set up a fake Facebook profile to troll her.  Why?  The woman in question is a diehard unionist who will listen to no reason.  What does attacking her achieve?  What would it help?  Just how does it further the cause of independence to hurl abuse at someone who is so stuck in their views that you will never change their mind?  It does not. And it was not lost on me that some of the comments called her “cow”, “old bag”, and various other sexist and ageist insults.  Well done, guys.  Is there any other way you’d like to damage the Indy movement?

Cyber abuse cannot be ignored.  It takes many forms and it can be extremely damaging, and potentially dangerous.  SNP MP Joanna Cherry recently had call to have police protection at her weekly surgery, due to what was seen as a threatening message posted on her Twitter account.  This comprised of a meme of a masked figure with a gun, and the words “Just do it”, alongside details of Ms Cherry’s surgery.  This came in the wake of Ms Cherry campaigning against the SNP administration’s adoption of gender self-ID for transgender and non-binary people.  As a firm trans ally, I find Joanna Cherry’s stance on transgender people to be deeply offensive, and I feel she has hardly covered herself in glory.  But all that apart, while Ms Cherry’s stance may be offensive to some, it does not warrant any response may incite violence and threatens her or anyone else’s well-being.  If I can strongly disagree with Joanna Cherry without resorting to abuse or threats, so can anyone.  Let us not forget that it is less then 3 years since Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by someone who often tweeted hate messages, and inciting anyone to similar actions, over any issue, is simply deplorable.

And Joanna Cherry is not alone in this.  Nicola Sturgeon, Mhairi Black, and other women SNP politicians have reported having sexist and threatening comments and messages online.  But it is not reserved to the SNP.  Openly lesbian leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, has often come in for homophobic, sexist, and threatening messages online, and on one infamous occasion in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum, one such perpetrator subjected her to a tirade of online abuse of a homophobic nature.  The comments quite rightly disgusted many of us, his true identity were made public, and both the SNP and Yes Scotland were quick to dismiss him, and shamed him into phoning Ruth to apologise.  Ruth Davidson later tweeted that she felt she had been treated by “gallantry” by the independence movement.  And for that, she is welcome.  As much as I dislike Ruth Davidson’s politics, and I probably wouldn’t get along with her on a personal level, to attack anyone for their sexuality is about as low as it gets, and I was never prouder of the Indy movement for acting so quickly in condemning the homophobe responsible.  On that occasion, we got it exactly right.

I can almost hear some reading this shouting “What about the abuse from unionists?”  Yes, they the unionists do indeed involve themselves in cyber abuse of Scots Nats, and sometimes much worse.  I could recount a number of incidences of actual violence carried out by unionists in the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum, and even one in which an elderly man in a Yes hub not far from my home was attacked just recently.  I have personally been threatened and even spat upon by unionists.  I keep my Facebook account set to “Friends” for many reasons, one of which being that I think out my arguments and check my facts very carefully before posting anything.  I am not about to leave that open to some knuckledragger who has taken a nanosecond to come up with their unintelligent response.

It is no use playing “whataboutery”.  We know what the unionists are capable of and that they often go off in tirades of online abuse towards Scots Nats, and indeed, others.  I have personally read and heard unionists come out with racist, xenophobic, sexist, sectarian, and religious abuse.  I am not for one moment saying that all unionists are bigots, I know for a fact they are not.  But I would say they have more than their fair share of such.  That such do indeed make abusive and threatening comments is absolutely no excuse to sink to their level.

We would do well to remember that not all unionists are abusive or bigoted, and I once saw a comment that made me want to cry.  On a friend’s timeline, someone commented that she had voted No in 2014, now realised her mistake, and stated that she would vote Yes in any future independence referendum.  This was immediately followed by a comment from a supposed independence supporter (actually someone I unfriended quite a while) in which he lambasted the woman for “subjecting Scotland to four years of Tory rule”.  Oh, well done.  That’s really going to win hearts and minds, isn’t it?  There are many who voted No in 2014, for many reasons, and it is precisely those people we need to engage if we are ever going to gain a free Scotland.  Abusing them is never going to convince them to vote Yes in the future, it is far more likely to cause them to scurry back to the No camp, and to remain firmly there.

It is also worth mentioning that the above abuser often comes out with openly anti-English statements, which was the very reason why I unfriended him.  While anti-English sentiments are not so prevalent in the Indy movement as they once were, they are still there nonetheless, they need to stop, and those who resort to such need to be called out and ostracised by the movement.  We can make comments about London rule and Westminster all we want.  We can make the point that all the unionist opposition parties are London-based.  But the moment that we blame the ordinary people of England for our woes, we are on a hiding to nothing, and worse still, it abuses many of those who may actually be on our side.  I have a few English friends living in Scotland, and all but one of them is pro-Independence.  One woman in particular campaigns long and hard for independence, which being disabled, is not easy for her.  She certainly does a lot more than the trolls who set out to abuse unionists, and throw in anti-English sentiments to boot.  Likewise, of my online English friends south of the border, most of them support an independent Scotland.  Go look through Nicola Sturgeon’s Twitter feed any day, and you will find English people asking for the SNP to field candidates in England, and how much they wish they had a leader like her in Westminster.  I will never tire of saying this; we in the Indy camp have much more in common with the working class of England than we shall ever have with our own Scottish landed gentry.

