In January 2023, Isla Bryson, a 31-year-old Scottish person claiming to be a transgender woman, who did not undergo gender reassignment surgery, from Clydebank, Dunbartonshire, was convicted of the rapes of two women.
[12] The lawyer Thomas Ross said that as the law stands a person accused of a crime does not have to disclose that information, something he described as a "catch-22 situation" for the institution, because they either face criticism for putting other students at risk by allowing the person to attend, or are open to a legal challenge from the accused for excluding them.
[17] The case was prosecuted by Advocate depute John Keenan and defended by Edward Targowski, while Lord Scott sat as presiding judge.
The defence also argued that Bryson's status as a person undergoing the transitioning process also made her vulnerable.
"[22][23][24]In 2014, the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) adopted a gender-identity-and-gender-reassignment policy that, while allowing for case-by-case consideration and ongoing risk assessments, advised that, as to trans persons, "establishment allocation should usually be the new gender in which they are living".
[20] In October 2022, a Freedom of Information request obtained by The Times showed that Cornton Vale had a transgender prison population of 16, half of whom had begun the transitioning process following their conviction.
At one point, that population included Katie Dolatowski, a convicted child-sex offender who spent time there in 2022 after breaching a restriction of liberty order.
[32][33] The UK government subsequently announced that it would block the bill, citing among other reasons the potential for predatory men to use the legislation to access women-only spaces for malicious purposes.
Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, denied that the legislation would create such a risk, and accused the UK government of attacking Scottish democracy and trying to fuel a culture war.
[25] Peter Smith of ITV News noted: 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.
[36] At the 2 February session of First Minister's Questions, Sturgeon stated her opinion that Bryson is "almost certainly" faking her transgender status.
She was speaking in response to a question from Ross, who read a statement to parliament from one of Bryson's victims, who suggested she was faking the status as an "easy way out".
[37][38] Following the decision to move Bryson to a men's prison, speculation arose concerning a potential blanket rule on accommodating transgender prisoners after Sturgeon agreed with comments made by Brindley during an appearance on the 27 January edition of The News Agents podcast.
[40] On 9 February the review concluded, and it was announced that transgender people sent to prison in Scotland would initially be housed according to their sex at birth, after which an assessment would be carried out to determine whether it would be suitable to accommodate them in a men's or women's facility.
[43] On 3 July 2023, Sky News reported that Bryson had written to the Sunday Mail to say that prison was "full of transphobic people" after a man was charged in relation to threatening behaviour against her.
Police Scotland confirmed that they had attended the prison on 8 June following reports of threatening behaviour, and that a 24-year-old man had been charged over the incident.
[46] In September 2024, Jo Farrell, the Chief Constable of Police Scotland, said the force would not record a male rapist as female, telling Sky News "You can only commit that crime as a man".
[47] The matter was subsequently raised at Holyrood, where the Scottish Conservatives suggested Police Scotland had "serious questions to answer" over the proposal.