Joan McAlpine

“There were assertions made during that meeting that anyone who identifies as a woman could be a rape counsellor or join a group session. And when survivors asked how a woman may feel if she unknowingly disclosed details of her rape to a male counsellor on the telephone… No adequate answer was provided. It shocked me then as it still does now, that given 100 per cent of rapes in Scotland are committed by men this appeared to not be an issue for the head of Rape Crisis Scotland.”

“It is feminists influenced by this second wave who question transgender ideology. They speak the uncomfortable truth that men have a statistically higher propensity towards violence including sexual violence — no matter how they identify — and our laws and public institutions must recognise that brutal truth.”

“The [Scottish] government said its proposal will not diminish the rights of women.However, its own draft equality impact assessment evidenced this by citing Bristol University research which . . . suggests that a woman catching sight of a male body in a changing room should be no more distressing than seeing another woman with a mastectomy. Does the government regret citing this research, and do they agree that the comparison is insulting to breast cancer survivors?”

“The thing that finally turned me to my current position was the government’s decision to expand the definition of transgender identity to include cross-dressers who are not trans identified ... It will seem bizarre to many people that men who enjoy cross-dressing are protected from hate crime, but women are not.”

“Policy capture is at the root of this fankle, as with many issues around gender identity. Officials only take advice from LGBT stakeholders. They never consider that women might have something to say about legislation which erases them as a biological sex class. In this case they didn't consult statisticians either.”

“We learnt that the government decided in 2011 that the census's sex question should be answered according to self-identification, even if the respondent had no gender recognition certificate. This advice was hidden on the website and was never subject to democratic scrutiny. That's shocking when you think that for almost 200 years sex was uncomplicated, binary and biological. For most people it still is.”