These things are indeed important because of the opponent we face.  We are taking on the British establishment, a particularly powerful animal, and it is they who have the media at their back.  We all know that the moment any person purporting to support independence puts a foot wrong, it will be jumped upon by the media, in an attempt to lambast us all, even if we do not agree with the person in question.  The attack on the elderly gentleman I mentioned earlier got about two column inches inside a newspaper.  Compare that to the front-page headline stories and the centre spreads that newspapers have given to a few abusive comments by what is in reality a small minority of people.  Look at the many times that the main TV broadcasters have misreported a story about the Indy camp, or deliberately misrepresented us.   Look indeed at how the media hijacked the term “cybernat”, to claim it represents all independence supporters who use the internet to abuse others.  In fact, if you stand for independence and your main medium for making the arguments for such is online, then you are, like me, a cybernat.  And if people have the time and resources to abuse people on line, then they have the time and resources to put forward positive arguments for independence to those who may be wavering, which is where their energies would and should be better spent.

”We need the cunning of the serpent to deal with money and power.” wrote the socialist Scots poet Naomi Mitchison in her 13-part pro-independence anthology, The Cleansing of the Knife.  And what Mitchison penned in 1941 was never more relevant in the internet age of the 21^st century.  We not only must be squeaky clean, we must be seen to be squeaky clean, especially in the face of the money and power which the unionists have at their resource.

I fully realise that online abuse in the Indy movement is but one symptom of a wider disease.  Politics are becoming increasingly polarised, and there appears to be a belief nowadays that throwing insults and even threats about is somehow valid.  This is not however the case, and if you believe at all in reasoned and democratic debate, then you will have no part in such.  Your right to freedom of speech does not extend to abusing and threatening your opponent.  It never did, it never shall, and neither should it be so.  Therefore, we should call out online abuse because it is the right thing to do.  Whenever and wherever we encounter personal attacks upon and threats or incitement to violence towards those who oppose independence, it needs to be nipped in the bud, and the perpetrators named, shamed, and made pariahs within the independence movement.  Particularly if the abuse is based upon sexuality, gender, ethnicity, race, age, religion – or lack thereof, or any other personal attribute.  Where any online messages contain threats, or incitement to violence, not only do we need to distance ourselves from such, they should be reported to the police as soon as possible.

In the final instance, whenever someone purporting to be pro-independence makes comments online which abuse, threaten, or incite violence, then that can only be harmful to our cause.  If anyone is going to play the man and not the ball, then they do not speak for me, they do not speak for Scotland, they do not speak for the independence movement, and that needs to be made very plain, in loud and clear language.

Our Scotland, and the vision we share for her future, is far too important to allow anyone or anything which harms that to continue.

Where Is The Intelligence?

Take nothing at face value.

In the past few weeks we have seen some horrendous things happen worldwide.

During prayers on Friday, 15 March, there were concerted mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 50, and leaving another 50 injured.

On 18 April, rioting in Derry, Northern Ireland, resulted in 29-year-old writer and journalist Lyra McKee being shot dead by operatives of the New IRA.

On 21 April, Easter Sunday, concerted bombings of three churches in Sri Lanka, three bombings of luxury hotels in the capital, Colombo, and smaller explosions at a housing complex in the housing district of Dematagoda, and at a guest house in Dehiwala, killed 253 people, and injured 500.

On Friday, 26 April, Sri Lankan police attempted to raid a terror cell connected to the bombings, and the Islamist terrorists first returned fire, then set off explosives, killing 15, including six children.

On Saturday, 27 April, on the last day of Passover, a 19-year-old white, anti-Semitic man walked into the Chabab of Poway Synagogue in San Diego, USA, and opened fire with “an AR type weapon”, killing one woman, and wounding three others.

Now, at first glance, anyone can see that all of these incidents have one thing in common; religion.  But while religion must indeed be considered a factor in all of the above, to suggest that they were all because of religion is to attempt to present a false equivalence in my opinion.  There is something much deeper going on here.  A look around social media presents a hell of a lot of ignorance, and that is being perpetuated by a hell of a lot of people spreading hate-filled propaganda.  Sadly, there are far too many people willing to buy into that.

