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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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"Predatory men, as has always been the case, are the risk to women."

So are they men or are they women? Because if this guy isn't a woman, then all the trans stuff is just pretence and he shouldn't be humoured in it; he should be referred to by his real name and not allowed prance about in wigs and false nails and pink.

If she is a real trans woman, then she's not a predatory man, she's a predatory trans woman who is an inherent threat to women.

You can't eat your cake and have it, too: if Adam Graham is not trans, then the whole trans thing is mainly a pretence since it's so easy to claim to be a woman. If Isla Bryson is trans, as claimed (and their origin story sounds like it's taking the familiar path - see below), then trans women can be threats and it's not being a TERF to think that allowing people with penises into spaces where other people have suffered at the hands of people with penises is a bad idea.

Imagine if Isla turned up at a domestic violence shelter where one of her rape victims was also living. Is it TERFy to say that maybe Isla should not be taken in to that shelter? Or indeed any female shelter, since Isla has demonstrated she is not safe to be around women?

Originally a male named Adam Graham, Bryson has claimed to have known she was transgender since the age of four, but did not decide to begin the process of transitioning until the age of 29. At the time of her trial she was undergoing hormone treatment and seeking surgery to complete her gender reassignment. Bryson was briefly married after meeting a woman through a dating app in 2015, but the marriage, which occurred the following year, ended unhappily. As a male Bryson told her trial she had also struggled with her sexuality, and had been in relationships with men as well as women.

This is also broader than the entire question of trans rights and if it's all a con job; the perfectly safe and harmless guy out on bail while awaiting trial for rape was able to enrol on a beauty therapy course as a woman and be around young women for a whole three months:

STV News has learnt that Isla Bryson, who was this week convicted of raping two women, attended classes at Ayrshire College’s Kilwinning Campus in 2021, while awaiting trial.

Bryson, previously known as Adam Graham, was on Tuesday found guilty of raping one woman in Clydebank in 2016 and another in Drumchapel, Glasgow, in 2019, following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

Susan Smith from the campaign group For Women Scotland said: “He was charged under his original name, Adam Graham, and presumably they knew him by his new name, so they (fellow students) probably wouldn’t have been able to find out anything about this person.

“It’s absolutely terrifying that people can hide their identities and gain access to young women in this way.”

The course involved Bryson enrolled on featured a mix of classroom work and practical elements such as students doing each other’s make-up.

The other students were almost exclusively female and much younger than Bryson, who is now 31.

A statement from Ayrshire College said: “We can confirm the individual was enrolled as a student at Ayrshire College for a three-month period in 2021 and is no longer a student with the College.

I suppose we can only be thankful she didn't decide to try raping anyone else during this period. What the hell kind of carry-on is this?

Also why women are paranoid about meeting men; this specimen met women online and seems to have done this as a deliberate strategy to find vulnerable women (his ex-wife and the two women he raped) so while it's not fair to treat all men as potential threats, this kind of case doesn't help.