I’ve never thought of myself as a bigot, a homophobe or a transphobe – in fact, put me in a group, and I’m likely the person who gets put ‘front of house’ in order to ensure that type of behaviour doesn’t feel welcome. I’ve been brought up and raised to try and be fair. A live and let live sort of person.
But, times we live in now, raise a sceptical eyebrow at the ‘transwomen are women/no debate’, make an instinctive ‘ye whit!’ response to self-identifying men – with convictions for rape and murder, getting housed in women’s’ prisons, or others elbowing out female athletes to take the medals, sponsorship and winnings (it’s called cheating by the way) and suddenly those are the labels you – and your employer – can expect to have rammed home, that, along with some seriously unsubtle threats of sexual violence.
Start to get serious misgivings when a Rape Victim, is FORCED to refer to the male who raped her, by their preferred pronouns as ‘she/her – IN A COURT OF LAW, WHILE GIVING EVIDENCE AT THE TRIAL!!! Incidentally, for any lawyers out there, a wee thought – the witness is under oath, factual biology is still an evidential thing – in circumstances such as the above – the witness is being compelled to lie under oath! Pretty sure there’s a legal hook there somewhere. Good luck fighting that one.
State that a woman is an ‘adult human female’, that only woman can give birth, that only a woman can be a mother, that females are born with vaginas, males with penis, tie a suffragette ribbon to a tree, that woman’s refuge is for woman only, not self-identifying trans woman – and stand back and wait to be burned at the stake.
Or in today’s parlance, prepare to get hounded on social media, and forced out of work.
And all the while, the justification for this ‘no debate’ is that transgender persons suffer such a lot of abuse, even to question is abuse. So there!
But are transgender persons subjected to high levels of abuse?
Are there facts to back this up?
I thought I’d try and find out. I’m not a professional writer by the way, so, while there are some bits where the stats are sourced. There are others where it’s from memory, but I’ll let you know.
From memory – the Stats for where I live – Scotland, a population of about 5 million, indicate about 4 persons out of 1000 have Gender Realignment Certificates.
So, if it is your intention to harass, bully, intimidate and hound a transgender person – (and I strongly advise you not to do that) – then good luck finding a transgender person, because they are not that common.
But what of them being the victims of crimes?
The following information has come from a
Freedom of Information Request to Police Scotland:
In what year was the Crime Aggravation Marker for Transgender added to the Scottish Crime Recording Statistics?
April 2014
How many hate crimes with the Aggravation Marker for Transgender have been recorded each year since this was introduced?
Period: Financial years 2014/15 – 2021/22 (up to and including May 2021)
2014/15 41
2015/16 55
2016/17 76
2017/18 84
2018/19 102
2019/2020 124
2020/21 111
2021 up to May 25
This is an Average – 85 per year…. For all Scotland.
A Crime Aggravation Marker can be added to any crime type if it appears the crime was motivated by hate for one of the hate crime markers, or a crime type for which more detailed statistics are required for Policing purposes, such as domestic incidents.
So, the above crimes are unlikely to be Murders, Sexual Assaults, (these would have made serious headlines in the national news) or Serious Assaults (by which is meant - broken bones, permanent disfigurement) and are more likely to be of the type such as a Breach of the Peace, Vandalism, etc.
By comparison: Scot Gov Statistics re Domestic Incidents:
Levels of domestic abuse recorded by the police in Scotland have remained relatively stable since 2011-12, with around 58,000 to 61,000 incidents a year.
The police recorded 60,641 incidents of domestic abuse in 2018-19, an increase of 2% compared to the previous year.
In 2018-19, 41% of incidents of domestic abuse recorded by the police in Scotland included the recording of at least one crime or offence.
ASSAULT THE MOST FREQUENT OFFENCE
The type of crime or offence that was most frequently recorded as part of a domestic abuse incident in 2018-19 was Common assault (accounting for 36% of all crimes and offences recorded). This was followed by Breach of the peace etc. accounting for 29% of crimes and offences.
There were 112 incidents of domestic abuse recorded by the police in Scotland per 10,000 population in 2018-19. At a local authority level, Dundee City (157), West Dunbartonshire (148) and Glasgow City (147) recorded the highest incident rates per 10,000 population. The Shetland Islands (52) and East Renfrewshire (54) recorded the lowest rates per 10,000 population.
4 OUT OF 5 - VICTIM IS FEMALE, ACCUSED IS MALE
Where gender information was recorded, around four out of every five incidents of domestic abuse in 2018-19 had a female victim and a male accused. This proportion has remained very stable since 2011-12.
In 2018-19, 16% of domestic abuse incidents involved a male victim and a female accused (where gender was recorded). Again, this proportion has remained stable since 2011-12 (ranging from 16% to 18%).
In 2018-19, the 26-30 years old age group had the highest incident rate for victims (263 incidents recorded per 10,000 population). The 31-35 years old age group had the highest incident rate for the accused (246 incidents recorded per 10,000 population).
Recorded incidents of domestic abuse were higher on a Saturday or Sunday than on any other day of the week (with these two days together accounting for 35% of incidents in 2018-19).
In 2018-19, 88% of all domestic abuse incidents occurred in a home or dwelling.
HUGE DIFFERENCE VOLUME OF CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN COMPARED TO CRIMES AGAINST TRANSGENDERS
So, a huge difference in the numbers of crime types suffered by women 4:1 in a domestic setting, and the actual numbers of crimes motivated and aimed towards Transgender persons.
But on the basis of an average 85 crimes a year in Scotland, Stonewall has persuaded Scot Gov to hand over £125,000 (from memory) in tax payers’ money, to ‘deal’ with the ‘issue’. And sorry to say, I can’t remember if this sum is per annum, however I suspect it is.
CREATING A BACKLASH
I said at the start of this article, that I was normally the person put front of house to ensure there would be no ‘phobias’ displayed, and in that vein, a few years ago, when the T in everything from TV programs, to Primary School Children’s’ – bring a drag queen to school day, started to become unavoidable, I was one of many critics, saying that this ‘in your face, shut up and eff off if you don’t like it’ campaign was likely to CREATE a backlash against genuine transgender persons.
The above Crime Recording Statistics show an INCREASE in this crime, year on year. Is it possible that the current, dare one suggest, strident promotion, of Transgenderism – might just be manufacturing a problem that was very small to begin with?
What is clear, by anyone’s’ standards, the current policy to ‘assist’, is driving the stats in the wrong direction. And they’re using my taxes to do it.
So, there we have it. A small piece of the jigsaw. I’ve signed this essay DW (when first published), am I a man? a woman? Straight? Gay? Transgender? Tall? Fat? But more importantly, where do I work – so they can get me sacked, and do I do social media so there can be a pile on.
It is desperately wicked that the last paragraph needs to be stated. It’s not an exaggeration.
T STANDS FOR TERRORISM
This is a manufactured self-identified crisis, and the T stands not for Transgender, but for Terrorism - against women. And with the Hate Crime Bill (now live) on the way, the opportunity to write and publish articles such as this one is seriously in danger.
This is Scotland however, and Women Won’t Wheesht.