In the wake of the shooting of Lyra McKee, I saw posts of people glorifying Irish republican paramilitaries as some sort of heroes.  I even saw some trying to suggest that it was a false flag, some suggesting that the British armed forces actually shot her, and even some suggesting that the young journalist was actually a British or loyalist agent.  And had any of them actually known anything about Lyra McKee, they would have been aware that this young woman was a lesbian, which alone immediately would have seen her being vilified by the ultra-Protestants of the loyalist community, and she was an agnostic secular humanist who took neither side in the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland.  As a secular humanist myself, I had previously read and heard Lyra McKee, who was listed in Forbes “30 Under 30 in Media in Europe”, and I was left absolutely stunned and numbed by her brutal murder.  I first heard of Lyra in a TED talk she gave, “How uncomfortable conversations save lives”, in which she recounted her experience growing up a gay woman in Northern Ireland, he many fights with the Roman Catholic Church (she was brought up a Catholic – so much for the conspiracy theories), and of the prejudice she faced from all religions, including that in the USA.  She told in that talk how religion can actually be a positive voice against prejudice, but emphasised that it is religion, and those who follow religion, who have to change.  As a diehard, cynical atheist myself, that talk had a profound effect upon me, and I still find it hard to reconcile how the life of this wonderful young woman could be so senselessly snuffed out.

This article similarly aims to challenge perceptions.  It is an uncomfortable conversation, which may cause the reader to face some uncomfortable truths about themselves.  But in doing so, I don’t care whom I may offend.  If you are offended by my writings, then it may just be possible that you need to be offended.

Just as the killing of Lyra McKee brought out those with their own agendas, so did the other killings.  The Christchurch mosque shootings initially brought out some whom, without any evidence, automatically assumed and posted that it was possibly sectarian violence between opposing Islamic sects.  Then when the truth came out that it was Christian white supremacists, there were those (sometimes the same people) who played the No True Scotsman fallacy of saying they were “not true Christians”, and others who played “whataboutery” by pointing to atrocities against Christian churches, and trying to claim persecution and play the martyr.  Even among atheists, there were some still went on about Islam being inherently violent.  Anything but show some compassion and respect for the dead.

So it was when the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka took place, many were quick to jump upon it to vilify all Muslims.  Certainly, they Sri Lanka killings were indeed carried out by Islamist extremists, and I even predicted as much before it was confirmed, or before IS tried to claim responsibility.  But some of the same people claimed that this was an attack upon Christians, solely Christians, while ignoring the facts that a) the hotel bombings indiscriminately killed people without regard for their faith, and b) that at least one of the churches targeted was often frequented by Theravada Buddhists.  Recent years have seen a lot of conflict between Theravada Buddhists and Muslims in Sri Lanka, where actually it has been the Buddhists, believe it or not, who have been responsible for the murder of many Muslims.  But of course, those with an axe to grind were never going to admit to that; they merely saw Muslim extremist attacks upon churches, and were more than quick to paint that as exclusively Muslim persecution and slaughter of Christians.

Likewise, in the wake of the San Diego synagogue shooting, within two hours of the news hitting the Internet, I saw one comment, “Everyone’s sad when one Jew is killed but nobody’s saying anything about Israel’s massacre of Palestinians.”  Really.  Within two hours, someone immediately jumps the shark, and ties every single Jew on the face of the planet to the actions of the Likud regime in Israel.  No compassion for the dead woman, who bravely threw herself in front of the Rabbi to protect him, the wounded, or those psychologically scarred by the incident; only immediate condemnation of all Jews for the actions of Israel.  It disgusts me, but it does not at all surprise me.  It is a typical reaction that many seem incapable of differentiating between Jews around the world, and the state of Israel.  And sadly to say, a lot of this comes from the political left, right up to and including the UK Labour Party.  Their members who see ‘Jew’ and immediately think ‘Israel’, is precisely why Labour are riddled with anti-Semitism.  It’s not only unhelpful and uncaring; it actually drives anti-Semitic hatred, and drives incidents such as the attack in San Diego.  This is one area where the political extreme left are so far up the political horseshoe, that they are meeting the extreme right at the other end.

Looking at all the above incidents, it would be very easy to blame and castigate religion, or at the least, extreme interpretations of religions, for all of them.  But while such fundamentalist interpretations must indeed take some of the blame, and religion can indeed poison minds, that cannot be the full extent of what drives the extremist mindset that is all too prevalent today.

We in the developed and developing world are sadly living in time where extreme right politics are on the rise.  We have a low-intellect, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, anti-abortion, climate change denying, warlike President of the USA.  The UK voted to leave the EU, and there has been a disturbing rise in attacks upon immigrants, refugees, and ethnic minorities.  Brazil has a president who can only be described as a neo-Nazi, and I write this in the wake of the Spanish election, in which the Socialists only scraped home, and will have to seek help to form a minority government, while the extreme right Vox Party have gained 24 seats in the Spanish parliament – the first time that the extreme right have had seats in the Cortes since the death of the fascist dictator, Franco, in 1975.  Without a doubt, religion plays a part in all of these things, but to the lesser extent, and where it does it is usually a kneejerk reaction to Islam, and those who spread scare stories of “Islamification”.  This is where we will learn that propaganda is a powerful tool, and never more powerful when people are frightened.

