Since 2014, the Scottish Prison Service’s policy has been that prisoners should be accommodated on the basis of self-declared identity, subject to a risk assessment. The accommodation must best suit “the person’s needs and should reflect the gender in which they are currently living.” Up until the point of conviction, Isla Bryson was held on remand at a women’s prison, segregated from the other inmates.The community safety spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, Russel Finlay commented that “It would be wrong to put a male-bodied rapist in a women's prison.” 

On Thursday this week, Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister confirmed that Bryson would in fact be removed from the Woman’s prison and would not serve the sentence there. In fact, Bryson is expected to be moved to a male wing of a prison this week. 

The Gender Reform Bill

Over the past weeks, this has been a subject of heated debate, with concerns being raised about the safety of other women in the prison being incarcerated with a male rapist. This tension was further exacerbated as the Scottish Parliament passed legislation last month aimed at making it easier for people to change their legally-recognised sex. 

This gender recognition Reform bill has been blocked by the UK Government over its potential impact on equalities laws that apply across Scotland, England and Wales. 

The Scottish conservative leader, Douglas Ross said his party had "warned for months" during the debate over the gender reforms that "violent criminals just like the sex offender, the absolute beast we are discussing today, would try to exploit loopholes in the law and attack and traumatise women.”

He added: "It should not have taken public disgust and a slew of negative headlines about a double rapist being sent to a women's prison for Nicola Sturgeon to realise this was completely unacceptable and wrong. "She and her justice secretary have the power to impose a blanket ban on all rapists being sent to women's prisons, so why is she refusing to exercise it? "It suggests Nicola Sturgeon's screeching U-turn in the Bryson case was down to fears over the political risk to herself rather than the safety risk to women prisoners."

Isla Bryson’s case is a further example that the extreme gender ideology currently being pushed across the western world today is unsustainable in real life. It is far easier to become a mouth piece for this ideology than it is to enforce it when it comes to things like prison policies, or sporting competition rules, since it is enforcing a pseudo-reality that doesn’t fit with everyday life.

Bible Teaching about Gender

Whilst this is a negative subject, it can also be seen as a sign of the times, showing that we are living in the last days of the Kingdom of men. And whilst clearly, the apostles and prophets didn’t live in times when gender was as malleable as people claim today, nevertheless, the Bible does provide guidance on these issues. 

The book of Genesis tells us that “in the beginning, God created…”, and that everything he had made was “very good” (Gen 1:1,31). These statements have far reaching consequences. This very obvious bible teaching shows that God is sovereign, not man. God is the designer and knows what he intended for mankind and his creation, according to his wisdom. Men and woman were made to be different from the rest of the animal creation because they were made in the “image and likeness of God”. They can reflect moral values in the way that the rest of creation cannot. God chose to make us “male and female”. Men and women are different, but complementary, combining to achieve the aim God had in view. 

Similarly, Jesus affirms the teaching of Genesis in Matthew 19:4-6:

"And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

This teaching sets out several things:

1. We are created beings, made by God. 
2. Male and female is part of God’s creative design
3. The capacity to be “one flesh” (a biological function) is intrinsic to being male or female
4. Mankind must not seek to alter God’s arrangement. 

This shows that despite medical advances, it is not possible to change a person’s gender. As far as the bible is concerned, a trans-woman is not a woman. Isla Bryson is a male rapist, not a woman. 

We read in the gospels that the coming of the son of man could be likened to the days of Noah. 

Luke 17:26-27 “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.”

While this verse may originally apply to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, the principle remains the same for the last days of gentile times. In the book of Genesis, we read more about what happened in the days of Noah:

Genesis 6:12 “And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth”

There is no doubt that transgender ideology, as it is pushed throughout schools, hospitals, politics, prisons and more, is a corruption of God’s way upon upon the earth. This is a sign of the times that we live in. We live in days just like Noah’s times. We must not be conformed to the thinking of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, through reading God’s word. 

Just as the flood came, so we wait for the coming of the son of man. We pray for the time when the new heavens and the new earth will bring an end to the humanistic rule of mankind. This has been Daniel Blackburn joining you for this weeks’ edition of Bible in the News.