Isla Bryson's mum slams Nicola Sturgeon over gender comments

Daily Record

a day ago

Janet's son was born Adam Graham but began to identify as a woman called Isla while awaiting trial for rape.
The mum of trans rapist Isla Bryson has ridiculed Nicola Sturgeon's comments that male rapists should 'probably' lose the right to choose their gender.
Janet's son was born Adam Graham but began to identify as a woman called Isla while awaiting trial for rape.
The convict was sent to a female jail before Sturgeon, then first minister, announced a switch to all-male HMP Edinburgh following a public outcry over the case.
The case fuelled outrage over the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and also contributed to the later resignation of Sturgeon, who was instrumental in forcing controversial gender self-ID laws through Holyrood, as FM.
Speaking in a recent TV interview with ITV to mark the release of her memoir Frankly, the former SNP leader, said that 'anybody who commits the most heinous male crime against women probably forfeits the right to be the gender of their choice.'
However Bryson's mum has said 'selecting' who has the right to self ID fundamentally undermines the very principles it is based on.
Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Mail, Janet, 65, said: said: ' Nicola Sturgeon says that my son, who was born a man,. should not be able to pick his gender because he is a convicted rapist.
'The problem with any blanket policy is that is applies to everyone.
'So if you allow people to self ID, then you can't cherry pick who does and who does not. The core principal is the person is allowed to select their self.
'The Gender self ID meant Adam could say he was a woman, even when he was and is biologically male.
'By now saying some trans women are not women, goes against everything the reform brought in.
'Nicola Sturgeon was warned about the policy, and Adam's case showed up the biggest flaw in the system.
'Going back on that now, just undermines everything and proves all it did was allow any man, even a rapist, the right to say they are a woman giving them access to all the rights and spaces that women have.'
At the height of the furore around the double rapist's case, Sturgeon repeatedly refused to call Bryson a man but in the TV interview last week the former SNP leader said : 'Isla Bryson identified as a woman.'
In April Britain's highest court ruled only two biological sexes - male and female, assigned at birth - can be recognised under the 2010 Equality Act. But they said trans people were still protected from discrimination by the act.
Sturgeon has previously faced calls - from women's right campaigners, backed by Janet - to apologise over the controversial gender self-ID laws and erosion of women's rights following the ruling.
Speaking after the ruling, Janet, had said: 'I'm pleased with the ruling which ends years of confusion over these new gender laws and now the rights of biological women are clear and protected.
'That has now been made clear but it should never have been questioned in the first place. But I think it is now time Ms Sturgeon apologised.'
The former leader said last week that she was partly to blame for the debate on gender recognition laws in Scotland losing 'all sense of rationality'.
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The Scottish Government introduced laws in 2018 to include people given the legal GRC document, which would allow them to use single-sex areas, including women's loos and changing rooms.
During the case, the Scottish Government argued in court that transgender people with a GRC are entitled to the same sex-based protections as biological women.
Mum-of-three Janet has always refuted Bryson's claims he had wanted to be a girl from age four.
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She said: 'My son never expressed any wish that he wanted to be a girl, dressed in any other way or ever asked to be called by any other name than Adam growing up. Never once, at the age of four or at any other age.'
Janet has dozens of family pictures of Bryson. She has been left traumatised by her son's conviction because she had been a sex attack victim.
Bryson, 34, was convicted of raping women while known as Graham in 2023 and jailed for eight years, with a further three on licence.