A 2016 study by Columbia University and the French National Institute found that 59% of social media users would share a story without actually clicking on and reading the content.  This does not at all surprise me.  In fact, the only thing that does surprise me is that the figure is not much higher.  Playing into this, the satirical website, Science Post, posted an article on Facebook with the headline, “Study: 70% of Facebook users only read the headline of science stories before commenting.”  The article started with one paragraph repeating the headline, and the rest of the text was three paragraphs all in Latin, beginning “Lorem ipsum”; literally “dummy text”.  The article to date has had 120,000 shares on Facebook.  Okay, some may have shared it for the humour value, and it was indeed funny, but it makes the point that people read what they want to read, and they believe what they want to believe.  Very few will actually open and read an article.  Fewer still will actually go to the extent of digging deeper to confirm stories, or seek alternative opinions.  There are even those nowadays who dismiss Snopes and Hoax-Slayer, because they have made one or two mistakes, while at the same time ignoring the overwhelmingly majority of times that these excellent fact-checking sites are accurate and correct.

Media outlets are more than well aware of this phenomenon, and they deliberately word their headlines to influence public opinion.  Here’s a recent example:

”Fife-born SNP MP Natalie McGarry admits embezzling £25,600”

So on 24 April 2019 ranted the Dundee-based newspaper, The Courier, which is published by D.C. Thomson, who also publish the very conservative Sunday Post.  Shocking, eh?  Yes, Natalie McGarry was indeed elected as Scottish National Party Member of Parliament for Glasgow East in 2015.  Yes, she did indeed plead guilty in court to embezzling £21,000 from the group Women for Independence, and £4661 from the Glasgow and Regional SNP Association.  But what the SNP headline failed to mention that when the accusations against her broke in November 2015, she resigned the SNP party whip, was thereby automatically suspended from the party, and for the remainder of her time in office until the 2017 General Election, she fulfilled that role as an independent MP.  The Courier did subsequently change their headline to read “former SNP MP”, but not until several people, myself included, pointed this out.  And given that Natalie McGarry was for most of her time in office an independent, I would suggest that while not wholly inaccurate, the headline is still skewed.

Words are powerful, and you have to be careful what you do with them.  Anyone already biased against the SNP would immediately read the original headline, latch upon that, and share it, no doubt damning the SNP in doing so.  Others would read such posts, and would immediately jump to conclusions that the SNP are not to be trusted.

But the Natalie McGarry case is merely the thin end of the wedge, and a rather vanilla example.  Some can be much, much more disturbing and damaging.  In March 2019, the story broke of British-born Shemima Begum, who had left the UK to help Islamic State terrorists in Syria, wishing to come back to the UK to have her third child, her other two died, to give the baby a chance of survival, and a decent upbringing.  Needless to say, there was already a lot of hostility towards Shemima Begum, fed in no little part by the media posting front page headlines of the “Jihadi Bride”, and stories which stirred up some of the worst racism I have ever read.  But on 11 March 2019, after Shemima had actually given birth to a baby son, who sadly died, The Metro sank to a new low by running the front-page headline, “Too Risky to Rescue Jihadi Baby”.  And what’s wrong with that headline?  It castigates a baby, a dead baby, as being an Islamic extremist terrorist.  The lack of sympathy in that headline was staggering, and the gloating comments it elicited from racists, cheering that a baby had died, was downright disgusting.

When the media and / or those online use the Internet to push a bigoted agenda, it can be hugely damaging to certain sections of society, and this is never more true when it comes to sexual and gender identity.  Gender self-ID is soon to be legal in Scotland, and England (dragging their heels as usual) is currently debating such, has got a lot of people with their knickers in a knot, and using a minority of wrongdoings by transgender people – and some purporting to be transgender, it must be said – to smear every transgender person.  Sorry, I should say transgender women, as they rarely make any mention of transgender men (yet another example of prejudice and misinformation).  Sadly, one of the main proponents of this is a pro-Indy blogger, who on a daily basis fills his Twitter account with transphobic smear stories, and examples of where transgender people have been abusive, in an attempt to discredit an entire section of the community as all the same.

“Transgender Prisoner who Sexually Assaulted Inmates Jailed for Life”, thundered The Guardian, allegedly a left-wing, ‘liberal’ newspaper on 10 October 2018, covering the story of Karen White, a transgender prisoner at New Hall Prison, England, who sexually abused other inmates.  True, she did.  But the facts are that Karen White was already a known paedophile and rapist, whom the prison authorities put in with mainstream prisoners in a women’s prison.  The fault there lies with New Hall Prison, and certainly not the vast majority of law-abiding transgender women.  As Scotland is soon to introduce gender Self-ID, some opposed to the new legislation are very quick to point to the Karen White case, while they are either unaware, or are aware but choose not to mention, the fact that the Scottish Prison Service has been placing transgender inmates in prison spaces based upon self-ID, almost 10 years, with no reports of such sexually assaulting other inmates.

