It looks like a textbook case of what Nicola Sturgeon insisted never happens. A transgender butcher in the Scottish borders picks up a primary school girl, takes her to ‘her’ home to ‘look after her’ and then sexually assaults her for 27 hours. Fortunately, the girl escapes.

‘Man abducted and sexually assaulted schoolgirl while dressed as a woman’, said the headline on the BBC News website, for once not worrying about misgendering Amy George, whose dead name is Andrew Miller. The High Court in Edinburgh was told that Miller, who pleaded guilty to abduction and sexual assault, ‘identifies as transgender’ and is in the process of transitioning to female.

Cases like the ‘trans butcher’ as he is inevitably now referred to, and the trans rapist Isla Bryson, who was placed on remand in a women’s prison, tar the entire trans community, unfairly, with the brand of sex offender.

Meanwhile the reckless policy of Self-ID, promoted by the Scottish government under the guidance of LGBT lobby groups, like Stonewall, has done a huge disservice to the image of transgender people. Why? Because as soon as a case like this hits the front pages the questions are asked: is he/she a man or a woman? Will they be sent to a women’s prison? If not, why not? Nicola Sturgeon could not bring herself to describe Isla Bryson, real name Andrew Graham, as a man, even after she ordered the Scottish Prison Service to place him in a male jail. He is still referred to as ‘she’ in government documents. 

Want to see more SNP fails? – Politics Matters