Police Scotland defy gender self-ID push by recognising suspect as a man

Police Scotland have defied the Scottish Government’s push to refer to people by their self-declared gender, by acknowledging a gender-confused suspect to be a man.

Andrew George Miller, who has been using the name Amy for six years, was arrested in connection with the disappearance of an eleven-year-old girl in the Scottish Borders.

A Police Scotland spokesman confirmed the suspect to be a “53-year-old man”, instead of echoing his claim to be a woman.

Prison

Miller had publicly supported the Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which seeks to allow 16-year-olds to change their legal sex by self-declaration without a medical diagnosis.

He was also a vocal critic of Westminster’s decision to block the Bill on the grounds that it interfered with UK-wide law.

Police Scotland’s decision to refer to him as a man follows the Scottish Government’s announcement that men who claim to be women will no longer automatically be moved to women’s prisons, pending the outcome of a review, and that convicted rapist Adam Graham would be transferred to a men’s jail.

But just before the announcement, Nicola Sturgeon told the Global Player’s The News Agents podcast that critics of her ‘sex-swap’ Bill are “transphobic”, “deeply misogynist, often homophobic, possibly some of them racist as well”. The First Minister has used female pronouns to refer to Graham.

Opposition

A new poll found only a third of Scots oppose the UK Government’s decision to block the ‘sex swap’ Bill.

The Ipsos survey found 50 per cent backed Scottish Secretary Alister Jack’s decision compared to only 33 per cent who opposed it. The remaining 17 per cent did not know or did not want to say.

Among SNP voters, 31 per cent said Westminster was right to have blocked the legislation.

‘Shameful’

Former SNP Minister Ash Regan, who resigned over the party’s gender self-ID Bill, added: “We need a new system where no male prisoners are allocated to the women’s prison estate.”

When the Bill was debated in Holyrood, the majority of MSPs rejected an amendment that would have prevented sex offenders from changing their legal sex.