
Scots museum chiefs blasted after claiming all loo users will have to be gender checked
LOO JOKING? Scots museum chiefs blasted after claiming all loo users will have to be gender checked
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MUSEUMS chiefs have been blasted after claiming all loo users will have to be gender checked.
Taxpayer-funded Museums and Galleries Scotland say staff will have to make sure of the sex of people at 455 sites across the country.
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Gender checks will be carried out on those using toilet facilities at all tax-payer museums across Scotland
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Scottish Tory MSP Tess White says the move would put women and girls in danger
And it has criticised initial advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission following the Supreme Court's landmark biological sex ruling.
It states trans women must use male facilities and trans men female restrooms.
Museums Scotland said: 'To avoid discrimination, it would require every person using toilets to be checked, adding substantial workload and staff costs.
'The guidance implies that to allow trans people to use toilets that fit their identity would put organisations at risk of legal consequences.
Scottish Tory equalities spokeswoman Tess White said: 'By criticising the EHRC's guidance, Museums Scotland are flouting the law, putting women and girls in danger and laying themselves open to legal challenge. There is no excuse for evasion on this issue.
'All public bodies must immediately comply with the law.'

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The Herald Scotland
9 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
I found Sarah Vine's book unexpectedly heart-wrenching
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And how a once happy union was chiselled out by Brexit and by the class structure that still exists at the top of the Tories on which they spend a lot of money and time to conceal from the rest of us. You begin investing in this story about how Westminster's political thresher (and maybe Holyrood's too) can steal your soul if you're foolish enough to believe you can surf it and remain upright. It's also about surviving as a woman amidst the casual sexism that still pervades my industry and the outright misogyny that runs through Big Politics. There are startling moments, not least an egregiously misogynistic insult aimed at her by the comedian, Stewart Lee, in his Observer column. 'As a student, David Cameron is rumoured to have put his penis into a dead pig. To outdo him, Michael Gove put his penis into a Daily Mail journalist.' On a family trip to New York, they're spotted by another British couple. Not even the presence of their two children – 10 and 12 – spares them. 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Of a girl living in Italy where her affluent parents had moved to embrace la dolce vita amidst their extra-marital affairs and the tantrums that followed them and who felt like an ugly duckling in a school full of young Mediterranean beauties. Of being psychologically abused by her dad, who seemed embarrassed at his daughter's physical appearance (she still frets about her weight and discusses her alopecia and her anti-depressants). One entry leaves you shredded. It's when, as a teenager, she returns to Italy for the summer from boarding school in England where she'd starved herself into something approaching svelte. Her dad now felt she was fit enough for him to be seen in public with her in Italian café society, at one point instructing her 'to wiggle for a table'. I found this heart-wrenching to the extent that I immediately resolved to call my own two daughters and just, you know, be closer to them. What things were said and unsaid; how many were the hugs not given? She tells me that the stuff about her dad needed to be in there 'to explain who I am and what I am and why I'm so flawed'. She'd sent the book to her brother. 'Is this okay? You were there too; you remember all that stuff.' He'd called and said: 'Sarah, honestly, you've been far too nice.' She had called her dad to tell him there was material in the book he may find uncomfortable. 'He said 'Oh alright then, and went back to watching the telly'.' Back to England then and university (languages) and falling into journalism after a fateful encounter with some of Fleet Street's finest in one of their taverns. And then meeting Michael Gove on a skiing trip with the nucleus of what would later be called 'the Notting Hill Set': There's a perception among Scottish journalists that the old English newspaper titles are populated by the scions of old families who weren't considered smart enough for high political office and thus favours had to be called in. Ms Vine though, is a proper old-school journalist who has held down most jobs in the gnarly business of producing newsprint. There's no question of her not having earned her position. I was once asked what had made the Mail so popular across all classes in England. The best I could come up with was that they represented the Margo Leadbetter character in The Good Life. In one episode, she's in a long Post Office queue being truculently fobbed off at the counter. 'I am the voice of the Silent Majority,' she'd said. Margo seemed to embody those English stereotypes we both love and hate: of enduring challenges with stalwart resilience because, well … being English obliges you to care without showing it; to be silent in adversity, confident perhaps that you'll have your moment and that it will be a terrible one indeed. I love them for it and loathe them in equal measure. Perhaps though, it's that early Italian influence on Ms Vine that enkindled her desire in this book to settle a few scores; to chivvy those who were inconstant or who disappeared when she was deemed no longer to possess a social cachet. It's not revenge, as such, more an abjuration that they should perhaps have known that this day would come when the smart, sassy columnist – the Wednesday Witch in Daily Mail parlance – would strap on her stilettoes and have her day in long form with one of Britain's top publishers. The inside story of Brexit and how it laid waste to relationships and brought families to the brink of breaking up is a dominant theme. Did it wreck her own – happy – marriage to Michael Gove who is now out of politics entirely? Or, would they still have split? Would he always have been drawn like a moth to the flame of politics; while she with her daily, acerbic registers refused to adopt the role of dutiful Tory wife bred to endure and to absorb and to be silent? In the end it wasn't a clash of personalities, or infidelity or excessive drinking; or abnormal behaviour which sealed the split, but the sight of her husband choosing to absent himself with a book in the upstairs bedroom of their new home while she and her elderly mum (who had flown from Italy to help with the flitting) did all the heavy lifting. Before then, a sense of isolation had begun to settle on them both. The gradual, wretched realisation that for all their brains and unprivileged endeavour; for their wit and charisma, they'd never quite been accepted within their set. And that, when the chips were down and the balloon was up and the lights had gone out, a process of social exclusion by stealth was well underway. They had committed the cardinal sin of failing to acknowledge their place in the grand scheme: deference to the upper classes of High Toryism. To the naked, unschooled eye, they were both at the very apex of England's social, political and cultural food chain. But when Michael Gove had defied his friend, David Cameron, by becoming a chief Brexiteer and Sarah Vine had backed him they were brutally disabused of any notions about parity of esteem. Read more Kevin McKenna: In these circles, your status is conferred for eternity by the title deeds of 13th century land-grabs. They were best of friends with David and Samantha Cameron and Ms Vine had been Godmother to their daughter. When you step outside the role laid down for you though – absolute obeisance – you get voided. The book though, also slakes your appetite for dinner party capers among the horsey set and names are dropped like confetti. It's all rather glorious and we're treated to occasional forays into the inter-marital houghmagandie of the upper crust, because, we all know that the High Tories are all fond of their shagging and probably still claim a bit of your 'droit de seigneur' This is most memorably narrated when a bright and loyal Tory adviser, is hinted to be conducting an affair with Samantha Cameron's stepfather, William Astor. This unravelled in what seemed a most cut-glass, English manner. There were no names and no big red-top screamer … just an unmarked entry by the Mail's kenspeckle diarist, Richard Kay hinting at a tryst. And lo, she was gone and never heard of again, while the old goat emerged relatively unscathed. It's here that I must offer some words of advice to Ms Vine. If her book makes it into paperback and thence into a Netflix adaptation (virtually guaranteed) please be rid of the cover on this hardback edition. It's dreadful and exceedingly low-calibre, showing a woman lying fully prone and face down. It channels an energy that's entirely at odds with the dynamics of Ms Vine's rise, fall and recovery. How Not to be a Political Wife: HarperCollins £20