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This is an absolutely disgusting and exploitative article seeking to weaponise the appalling treatment of 56,000 young women in Ireland to make an illogical and vile attack on trans people. What a cold-hearted disgrace of a thing to write.
/1 https://twitter.com/DalgetySusan/status/1350363392402460673
/1 https://twitter.com/DalgetySusan/status/1350363392402460673
The basic premise is that it is sex, and only sex, that leads to society's ill-treatment of women. To establish this point, Dalgety points to the horrific revelations about mother and baby homes in Ireland. However, this is not what she seems to care about.
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Rather, her article is simply an irrational argument that Scottish Government guidance that public bodies should not ask about sex unless this is directly medically relevant is not only wrong but could lead to such abuses being ignored.
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The fact that the events in mother and baby homes had nothing to do with trans people is seemingly irrelevant. The fact that in such a scenario sex would be deemed directly medically relevant is also ignored.
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Merely, Dalgety wants us to abandon our critical faculties on this one and sign up wholesale to her bad faith distortion that not only makes no sense, but encourages us to ignore the actual issues and contributory factors and instead exploit these women against trans people.
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It was not the data collection processes or definition of gender that led to these abuses, just as such cannot be blamed for FGM in Somalia - as Dalgety also seeks to do. It is a set of societal and religious doctrines and attitudes, unrestrained by proper law and policy.
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No woman, pregnant or otherwise, is protected from abuse by asking intrusive questions about trans people's biology. They need legal protection, adequate and meaningful oversight of institutions and organisations, accountability for abuses suffered, and more.
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By writing in this manner, by explaining away the abuse with this irrational and motivated and narrow argument, Dalgety is intentionally derailing a conversation that should be focused on protecting vulnerable women and girls, and encouraging the ignorance she purports to(...)
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Be guarding us against. A conversation that should be about maternity rights, bodily autonomy, privacy, choice and respect, is hijacked into one against trans people's bodily autonomy, privacy, choice and respect. This is a sheer, exploitative disgrace.
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Just from a brief scroll down through the replies to the OP, I've already seen an MSP calling this an important piece of writing. I wonder if @JennyMarra would like to explain how that is the case? In fact, I challenge anyone who condones this to explain: why?
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