Yesterday, a trans woman who goes by Isla Bryson was convicted on two separate counts of rape for incidents that occurred in 2016 and 2019.

Bryson had attacked the first victim at a flat in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, on Sept 16 2016, having met on the Badoo dating site. The woman recalled repeatedly stating “no” as a “muscular” attacker forced himself upon her.

The second woman was raped at a flat in Drumchapel, Glasgow, on June 27 2019. The victim recalled feeling “crushed” as the attacker she knew as Adam forced himself on her.

She stated: “I told him to stop and he did not. He kept going. That is when I closed my eyes and let him do what he wanted to do.”

Both the women knew their attacker as Adam Graham and addressed “Isla” as him or he during the trial.

The Guardian understands that in advance of the Bryson case, all parties agreed that the defendant was previously known as Graham, and that witnesses had encountered the individual using that name. No guidance was issued to witnesses on addressing the defendant nor were they corrected when referring to the defendant as “Adam Graham” or “he”.

In fact it wasn’t until sometime after the second rape and his first appearance in court that Adam decided to became Isla. Isla is now awaiting sentencing in a women’s prison.

The defendant first appeared in court as Adam Graham and was referred to as such in a 2020 court indictment. It was later that year, according to British press reports, that she decided to transition.

Bryson claimed to the court that she knew she was transgender at the age of 4 but didn’t make the decision to transition until she was 29. She told jurors that Adam Graham was her “dead name.”…

She’s currently being held at Cornton Vale women’s prison, where she’s reportedly being kept in segregation until sentencing at the end of February. At Cornton, the convicted rapist will undergo a risk assessment to determine whether she’ll serve the final jail sentence in a women’s or men’s prison.

Reactions to this have been mostly negative. A Tory spokesman called it “utterly perverse.”

Russell Findlay, the Scottish Tory community safety spokesman, said: “This rapist decided that he was no longer a man only after appearing in court on a rape charge.

“We now have the utterly perverse situation where a Scottish court refers to someone who says he identifies as female using ‘her penis’ to rape two vulnerable women.”

A “special rapporteur” for the UN on the subject of violence against women remembered being told this would never happen.

Remembering the many times we were told that the idea that predatory and violent males may want to take advantage of the presence of loopholes in system and weak safeguards to enter spaces reserved for females was ludicrous! https://t.co/SfVMBBJJTL

— Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls (@UNSRVAW) January 25, 2023

Some additional photos of Isla Bryson.

Scotland: A #trans woman has been convicted for raping two women in Clydebank and Glasgow. Isla Bryson, formerly known as Adam Graham, is being sent to a women's prison in Stirling. At the trial, jurors were explicitly told "Adam" was her "dead name." https://t.co/EsmsKiJ7zC pic.twitter.com/YjBLxF8AA2

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) January 25, 2023

Personally, I don’t care if Adam becomes Isla but that should have no bearing at all on the punishment for the crime of raping two women. And given the nature of the crime, putting this person in a women’s prison is obviously an idiotic idea. But the lunatics have almost literally taken over the asylum it seems so, for the moment “she” is in a women’s prison.

For the record, it’s not just right-wingers like myself who think Isla’s transition may be a bit strategic. The Daily Mail spoke to Adam’s ex-wife today and she said this was a “sham decision” to make his prison experience easier.

Shonna Graham, who married evil Bryson when the rapist was a man before going on to attack two women, says she believes the transition is an act to make a mockery of the justice system – and to be placed in a women’s prison.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline Shonna, 31, said: ‘Never once did he say anything to me about feeling he was in the wrong body or anything. I have a lot of sympathy for real transgender people, it’s a hard thing to live with, but he’s just bullsh*****g the authorities.’

She added: ‘His gender transition is a sham for attention and an easier life in prison. When I saw the photos of him dressed as a woman with a blonde wig and pink lycra leggings, I fell out of bed laughing.

There was already a case like this here in California. Los Angeles’ progressive prosecutor went along with it until jailhouse recording revealed it was all a ploy.

Update: Scotland’s First Minister and leader of the SNP Nicola Sturgeon has announced that Isla Bryson won’t be allowed to remain in a women’s prison. She is expected to be moved to a male prison today.

🎥 Nicola Sturgeon forced into humiliating u-turn as Isla Bryson to be moved to men's prison: https://t.co/iEt1lntFtK pic.twitter.com/4VCHv0K0oB

— Scottish Express (@ScotExpress) January 26, 2023

From the BBC:

The Scottish Parliament passed legislation last month aimed at making it easier for people to change their legally-recognised sex, but Ms Sturgeon has said the changes did not play any part in the Bryson case.

The 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…

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.”

Somehow, sanity prevailed in this case.