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In January 2023, Isla Bryson, a 31-year-old Scottish transgender woman from Clydebank, Dunbartonshire, was convicted of the rapes of two women. Bryson committed the rapes in 2016 and 2019, prior to Bryson's gender transition. Bryson was charged in 2019 and started transitioning in 2020. Bryson attended a beauty course in 2021 before her trial, with coursemates and courseholder Ayrshire College stating that they were unaware of Bryson's charges.
The case caused controversy after Bryson was remanded to a women's prison to await sentence, though she was segregated from the other prisoners pending risk assessment, following which she was transferred to a male prison. The case was subsequently used to criticise the Scottish Parliament's passage of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, though the bill was not in effect at the time.
Following controversy over the Bryson case, the Scottish Prison Service announced an "urgent review" into the transgender cases within its prisons, pausing the movement of any trans prisoners while the review was in progress. After the review, it was announced that in the future, transgender prisoners would be initially accommodated according to their sex at birth while an assessment was carried out into whether it was more appropriate to house them in a men's or women's prison.
Bryson was assigned male at birth in 1991 and named Adam Binnie Bryson.[1][2] In July 2016, Bryson married a woman with the surname Graham.[3][4] Bryson committed rape against two women, one in September 2016 and one in June 2019.[3][5] The first victim testified in Bryson's trial that she knew Bryson from a dating website, Badoo, where Bryson went under the name Adam Graham.[5] The second victim testified in Bryson's trial that she knew Bryson from a social media app, Bigo, where Bryson went under the name of DJ Blade.[6]
Bryson appeared in court in July 2019 under the name Adam Graham, and was charged that year.[5][7] Then, Bryson began the process of gender transition into a transgender woman in 2020, and assumed the name of Isla Annie Bryson in court that year.[8][9] In May 2021, Bryson's legal name was changed on the birth certificate to Annie Bryson, but her legal gender remained male.[10] In the 2023 trial, Bryson spoke about knowing of being transgender since the age of four, then choosing at age 29 to undergo a gender transition.[9] Bryson's mother said in 2023 that Bryson "never expressed any wish to me [of wanting] to be a girl, dressed in any other way or ever asked to be called by any other name than Adam growing up."[4] Bryson's estranged wife said in 2023 that there was no indication during their relationship that Bryson wanted to become a woman, and further accused Bryson of stabbing her and trying to rape her.[3] Bryson's estranged wife also said in 2023 that she had been trying to end the marriage with Bryson for seven years, but was unable to locate Bryson.[11] As of February 2023, Bryson was undergoing hormonal treatment, and had yet to undergo gender-affirming surgery.[4]
In 2021, while awaiting trial, Bryson participated for three months in a beauty course at Ayrshire College's Kilwinning campus, with Ayrshire College later stating that it "had no prior knowledge of this individual being charged with any offences."[12] Bryson went under the name Annie with her coursemates.[13][14] Almost all of Bryson's coursemates were female and much younger, with some as young as 16.[12][15]
One coursemate said that she partnered Bryson for coursework, where Bryson "wasn't comfortable with taking things off" and "did a lot of practising" on her, including applying fake tan and spray tan on her.[16] This coursemate spoke of Bryson "getting too close for comfort" and making "sly comments" after getting "jealous that I was working with other people", leading to her reporting Bryson regarding "bullying".[16] This coursemate further said that Bryson would accuse coursemates of being transphobic if "we said anything she didn't like".[16] This coursemate said that Bryson was asked to leave the course after several coursemates objected to Bryson's behaviour.[16] When this coursemate learned of Bryson's 2023 conviction, she felt "violated" and "so sick" regarding Bryson having practised on her.[16]
A second coursemate said that she did not attend the course for three weeks after Bryson complained that coursemates were "all discriminating against her and were homophobic", that Bryson was "very forceful and intimidating", with Bryson's "words and name-calling" bringing two course lecturers to tears.[13][16][14] This coursemate said regarding the course's spray tanning exercise that "it's so scary to think [Bryson] was watching me with no clothes on. Someone should have told a class full of young women what was going on."[13][14] This coursemate spoke of her belief that Bryson was asked to leave the course due to allegations Bryson made against coursemates.[13][14] A third coursemate also recounted that the course's students "had next to nothing on" when they "all did the one-day spray tanning course" with Bryson; with coursemates having "all accepted [Bryson] for who she wanted to be"; and spoke of "utter shock" when learning of Bryson's conviction.[13][14]
Susan Smith from the campaign group For Women Scotland expressed concern about how Bryson's beauty course classmates were unaware of the charges against Bryson since Bryson went by a different name in the course compared to the name Bryson had been charged under.[12] The lawyer Thomas Ross said that as the law stands a person accused of a crime does not have to disclose that information, something he described as a "catch-22 situation" for the institution, because they either face criticism for putting other students at risk by allowing the person to attend, or are open to a legal challenge from the accused for excluding them.[16]
