Excellent briefing from MBM on the strange tale of how "cross dressers" got included as a protected characteristic in the Scottish hate crime bill

Some thoughts and pictures...

https://mbmpolicy.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/hate-crime-briefing-12.-the-inclusion-of-cross-dressing-in-the-hate-crime-bill.-.pdf

What is a "person" who cross dresses?

If i wear my husband's shirt some days am I a person who cross dresses?

What if he wears my blouse?

What the Scottish Government actually mean is men who wear women's clothes

As Susan Smith of @ForwomenScot asks - why is one set of people is being protected for sartorial choice and others not....people attacked for being Goths, having facial tattoos, piercings, the wrong football strip or school uniform. Why is one dress sense protected?

Why is dressing like this a protected characteristic?

But not dressing like this?

Why was it not a hate crime when this person was attacked for what they were wearing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-44644067

But it would be if this person was?

Why is this person's workwear a protected characteristic?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8847579/Straight-married-father-three-reveals-hes-worn-skirts-high-heels-day-four-years.html

But not this person's?

Tim Hopkins of Equality Network explains "A man who is not a trans woman but wears a dress for a drag performance, or a trip to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, or because he feels an emotional need to cross-dress occasionally is at high risk of transphobic hate crime"

So a person dressed like this will be a protected characteristic

But not a person dressed like this

Tim Hopkin's explanation of risk is not based on data. But it is based on common sense.

A man wearing women's clothing does not fit in as a woman but stands out as a man.

People can tell the difference.

What they can't tell is if a person is a transwoman or a transvestite

As the discussion of the Bill recognises there are different reasons a man might dress in female clothing

a deep felt inner conviction of being a woman
a mental health issue
a sexual fetish
a female impersonator as an act
just for fun
to obtain access (e.g. to a women's prison)

As Tim Hopkins says, it is impossible to tell.

So all reasons are valid & must be protected against hate crime

And yet, for single sex spaces the logic is flipped.

Here we are that it is impossible to tell the difference between a male person in woman's clothing & a woman

And all the other reasons why a man might be dressed in women's clothing demanding to be in spaces where women undress disappear.

If a male person wants to use a women's space women *must* accept that it is because of deep felt inner conviction and that this gives them access

In the book Transsexual and Other Disorders of Gender Identity: A Practical Guide to Management Dr James Barrett explains that even doctors cannot reliably tell the difference between a transvestite and a transsexual

One of the diagnostic tests he recommends using is seeing whether that person is accepted in a female toilet in public or in the workplace

(he doesn't consider that women might not say anything out of fear, embarrassment or because they would lose their job)

Cross dressing for sexual arousal or emotional satisfaction is common. It is recognised as a paraphilia

And it is being promoted in the workplace, and protected at the expense of women's rights, women's privacy and dignity, and every body's freedom of speech.

Just lliking a tweet in which someone points out that cross dressing is being rolled into the definition of transgender out is enough to make an MP a target for accusations of "transphobia", calls for her to lose the whip.

https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/now-isnt-this-interesting

Is the reason people don't say anything because they really can't tell the difference between a man in woman's clothing and a woman?

Or because they are afraid of what will happen to them if they admit they can?