Last week there was a high profile case in Scotland involving a trans woman who had been convicted of two separate rapes. The incidents took place in 2016 and 2019. In both incidents Adam Graham used his size and strength to overpower women he was with.

After being arrested in 2020, Adam was charged for the crimes as Adam. But later in 2020 he announced he was a trans woman and would henceforth be known as Isla Bryson. After being convicted, Isla was initially sent to a women’s prison but was kept in isolation. There was suspicion that Adam’s transition to Isla was a gambit designed to garner sympathy and make his life in prison easier. Daily Mail spoke to Adam’s ex-wife who said his transition was “just bulls***ing the authorites.”

The entire story went viral and after a backlash in the media, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that Isla Bryson would be transferred to a male prison. The timing of this story and Sturgeon’s announcement were an embarrassment because she’d been pushing for a new law in Scotland which would make it easier for trans people to gain government recognition for whatever sex they claimed. Opponents of the law had warned that the new law could be abused, something Sturgeon denied.

The Scottish government’s Gender Recognition Reform legislation aims to make it easier and faster for people to change their legal gender and obtain an official gender recognition certificate.

The Scottish Parliament overwhelmingly voted for this but it was blocked by the UK government with one of the principal objections being that it could be open to exploitation from predatory men who wanted to abuse the legislation to access women’s only spaces with bad intentions.

Sturgeon denied that was a risk, accusing the UK government of attacking Scottish democracy and stoking fears in a ‘culture war.’

For her to then have to answer questions on this very issue just days later is, to put it lightly, awkward.

In Adam/Isla’s case, he/she was kept segregated while in the women’s prison until a decision was reached to send her to a men’s prison. So ITV suggests the system worked in the case. However that might not be the case if the law changes:

The argument could be made that if an individual is legally recognised as a woman then what right does the Scottish Prison Service have to tell them they are not?

The prisons themselves could be open to legal challenges, and it is of course not just prisons tangled in this debate, but leisure centres with gendered change rooms, and also schools since the Scottish Government’s proposal would lower the age someone can change their legal gender from 18 to 16.

The story got even more awkward for Nicola Sturgeon after another, similar case came to light involving a violent trans woman named Tiffany Scott.

Nicola Sturgeon faces another trans storm after a decision was made to house one of Scotland’s most violent prisoners in a women’s jail. The Record can reveal that volatile Tiffany Scott – who stalked a 13-year-old girl while known as Andrew Burns – has been rubber-stamped for transfer to a jail that aligns with her chosen gender.

Scott, 31, has been repeatedly refused the switch over several years but senior management relented in recent weeks. It is understood that the transfer is still planned – despite the First Minister instructing a U-turn on a decision to house double rapist Isla Bryson at all-women jail Cornton Vale, Stirling, on Thursday.

Last night the Scottish Government faced calls to make another embarrassing U-turn on Scott. A source said: “Of all the female trans prisoners in the estate, Scott has been considered the most dangerous.”

Here’s Tiffany in case you’re wondering:

This is Tiffany Scotthttps://t.co/zSlzv8cgxY

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 28, 2023

In light of the Tiffany Scott situation, yesterday the Scottish Prison Service announced a pause on all prisoner transfers involving trans inmates to give them time for a review.

A Scottish Prison Service spokesperson said: “We have commenced an urgent review of all transgender cases currently managed in our establishments.

“Our first concern is always, and remains, the health, safety, and wellbeing of all the people in our care, and that of our staff…

“We have therefore paused the movement of all transgender individuals until the review has been completed.”

For women who find themselves imprisoned with trans women who are anatomically male and who have a documented history of violence against women, this is a nightmare. There was yet another story published yesterday about a female prisoner who found herself in this situation:

Amanda Benson, 41, revealed she was so terrified of being raped and ending up pregnant that she felt compelled to have a contraceptive coil fitted while behind bars.

The mum of four, locked up with two trans prisoners, one convicted of murder, the other for domestic violence, accused Nicola Sturgeon of “serving up women to predators on a rainbow platter” in Scotland’s jails…

“There was around 40 prisoners and two of them were trans. Neither appeared to be women. They dressed as men, they didn’t wear makeup, they were not so far as I know on any hormone drugs, they sounded like men.

Benson doesn’t claim that she or anyone else in the unit was attacked but she really did expect it to happen and said she felt she’d be the one in trouble if she complained about being housed with “Laura” and “Alex.”

Again, nothing funny about that, but there is something pretty amusing about watching First Minister Nicola Sturgeon try to explain how trans women are women except in certain cases. You can practically hear reality colliding with ideology as she tries to answer these questions (which based on the ITV article the interviewer wrote appear to be in earnest).

“Trans women are women but in the prison context there is no automatic right for trans women…” Sturgeon said.

“So there are contexts where a trans woman is not a woman?” Smith, the ITV interviewer replied.

Does Scotland’s First Minister believe all trans women are women?

Scottish Gov has just implemented an effective ban on trans prisoners who’ve committed sexual & violent crimes against women being moved to a women-only prison. @itvnews pic.twitter.com/DRbvItHZ3i

— Peter A Smith (@PeterAdamSmith) January 30, 2023

Some heavy sarcasm from JK Rowling over that answer:

I don't know about you, but excluding women from women's prisons just because they've got penises, male pattern baldness and have committed a couple of rapes seems awfully TERFy to me. https://t.co/1OtW8KVcFN

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 30, 2023

The bottom line is that it has not been a good week for Nicola Sturgeon who comes out looking a) clueless for not seeing this coming and b) like a hypocrite for eventually conceding reality, i.e. some trans women can’t always be treated like other women as progressive dogma requries.