It is in the Scottish independence camp that we of all people should know better.  How often have fellow Nats seen loaded headlines and stories about “separatists”, “anti-English racists” (I wasn’t aware that English was a race, but the media seem to think so) and “cybernats”, accompanying stories surrounding the wrong doings of a tiny minority, to condemn the entire independence movement?  So it is I suggest that the said blogger, and others who use smear tactics against transgender women, are doing absolutely no different from the way the media treats Scots Nats.  Shame on you.

The Internet has given us all the power to fulfil that which Andy Warhol once predicted; we can all have our 15 minutes of fame – and then some.  Those with any particular agenda they wish to push, and they can be among some of the nastiest people in the world.  Many play upon the fears and emotions of others, in the full knowledge that most will not go further than the headline, and even if they do, will not question the validity of a story, and fewer still will bother to research it.

I recently removed a story from a group I run on Facebook, with the headline “Settlers Poison Well in Eastern Yatta”.  I was immediately dubious of this story, and in looking for a source, I could only find it on pro-Palestinian news sites, website that support them, and some blogs.  Not a word of it on the BBC, nothing on Reuters, and nothing on Associated Press.  There were two reasons I doubted this story.  Firstly, why would Israeli settlers in a desert region poison the only source of fresh water, which could only hurt them as well?  Secondly, and more importantly, I am aware of the historical context of such claims.  Such claims of Jews poisoning wells go right back to Medieval times, and are part of the anti-Semitic ‘blood libel’; that every Jewish man had to kill ‘non-believers’.  When the Black Death hit Europe, there were accusations of Jews spreading the disease by poisoning drinking wells, which saw a great many of them persecuted and killed.  The story has continued down the centuries in many forms, leading to further persecution, and even Joseph Stalin used it in 1953, when he alleged the “Doctor’s Plot” of Jewish physicians poisoning prominent Communist leaders (whom Stalin himself had in fact had killed), leading to many of the surgeons thrown in gulags, and some of them executed.

I could in fact give many other examples of photos, memes, and stories purporting to show Israeli brutality against Palestinians.  Look, we all know that the current regime in Israel is disgusting, and they do indeed carry out a great many atrocities.  Just be aware that not all of these stories and pictures are true, some are indeed anti-Israeli, and even anti-Semitic, propaganda.  Do your research and check the facts before sharing them.  Goodness knows, the Israeli regime is brutal enough without having to make up or share downright and utter lies about them.  Trust me, they do more than enough to condemn themselves, but when anyone shares a fake story, it has the potential to create a “boy who cried wolf” scenario, whereby people may not believe the genuine stories of Israeli atrocities.  And should anyone think I am an apologist for Israel, let me assure you that I have been boycotting Israeli goods since the early 1980s, which is longer than many reading this will have been politically aware, and before some were even an itch in their fathers underpants.

It was on 30 April 1993 that CERN made the World Wide Web available to the public.  This has created the single most powerful information tool which mankind has ever known, literally at our fingertips.  As a result, mankind should be becoming increasingly intelligent.  Instead, many of the public appear to have become more poorly informed than our species has ever been, which prompts me not only to ask “Where is the love?” but indeed, “Where is the intelligence?”  I can only put it down to mankind’s predilection towards tribalism, religious dogma, societal and cultural prejudices, but most of all, laziness.  People do not like change, and when someone already has ingrained perceptions of that which is familiar, they feel threatened and frightened by anything that challenges these perceptions.  Elvis Costello said as much, long before the Internet became public, in his song Pills and Soap; “Give us now our daily bread in individual slices.  And something in the daily rag to cancel every crisis.”

The media and others know this, and they feed it.  Firstly with loaded headlines, then with stories full of disinformation, half-truths, right-wing populism, downright lies, and increasingly – and this is something I really object to – articles on their websites which have the story in the form of an attached video attached to the top of the text.  That is encouraging people’s laziness not to read, which in turn will make them all the less likely to question or research a story.  Believe me, I have often seen comments on blogs others or I have written, or Internet posts, which read “TL:DR”  (“Too Long: Didn’t Read”).  So if you’ve made it this far in this article, well done you, because you are one of a dying breed.

Perhaps it’s the punk in me, perhaps it’s the atheist, perhaps it’s the sceptic, perhaps it’s merely my enquiring mind; perhaps it is all of the above.   But my watchword has always been “Question everything.  Because it’s only by asking questions that you get answers.”  Unless something can be proven or disproved, I take absolutely nothing at face value, and I keep asking questions until I get an honest answer, even if that answer is an uncomfortable truth that I do not like.

Your brain is the greatest friend you shall ever have, so please treat it well, and do not feed it garbage.  Whenever you come over a headline that may make your hackles raise, step back a minute, take a deep breath, and then read the article.  If it seems in the least spurious, search online for supporting stories, and facts that support it.  If you cannot find any such, or you find a reliable source refuting such, then disregard it, and above all, do not be afraid to speak out and show up fallacies for being just that, and those who spread malicious lies for the sort of people they are.