Bryson's six-day trial was held in January 2023 at the High Court of Justiciary in Glasgow.[17] The case was prosecuted by Advocate depute John Keenan and defended by Edward Targowski, while Lord Scott sat as presiding judge. The prosecution described how Bryson had "preyed on two vulnerable female partners" after meeting them online. Bryson denied raping the two women, arguing the sex between them had been consensual, and claimed to be "in no way a predatory male". The defence also argued that Bryson's status as a person undergoing the transitioning process also made her vulnerable.[18][19] Bryson was convicted of the rapes on 24 January 2023. At the time of her conviction, she was believed to be the first transgender woman in Scotland to be convicted of rape. Presiding judge, Lord Scott, warned Bryson she faced a "significant custodial sentence".[20]
Following Bryson's conviction, Police Scotland confirmed she had been arrested and charged as a man, and that her crimes would therefore be recorded as having been committed by a man.[21] On 28 February 2023, Bryson was sentenced to eight years in prison, with a further three years of supervision upon release, and was also placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life. The court heard that reports had identified Bryson as having a set of neurodevelopment problems. In his summing up, presiding judge Lord Scott said that Bryson continued to deny the crimes and had claimed her victims were colluding against her:
You see yourself as the victim in this case. But you are not [...] Your vulnerability is no excuse at all for what you did to these two women in 2016 and 2019. Regardless of your own vulnerability, in a period of just under three years, you raped two women who can both be regarded as vulnerable."[22][23][24]
In 2014, the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) adopted a gender-identity-and-gender-reassignment policy that, while allowing for case-by-case consideration and ongoing risk assessments, advised that, as to trans persons, "establishment allocation should usually be the new gender in which they are living".[25] The warrant for Bryson issued by the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS) called for Bryson to be taken to HM Prison Barlinnie, a men's prison in Glasgow.[12][26] But the warrant was not binding on SPS, which determined that Bryson should be detained at HM Prison Cornton Vale in Stirling, Scotland's only prison exclusively for women.[26][12][27] During Bryson's time at Cornton Vale it is believed she was segregated from the other prisoners.[20]
In October 2022, a Freedom of Information request obtained by The Times showed that Cornton Vale had a transgender prison population of 16, half of whom had begun the transitioning process following their conviction. At one point, that population included Katie Dolatowski, a convicted child-sex offender who spent time there in 2022 after breaching a restriction of liberty order.[20] In December 2022, the decision to move Dolatowski to Cornton Vale led to protests outside the prison.[25]
The prospect of a convicted rapist serving a sentence in a women's prison sparked heated political debate, and concerns about the safety of the other prisoners.[28] Sandy Brindley, the chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, said "It cannot be right for a rapist to be in a women's prison",[29] while concerns were also expressed by 10 Downing Street, where a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak compared the case with the situation in England and Wales, where "transgender women must go through a robust risk assessment that factors in their offending history and anatomy before they can be moved to a women's prison".[30]
Dominic Raab, the Secretary of State for Justice, said a similar incident would not happen in England and Wales, where a recent change in the law would shortly be implemented to prevent transgender women convicted of sex offences against women, or those who retained their original genitalia, from being detained in a women's prison, apart from in exceptional circumstances authorised by the minister.[31] Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, said "this dangerous rapist should not be in a women's prison".[30] Keith Brown, Scotland's Cabinet Secretary for Justice, told MSPs he trusted the Scottish Prison Service to decide where Bryson should be held: "The facts of the matter are that the Scottish Prison Service has a long track record – I'm talking 20 years and more – of assessing risks within our prisons, including those presented by the presence of trans prisoners – both for the trans prisoners themselves and other prisoners."[28][20]
Bryson's conviction also came a few weeks after the Scottish Parliament had overwhelmingly passed the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, designed to make it easier for people in Scotland to change their legally recognised sex.[32][33] The UK government subsequently announced that it would block the bill, citing among other reasons the potential for predatory men to use the legislation to access women-only spaces for malicious purposes. Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, denied that the legislation would create such a risk, and accused the UK government of attacking Scottish democracy and trying to fuel a culture war.[33]
