What was the context of the quote? It is true the law says people are innocent until proven guilty, but it's also true we do things like criminal bureau checks on people before they are allowed to work with children, so we don't actually assume everyone is innocent. Also we don't have men in women's toilets because we know that's how to make them safe for women. So in that sense, no we don't just give men who think they are trans a free pass to enter women's toilets.
You can read the article it comes from here: https://archive.ph/wpYyG
The relevant paragraph is this one:
The third argument Sturgeon uses is that it’s transphobic to suggest any man would fraudulently claim a female identity. This claim is extraordinary. Nobody but the very naive can fail to be aware that predatory men are capable of going to great lengths to gain easy access to victims, and have often sought out professions or special status that offer camouflage for their activities. Sex offenders have historically been found among social workers, teachers, priests, doctors, babysitters, school caretakers, celebrities and charity fundraisers, yet no matter how often the scandals break, the lesson appears never to be learned: it is dangerous to assert that any category of people deserves a blanket presumption of innocence. Incidentally, it seems that prison is the perfect space in which to discover your innate sense of self: half of Scottish prisoners currently claiming a trans identity only did so after conviction.
This is why “we are who we say we are” is such a stupid slogan. Did we all forget that men lie for sex? They’ll lie about being single, wanting children, having their own place, their job. And that’s on the relatively less malicious end of things.
Imagine dismissing accusations sexual abuse against priests, scout troop leaders, or popular celebrities simply because they insisted “I am who I say I am”.
You don’t have to. It happened and happens on a massive scale. It’s why safeguarding guidelines are drawn up. Not to stigmatize and harm genuinely decent adults who work with vulnerable people, but to protect those over whom they have power.
Thank you. Yes, what she's saying is absolutely right and sensible.
It was extremely obvious to this woman raised Roman Catholic what she meant.
TRAs when they saw JKR tweet about Václav Havel's Power of the Powerless: of course this billionaire bigot wouldn't care about the workers of the world! 🤦♀️🤣
It honestly just shows how stupid these people are. We all know exactly what she means by what she said.
If there's one thing TRAs are great at it's twisting people's words. I thought it was fairly obvious what she meant with that quote but we all know they're going to run with what Montgomerie has twisted it into instead.