Not only will you be more intelligent and better informed for doing so, you will be a much better person, and you shall be having a positive impact that may improve the lives of others.

Gender Self-ID is happening - and it is important to Scotland

This year the Scottish Government shall implement changes to the Gender Recognition Act, 2004, under which transgender and non-binary people in Scotland shall be able to self-identify as transgender, and this right shall be extended to 16-17 year olds, who will be able to self-identify without parental consent.  This has been a long time coming.  The initial moves towards this began in 2016, and it has been progressing through the Scottish Parliament, where it had cross-party support, and has gone through the mandatory consultation period, where 60% agreed to the proposals.

Although the change to legislation has the support of many LGBT, family and youth organisations and charities, and other austere bodies, it has nonetheless come in for severe criticism from some others.  Many of those objecting are either at best misinformed, or at worst openly hostile towards transgender people.

Contrary to what many in society think, our gender is not determined by our biological sex; that is the sexual organs we are born with.  And what is more, as contradictory as this may seem, sexual genitalia in itself does not have a gender.  Most people identify as the gender they are assigned at birth, pertaining to their biological sex according to their sexual organs; these people are ‘cisgender’, from the Latin word cis, meaning “on this side of”.  However some others do not identify with the gender they are assigned at birth, but identify with the opposite side of the traditional gender binary, and are therefore ‘transgender’, from the Latin trans, meaning “on the opposite side of”.  Then there are people who can identify with both sides, and are thus ‘non-binary’, those who do not identify with any fixed gender and are thereby ‘genderfluid’, those who can identify with all genders who are ‘pangender’, and even those who do not identify with any gender, and are thereby ‘agender’.

I have only mentioned a few genders above, but the fact is, as absurd as some think it is, science is just discovering that there are a great plethora of genders.  This supports the science as we understand it, that biological sex does not and never has determined gender.   It is not yet known if we are born identifying with any particular gender, or whether it is environmental, emotional, and other factors which determine such, but there is one thing which is irrefutable; gender is decided by the mind.  As a transgender man friend of mine put it simply, “Sex occurs between the legs.  Gender occurs between the ears.”

Those who do not identify with their biological sex / birth gender are identified as having gender dysphoria; a recognised medial / psychological condition whereby “a person experiences discomfort or distress because there’s a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity.” (NHS).  This condition is most notable in transgender people, but is also often prevalent among non-binary and genderfluid people, as well as those of other genders.

Gender diversity is never easy to understand.  Far from it, it can be a minefield, and I may even make mistakes in this article.  But the facts remain that we are not all either male nor female, and certainly not determined by what dangly bits we may or may not have, and to identify with another gender is not an illness, it is not a crime, and it certainly does not invalidate anyone’s identity.

Under the law as it stands, if a transgender person wants to officially change their gender on official documentation, which starts with their birth certificate, then they must apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).  To do so is a lengthy process.  Firstly they must live under the gender they identify as for at least two years, and this is only recognised for those aged 18 or over.  The applicant then must undergo examinations by a (usually cisgender) medical professional to diagnose gender dysphoria, and must then make their application, including their diagnosis, to a (usually cisgender) panel in London for a GRC, along with their payment for a GRC.  This panel usually grants a GRC, but it is worth noting that it is equally within their power to refuse them.

The current system is thereby deemed by transgender people to be unfair and deeply intrusive into private lives, where government has absolutely no business being, and where cisgender people – mostly men – can rule over the gender of others, and charge for that privilege.  No wonder that some transgender people call the GRC a “Trans Tax”.  Where younger transgender people are concerned, we can immediately see how the law is deeply skewed against them, and that they cannot actually outwardly display their identified gender until at least the age of 20.  These faults with the GRC are precisely why self-ID is so badly needed, and why Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, has promoted it to bring Scotland into line with “international best practice”.

While the majority of respondents to the consultation period were in favour of self-ID, it has nonetheless had its detractors, some of whom have been very vocal in their opposition.  One of the greatest concerns is that self-ID may lead to sexually predatory men dressing as women to gain access to female “safe spaces”, such as public toilets and changing rooms.  I am not for one moment going to dismiss this, or pretend that it does not happen.  But I would ask those with such concerns to look at those countries that already have self-ID.   Canada, Ireland, Portugal, Malta Belgium, Norway, and Denmark have all had Self-ID for some time, and with no significant increase in sexual assaults.  This is because far from being just ‘men in dresses’, transgender women are to all intents and purposes women, and just like women, merely want to pee.  What is more, given that women’s toilets have stalls with locking doors, the chances are that many detractors probably have already shared a toilet with a transgender woman, and never known it.  Spare a thought for transgender men who have not had gender reassignment surgery, and who using a public toilet, will be faced with one locking stall, which could be occupied, and a row of urinals.