Attempts to amend the bill were defeated during its passage through parliament, but the resulting bill did preclude anyone with a sexual harm prevention order or sexual offences prevention order from being able to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate.[20] Addressing the Parliament's Equalities Committee, Lucy Hunter Blackburn of the policy analysts MurrayBlackburnMackenzie[34] had warned that the bill could lead to legal challenges and suggested it should be amended to exempt prisons from having to recognise the trans status of prisoners.[25] Peter Smith of ITV News noted:
The prisons themselves could be open to legal challenges, and it is of course not just prisons tangled in this debate, but leisure centres with gendered change rooms, and also schools since the Scottish Government's proposal would lower the age someone can change their legal gender from 18 to 16."[33]
Following Bryson's incarceration in a women's prison, the bill's opponents questioned whether it contained a sufficient level of safeguarding for women in prison.[28]
On 26 January 2023, Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, commented on the case at First Minister's Questions after the issue was raised by Conservative leader Douglas Ross.[28] Sturgeon confirmed that Bryson would not be allowed to serve her sentence at Cornton Vale: "There is no automatic right for a trans woman convicted of a crime to serve their sentence in a female prison even if they have a gender recognition certificate. Every case is subject to rigorous individual risk assessment and the safety of other prisoners is paramount." She also confirmed the Gender Recognition Reform Bill had no bearing on the Bryson case. Bryson was moved to a men's wing of HM Prison Edinburgh later the same day.[32][35] It was later reported that Sturgeon had personally intervened in the case to have Bryson moved from Cornton Vale.[28]
Rhona Hotchkiss, a former governor of Cornton Vale prison, described the decision to send a convicted rapist to a women's prison as an "unnecessary shambles".[36]
At the 2 February session of First Minister's Questions, Sturgeon stated her opinion that Bryson is "almost certainly" faking her transgender status. She was speaking in response to a question from Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, who read a statement to parliament from one of Bryson's victims, who suggested she was faking the status as an "easy way out".[37][38]
Following the decision to move Bryson to a men's prison, speculation arose concerning a potential blanket rule on accommodating transgender prisoners after Sturgeon agreed with comments made by Brindley during an appearance on the 27 January edition of The News Agents podcast. Vic Valentine, manager of the campaign group Scottish Trans, expressed fears that introducing such a rule could put some trans women at significant risk were they to be sent to a men's prison, but agreed a sex offender who poses a significant risk to women "should not be housed with women on the female estate".[39]
Following the Bryson case, and that of Tiffany Scott, a transgender woman convicted of stalking a 13-year-old girl, who had successfully applied to be transferred to a women's facility, the Scottish Prison Service announced on 29 January 2023 that it would pause the movement of all transgender prisoners while it carried out an "urgent review" into all of the transgender cases within its prisons.[40] On 9 February the review concluded, and it was announced that transgender people sent to prison in Scotland would initially be housed according to their sex at birth, after which an assessment would be carried out to determine whether it would be suitable to accommodate them in a men's or women's facility. On the Bryson case, the report said that the Scottish Prison Service's procedures had been followed, but that the SPS had received "conflicting and limited information" about Bryson beyond the immediate convictions, and recommended a "shared justice process" for the future admission of transgender people to prison.[41] The report also said that Bryson did not have any contact with the other prisoners during her time at Cornton Vale, and therefore did not pose a risk to them.[42]
On 27 February 2023, regulations in England and Wales came into force banning transgender women "with their male genitalia intact", or those who are sex offenders, from being sent to women's prisons.[43]
On 3 July 2023, Sky News reported that Bryson had written to the Sunday Mail to say that prison was "full of transphobic people" after a man was charged in relation to threatening behaviour against her. Police Scotland confirmed that they had attended the prison on 8 June following reports of threatening behaviour, and that a 24-year-old man had been charged over the incident.[44] In another letter to the Sunday Mail in April 2024, Bryson claimed to have received an apology from the Scottish Prison Service for being "misgendered", and after a female prison officer referred to her as "son".[45]
On 5 December 2023, the Scottish Prison Service issued new guidelines on transgender prisoners, stating that trans women who have hurt women or girls would not be sent to a female prison unless there were "exceptional" circumstances.[46]
In September 2024, Jo Farrell, the Chief Constable of Police Scotland, said the force would not record a male rapist as female, telling Sky News "You can only commit that crime as a man". However, it was later reported that Police Scotland had considered recording Bryson as female.[47] The matter was subsequently raised at Holyrood, where the Scottish Conservatives suggested Police Scotland had "serious questions to answer" over the proposal.[48]
- Amber McLaughlin, an American trans woman who was convicted and executed for a rape and murder committed before her transition
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