Scottish Police Under Fire for Letting Rape Suspects Self-declare Their Sex

Scottish police record the “self-declared” sex of individuals charged with rape even though, by law, only men can be charged with the crime — a policy female activists called “morally indefensible.”

The all-female policy-analysis group Murray Blackburn Mackenzie (MBM) submitted a petition to the Scottish Parliament’s Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee in 2021. According to The Herald:

Analysts raised concerns that an offender self-identifying as female would be recorded in crime statistics as a woman — although the legal definition of rape involves penetration by a penis.

A petition called on [Parliament] “to urge the Scottish Government to require Police Scotland, the Crown Office and the Scottish Court Service to record accurately the sex of people charged with or convicted of rape or attempted rape” — described as a “moral obligation,” necessary for “trust in official statistics.”

Police Report

Since the petition was submitted, the committee has attempted to gather evidence from the named public agencies. Police Scotland, however, dragged its feet in responding to the committee’s requests. According to MBM, the panel had to submit four requests before the police replied.

The last request, issued in January, sought “a clear explanation of how [Police Scotland’s] policy on recording the sex of perpetrators of crimes aligns to the organization’s values” — not exactly a hard-hitting demand.

Two months later, Police Scotland finally replied.

“The sex/gender identification of individuals who come into contact with the police will be based on how they present or how they self-declare,” wrote the cops.

In an X response, MBM’s Kath Murray called this policy “statistically incoherent.”

In its letter, Police Scotland cited “legislative compliance, operational need and the values of respect, integrity, fairness and human rights while promoting a strong sense of belonging” as its reasons for allowing perps to choose their sex.

It added:

Police Scotland requires no evidence or certification as proof of biological sex or gender identity other than a person’s self-declaration, unless it is pertinent to any investigation with which they are linked as a victim, witness or accused, and it is evidentially critical that we legally require this proof, or there is reason for further inquiry based on risk.

One might think the sex of the accused would be “pertinent” and “evidentially critical” to the investigation of an alleged rape — but only if one is not in thrall to the transgender cult, which asserts that gender is “fluid” and is strictly determined by an individual’s subjective feelings at the moment, not by objective evidence such as genitalia and chromosomes.

Offensive Line

MBM, naturally, was highly dissatisfied with Police Scotland’s response, calling the policy “wholly unjustified and deeply offensive.”

“There is no ‘legislative’ requirement for Police Scotland to allow men accused or charged with rape to be recorded as female. Nor are we aware of any ‘operational need,’” the women said in a statement. “We think the policy is morally indefensible and indicative of an organization that does not take the interests of women seriously.”

For Women Scotland, a feminist activist group, told The Herald in a statement:

We were beyond shocked and dismayed by the treatment of victims by the Scottish judicial system.

We never expected that Police Scotland would rate a rapist’s “strong sense of belonging” above the law … and above the impact of such a grotesque lie on women who have already suffered so much at the hands of an abuser.

This is a gross insult to all women who are being told, without irony, that some of the most violent men in society want to “belong” to the sex they target and that we have to accommodate them and affirm their delusions.

The Scottish judicial system, as For Women Scotland noted, is fully complicit in this nonsense. Last year, a man named Adam Graham was convicted of raping two women. Between committing the crimes and being convicted, however, Graham had “transitioned” to a faux woman going by the moniker Isla Bryson and was listed as such in court papers. He was thus sent to a women’s prison at first and only transferred to a men’s facility after a public outcry.

Stand by Your Trans

But Police Scotland may be in a class by itself when it comes to toeing the trans line. According to the Daily Mail, a government-funded “charity” called LGBT Youth Scotland (LGBTYS) “is at the center of a row over a ‘coming out guide’ for pupils which was co-authored by a convicted pedophile — while its former boss was exposed as a pedophile who sexually assaulted a baby boy.” As a result, the BBC’s Children in Need charity stopped funding LGBTYS. Police Scotland, on the other hand, told the paper that it would “continue to work with” LGBTYS, which is running a training program for the force’s call-handling staff.

The parliamentary committee, meanwhile, said it will “consider [MBM’s] petition again” and decide “what further action it next wishes to take.”

As for the kilted cops, observed LifeSiteNews’ Jonathon Van Maren:

It seems likely that in the long term, Police Scotland will be forced to walk this position back due to public and political pressure as well as the ongoing disintegration of the transgender narrative. In the meantime, however, the transgender activist institutional capture of Police Scotland will guarantee that the badly-needed credibility of law enforcement will suffer enormously … as Police Scotland insists on defending premises that much of the public finds not only wrong-headed, but abhorrent.