Add to this that the vast majority of sexual assaults in toilets are already carried out by cisgender men, and far from being carefully planned, are mostly on the spur of the moment.  Strange as it may seem, a little silhouetted sign of a figure in a dress (why is she bald?) is no deterrent to predatory men.  The men who carry out these attacks tend to be full of toxic masculinity – many are in fact downright misogynists with a pathological hatred of women – and to imagine that such ‘macho’ men would even consider dressing as women to gain entry to toilets is to stretch credulity to its limits.  So, while the vast majority of those carrying out sexual assaults upon women in toilets are cisgender men, who do you reckon make up the second highest offenders?  Other cisgender women, that’s who.  Are we then to allow only one woman into a public loo at a time?

The issue of changing rooms, particularly in schools and colleges, particularly in schools and colleges, is admittedly more complex, not least because not all have cubicles for changing.  According to the National Education Union (NEU), who advise educational establishments on transgender-inclusive policies, the best policy is to provide alternative or gender-neutral facilities when there are no cubicle facilities available, but that “It is not necessary to make all toilet facilities gender neutral however, because some students will prefer single-sex toilets.” and they add “The young person should not in any case be told that they must use the changing rooms that correspond with the gender they were assigned at birth.”  Should anyone think this unfair, then consider how you would react if you, or your child, were told you could not use a shared changing room because of some aspect of your personality.

Where there are still schools and colleges where changing rooms do not have cubicles, this therefore has to change.  Creating separate facilities for transgender and non-binary individuals is in itself not an answer, because that only further marginalises those use them, and identifies them as targets for attacks.  Likewise, making everything gender-neutral is not an answer either, as far from deterring predators, such facilities would only exacerbate the problem.  There are those who try to argue that refurbishing or rebuilding current changing rooms would be costly.  The simple answer to that is creating separate or gender-neutral facilities would cost even more.  Of course, there are some who will completely disregard the latter argument, because they simply don’t want to acknowledge the existence of transgender people.

Some who object to self-ID are quick to point to the case of Karen White, a transgender woman (and yes, she is transgender) sexually assaulted two women in New Hall Prison in England.  However, Karen White was already a known paedophile and rapist, who had been jailed for grievous bodily harm, multiple rapes, and other sexual assaults against women, and placing her with cisgender women was wholly the fault of the prison authorities.  White was moved to a men’s prison in Leeds, and underwent gender reassignment surgery.  So yes, Karen White is a transgender woman, who is also a sexual predator.  This no more makes all transgender people sexual predators than it makes all cisgender men such, despite the fact that cis men carry out the vast amount of sexual assaults.  But then compare that to Scotland, where the Scottish Prison Service already assign places according to self-ID, have done since 2010 – almost 10 years – and with no reported sexual assaults by men ‘pretending’ to be women.  Hmm.  I don’t hear the detractors being so loud about that little fact.

Therefore, one case in England of a transgender woman who is a known sexual predator that women and children are not safe from does not outweigh the many transgender prisoners in Scottish prisons who have never presented any problems.  The problem here is not with gender but rather with sexual assault, which is no respecter of gender boundaries.  There is not the room here to go into them in detail, but there are more than plenty case studies of homosexual assaults in prison by male cisgender prisoners, and indeed, by cisgender women prisoners on other prisoners.

Despite all these arguments, there are still people, mostly but not always women, who still stand against self-ID.  But then these same people seek to deny the very existence of transgender people in the first place.

The biggest mistake that most of them make is to wrongly equate gender with biological sex, when the two are clearly not one and the same thing.  Many are quick to state, “XX equals female, and XY equals male”, as if their high school biology is the be-all and end-all of gender identity, or even for that matter, of biology.  In fact, this “gender binary” is not always the case.  There are in fact many human beings who do not have the standard number of chromosomes.  Some have more, others have fewer.  “XXXY Syndrome”, otherwise known as “Third Gender” effects one in 50,000 males, whereby they are born with two extra X chromosomes. 

Some will go further and flatly state, “If you have a penis you are male, and you have a vagina, you are female.  It’s simple as that.”  Again, wrong, as the very existence of intersex individuals – those born with sexual organs of both sides of the gender binary – clearly illustrates.  A 2015 study by Eric Vilian of the Center for Gender Based Biology at UCLA found a great number of “Differences of Sexual Development” (DSD), which included a 46-year-old woman having her third child, whose cells were found to carry 50% male chromosomes, and a 70-year-old father of three, undergoing a hernia operation, who was found to have a uterus.  Dr Vilian’s study have estimated that those with DSDs could be as high as 1in every 100 people.

So much for the biology we all learned in school.  But even if the detractors were correct, this still does not get away from the fact that biological sex does not constitute gender.  And how do these transphobes – let’s call them what they are, as much as they deny it (in the same way some people say “I’m not a racist, but…”) – respond to these facts?  Some will state that those with less or more chromosomes are a “minority”.  So therefore they don’t count somehow?  And 1 in 100 is some “minority”.  Some will outright deny the science, some will reply – and I have actually more or less read this – “Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?”   And some will more or less shove their fingers in their ears and shout “LA, LA, LA, LA , LA!  I’M NOT LISTENING!”

