A transgender woman convicted of rapes committed while she was a man will serve her sentence in Scotland alongside male inmates, according to officials.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Thursday that Isla Bryson would not be incarcerated in a woman’s correctional facility “either short term or long term” following media reports Bryson had been transferred to the Cornton Vale women’s prison, The Guardian reported.
The news that Bryson was being held in a female prison sparked outrage among lawmakers and even United Nations officials.
“This rapist decided he was no longer a man only after appearing in court on a rape charge,” Russell Findlay, a conservative member of Scotland’s Parliament, said.
“We now have the bizarre situation in which a Scottish court refers to someone who claims to be female and uses ‘her penis’ to rape two vulnerable women. We warned that if the SNP’s gender self-ID law passed, this would be unavoidable, but the fact that it has become a reality is deeply concerning and an insult to the victims.”
Findlay was referring to a Scottish Parliament law passed last month that allows people as young as 16 to seek a gender recognition certificate to confirm a change in one’s legal sex after only three months of living in their new gender — and without the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow, Bryson, 31, was found guilty this week of raping two women while she identified as a man previously named Adam Graham. During a six-day trial, prosecutors successfully argued that Bryson assaulted one victim in 2016 and another in 2019.
Both crimes took place in Scotland.
source:https://ghanaianexpress.com
