HebrideanUltraTerfHecate on Nostr: Employment judges were given trans awareness training by pro-trans groups. ...

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Employment judges were given trans awareness training by pro-trans groups. Representatives from Scottish Trans and Gendered Intelligence delivered training sessions to judges regarding how to approach cases involving trans people.

In two sessions, they were told how to refer to trans people during proceedings and what issues they faced in the workplace. Gendered Intelligence, an English charity that claims that biological sex is not a “settled scientific category”, delivered a session in 2018 to employment judges in England and Wales. In 2019, a representative from Scottish Trans gave a presentation to Scottish employment judges to “raise awareness” of “protected characteristics”. The group is part of the Equality Network – an LGBT charity funded by the SNP that supported former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s controversial self-ID reforms. It is possible that Sandy Kemp, the judge who presided over the Sandie Peggie tribunal, could have attended the Scottish Trans session in 2019, as he had been appointed the previous year.

However, a spokesman for the judiciary would not confirm which specific employment judges took part in the sessions. Maya Forstater, the chief executive of sex-based rights charity Sex Matters, said: “Training by Scottish Trans, as well as other engagement with transactivists, raises questions about the influence of gender ideology on the Scottish judiciary. Scottish Tory MSP Pam Gosal said that the trans groups’ involvement confirms “how deeply embedded the SNP’s dangerous trans ideology is across our public institutions.” Concerns about the influence of pro-trans groups have been raised after a string of gender-critical claimants saw their claims dismissed by Scottish judges in recent months - including Ms Peggie, who had most of her claims against NHS Fife dismissed last December. Last month, an Edinburgh judge dismissed claims made by a prison custody officer who was sacked after refusing to call male-born inmates “she”.

Earlier that month, an engineer at a defence firm which allowed trans women to use female bathrooms had all of her claims against her employer dismissed. A group of NHS nurses from Darlington won a similar case in January. Although employment tribunals are presided over by the UK-wide Courts and Tribunals Service, the alleged disparity has led to allegations that the Scottish judiciary is taking a different approach to their English equivalents south of the border because of the influence of pro-trans groups like Scottish Trans. In addition to training judges across the UK, Scottish Trans has also advised legal officials in other parts of Scotland’s legal system. In 2021, a representative of the group advised the Crown Office and Prosecutor Fiscal Service (COPFS) on the use of previous names and pronouns when drafting charges for trans people accused of committing crimes. In 2023, Scottish Trans also advised on a set of controversial prison guidelines which allow trans women to be housed in a female jail as long as they are not considered an “unacceptable risk”.

Rhona Hotchkiss, a former prison governor, who also consulted on the controversial guidelines before they were published in 2024, said representatives from Scottish Trans would have been considered “friends” by the authors of the guidelines because their policies aligned with those of Ms Sturgeon’s government at the time. The former boss of Cornton Vale female prison said the service “gave more weight” to what the group said over her views. “What I said wasn’t reflected in the guidance”, she said, citing the “non-neutral” terms used in the guidance, such as “cisgender”, “gender identity” and “gender expression”.