Really?  Is that your reply to reams upon reams of peer-reviewed scientific research, now going back decades?  To deny it, say minorities don’t matter, make out it’s a conspiracy, and/or simply not listen?  If that’s your view, then you may as well go and join the young earth creationists who say their god created the Earth 6000 years ago, the evolution deniers, the anti-vaxxers, the climate change deniers, and the flat earthers, because you are demonstrating precisely the same level of wilful ignorance (aka “stupidity”) as all of the above do.

The main thing that worries me about the whole self-ID debate is the way it has been hijacked by outright transphobes, who not only do not want self-ID, but completely deny the very existence of transgender people.  I have seen Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs) use a dictionary definition of “female” in a feeble attempt to back up their argument; “belonging or relating to the sex that gives birth to young, produces eggs, etc”.  Yet the same women using such a narrow definition conveniently ignore an alternative definition under the same heading in the dictionary; “belonging or relating to, or characteristic of, a woman”, and that definition could very easily pertain to transgender women.  But even then, in using the first definition, the TERFs automatically discount women who for medical reasons cannot give birth or produce eggs.  Are they not “real women”?   Or don’t they count because they are a minority?  Even if that were the case, such a definition must also discount every woman who reaches the age where they can no longer procreate.  Are even they, once they stop menstruating, no longer “female”?  See the dangers of attempting to define gender purely on biological sex?

A side note here.  I have been told that I should not use the term “TERF” nowadays, as it is apparently ‘derogatory’ (for… …reasons).  Well, tough titty.  The fact is that the term was started by women who self-identified as TERFs, and given that I am talking of people who show extreme prejudice towards one of the most vulnerable sections of society, do excuse me for not sparing a thought for their hurt feels.

I have made mention throughout this article to those opposed to transgender people, but one may notice that the emphasis has been upon transgender women.  There is a very good reason for this.  Mostly it is transgender women and girls which transphobes target.  Rarely you will find them making any reference to transgender men.  There are some who do so however.  I have read and seen videos of TERFs who claim that transgender men who are not at all transgender, but that they are in fact lesbians who have been conditioned to think as men by “the patriarchy” (because of course, we men – who are supposedly all sexual predators – obviously want a planet completely inhabited by men).  Again we see this instance of denying the very existence of transgender people.

Gay men in a Nazi concentration camp

When any society dismisses one section within that society, because they are ‘merely a minority’, when they persecute that section because they do not fit in with their mindset, and worst of all, when they deny their very existence, that society is going down a very dangerous road indeed.  And we need not look very far to see the end result of what happens in those circumstances; we need only look to Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.  Indeed, even in the modern day, we need only look to Chechnya, Uganda, Saudi Arabia, Brunei, and many other countries, where LGBT people are openly persecuted, often to death.

And yes, transphobes and TERFs, I did just liken you to Nazis, and I make absolutely no apologies for doing so.  For when you treat transgender people as any less than human, when you attempt to strip them of their identity, of their dignity, and their basic human rights, then you are behaving in precisely the same way the Nazis did to the Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, the mentally disabled, and of course, among others, LGBT people.

Not that I am calling everyone worried about self-ID a Nazi.  My vitriol is not for those with genuine concerns, and / or who are willing to learn, but those who despite all the evidence, absolutely refuse to learn, but are only intent on spreading their own hatred.  And it pleases me to say to such that self-ID is a reality, and it is happening this year, and nothing they say or do is going to stop that.   Get used to it.

Nicola Sturgeon

But I feel that there is something bigger at play here.  Self-ID is yet another step in a plethora of positive moves by Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP Scottish Government which have enhanced the lives of women, the elderly, the young, children, LGBT people, the disabled, the poor, and many more.  I believe that Nicola Sturgeon has a vision of a Scotland yet to come.  An independent Scotland which as fair and equitable for all, where the value of all are recognised, and where none are left behind.   It could be argued, and I believe, that the First Minister is laying the groundwork for that independent Scotland.

I share that vision, as I think the vast majority of the independence movement do.  And it is an achievable vision, but one which neither Nicola Sturgeon or the SNP can deliver alone.  It will take us, all of us, to play our part and help create the fully integrated Scotland which we all seek.  We are not only parts of the jigsaw, we are the jigsaw; all of us are integral parts of the bigger picture, which would not be complete without even one of us.  As Blair Jenkins, the former Chief Executive of Yes Scotland once said that we would get whatever independent Scotland we choose.

If it were ever to happen that we had an independent Scotland where one demographic, or even any individual, were persecuted, maligned, and denied basic human rights purely for being who they are, where even one person is left behind, that in my view would be a free Scotland not worth having.  For as the song goes, "If one of us is chained, none of us are free.”