MOST Scots believe transgender rapist Isla Bryson belongs in a male prison, according to a new poll.
YouGov has released the results of a snap study which revealed that 59% of people in Scotland believed a violent sex offender who had not undergone gender reassignment surgery should be housed in a male prison.
This was in contrast to just 11% of people who said such an offender belonged in a female prison while 29% said they did not know.
But if the offender had undergone a sex change, 33% said they should be sent to a women’s prison, 34% said a men’s prison and 34% said they did not know.
The numbers changed when a different question was posed. When asked whether a trans woman who had committed a non-violent and non-sexual crime and who had undergone a full sex change, only 22% said this person said they should be sent to a men’s prison, while 53% said they should be sent to a women’s prison and 25% said they didn’t know.
If the person in question had not undergone full gender reassignment surgery, 50% of Scots said they belonged in a men’s prison, 22% said a women’s prison and 28% said they did not know.
The numbers remained broadly similar to the UK-wide results.
YouGov commented that men, older Britons and Conservative voters were more likely than others to say trans women criminals should go to male prisons.
The release added: “The results indicate that the crime involved is a less important factor to Britons in deciding where to house a trans woman offender than whether or not they have had gender reassignment surgery, rather than whether they committed a sex crime or not.”
Bryson was kept in segregation when imprisoned at Cornton Vale, near Stirling, until prison bosses moved the serial rapist to HMP Edinburgh.
The case has caused uproar among opponents of the Scottish Government’s gender recognition reforms, which were blocked from becoming law by Westminster at the beginning of the year, in an unprecedented move.
But it has also appeared to have caused some disquiet among its supporters, with SNP MP Alyn Smith refusing to comment on the case in a recent TV interview.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also appeared to struggle to define what a woman was when grilled by ITV News on the topic on Monday.
The Scottish Government announced on Sunday that it would “pause” the practice of transferring trans women prisoners with a history of violence to women’s prisons – though Justice Secretary Keith Brown said the following day he believed no trans women with violent convictions were currently held in women’s prisons.
The Scottish Prison Service has released data which showed there were just 15 trans prisoners in the country – both trans men and trans women.
The full survey saw 2094 people interviewed – 172 of these were from Scotland – between January 27 and 30 of this year.
