Thread: Today MSPs will vote on the final wording of the Forensic Medical Services Bill - a much needed and well overdue piece of legislation designed to make the aftermath of rape/sexual assault easier for victims.

The @scottishlabour MSP @JohannLamont has tabled an amendment to the bill asking for the word 'gender' to be replaced with 'sex' in relation to a victim specifying who examines them.

That is what victims of rape have said they want & yet this has become contentious & victims have been accused of transphobia & bigotry.

Astonishingly the national support services for victims of rape - in the main, women, Rape Crisis Scotland, does not support the amendment despite what survivors say.

Last night I spent an hour on the phone with a heartbroken mother of a girl who was raped by a number of teenage boys and who did not get the support she needed because she was told that a woman counsellor could not be guaranteed. She developed PTSD.

This is about victims and not the sensitivities or feelings of a forensic examiner. Yes, we need many more female forensic examiners but we also need victims afforded the dignity of choosing the sex of who examines them. Have they not already been through enough?

For a lack of political leadership and the vacuum that that has left, we are now seeing something as so fundamental as the sex of the person that should examine a victim of sexual assault being debated through the lens of the GRA furore.

MSPS have the chance this afternoon to show they stand with the victims of rape.