Scottish Greens candidate and transactivist Matt “Ellie” Gomersall, with whom Wings readers will be familiar, appeared on the Jeremy Vine show today and blundered straight into an elephant trap a myopic mole could have seen coming on a foggy night.
Having just embarked on a diatribe in which he dismissed as “ridiculous” the idea that predatory men would ever pretend to be transwomen to gain access to vulnerable women, Vine asked him about Adam “Isla Bryson” Graham, the convicted double rapist that even hapless Humza Yousaf felt able to confidently assert was “at it”.
Having just painted himself into a corner, Gomersall was then embarrassingly unable to disown Bryson as a “real” transwoman, thereby implicitly admitting that transwomen do indeed present a danger to women in exactly the same way that predatory men do, and torpedoing his entire core point that it was unfair to “discriminate” against them in exactly the same way single-sex spaces discriminate against non-trans men.
(Outrageously, earlier in the speech he’d tried to claim that it was only natural that some transwomen would be sex offenders because some biological women were.)
It’s tempting to believe that Gomersall was demonstrating an intellectual vacuum by making such vacuously cretinous arguments and failing to spot even the most obvious pitfalls in them, but the truth is far worse. Gomersall, and people like him, know that they’re lying (which is why they always try to silence opponents), but they lack the moral courage to face up to the fact that the inevitable price of their lies is vulnerable women being raped by what he revoltingly waves away as “fringe cases”.
All rapists are fringe cases. 95% of men would never dream of raping anyone. But we discriminate against ALL men in women’s spaces because you can’t tell which ones are rapists by looking. Men like “Ellie” Gomersall, though, think that the price of a few women being raped is worth paying to validate their delusions and fetishes (in his case, the creepy fetish of skinwalking as his pretty sister), and they don’t even have the shred of decency to bother coming up with a coherent line of bullshit to cover it.
We’ll be honest, readers, we gasped out loud when we saw this.
That such a basic, fundamental truth of human existence should ever be front page news with the capacity to shock 100,000 years after we invented language is a sign of just how insane our world has become since 2015.
But magnificent as it is, it’s not even today’s BEST front cover.
We wouldn’t be Wings if we didn’t round off this evening with a representative selection of some of the more measured and thoughtful responses from transactivists across the UK to today’s Supreme Court judgment.
So fetch some sort of celebratory beverage, settle down in your comfiest armchair in front of the fire (‘cos it’s been Baltic today) and enjoy the Sounds Of Kindness.
For those among you who don’t have the time or patience to wade through 88 pages of judicial lingo, we’ve distilled today’s Supreme Court judgment down to its key points.
Much of it, of course, can be summarised as “the bleeding obvious”.
We’ve all got a lot of extremely heavy reading and pondering to do now. But the short version of the outcome of For Women Scotland vs The Scottish Ministers is this:
On the face of the judgment just handed down live in the courtroom, a more absolute, comprehensive and legally momentous defeat for the Scottish Government – and the forces of gender ideology in general – seems difficult to imagine.
But we’ll get back to you on that after all the reading. Today, we’re just going to stand and salute FWS and their richly-deserved triumph. See you later.
We are far from the only people raising concerns about the charity – we know of at least 17 separate formal complaints against LGBTYS in the past year alone, yet the OSCR has declined to open any sort of formal inquiry into them. (It carried out three such inquiries in 2024.)
But despite the OSCR’s assertion that “we strive to be transparent and accountable”, when we went to find those complaints (including, of course, the one from ourselves) to link you to them, we hit a brick wall that rapidly turned into a whole new concern.
In relation to yesterday’s article, we’ve now filed the following with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator.
I request a review of this decision.
Firstly, I wish to note that since the response I received was a wholly generic one containing no reference or relevance to any of the specifics of my case, it should not have taken until the 28th day of the 28-day deadline to deliver. This appears to be a deliberate stalling tactic.
The information I sought did not involve the disclosure of any sensitive identities or data. It is in fact an attempt to establish the answer to an extremely basic question of first principles: why is LGBT Youth Scotland operating so far outwith its stated remit?
Since the fact that it IS doing so is not in any question – its own public statements declare that it is operating widely and openly in primary schools – it is a matter of plain and overwhelming public interest that this glaring anomaly be explained. The charity itself refuses to do so, or even to enter into any discussion of the matter, so it becomes a matter for its ostensible regulator.
Since the public is unable to ask the OSCR to speak on behalf of LGBTYS, the only remaining option to achieve transparency, accountability and public confidence is to seek the information requested and thereby discern the answer via the OSCR.
Why is an organisation whose remit concerns intrinsically sexual matters and exclusively encompasses 13-25-year-olds being allowed to operate in primary (and indeed nursery) schools and discuss such sexual matters with children 10 years below its minimum stipulated age range?
Given LGBTYS’s refusal, that duty then lies with the OSCR, and it should not evade it. The public deserves to know both that OSCR has in fact complied with its own responsibilities and carried out a satisfactory investigation, and what the outcome of that investigation was, given that nothing has changed in respect of the charity’s actions since concerns were raised with the OSCR a year ago and LGBTYS continues to far exceed its stated brief.
There are in this case no redactions which would reveal any sort of information that would place anyone at risk. The identities of LGBTYS and/or OSCR employees could be safely redacted if appropriate, while the substance of the discussion remained visible. What matters is that the question was asked, and that the public be told the answer.
None of OSCR’s stated objections to answering the FOI request are pertinent to this particular enquiry. It has no valid excuse to refuse. We fully expect it to do so anyway, because nobody in Scotland is answerable for anything any more. But we’re required to give them another 28 days to waste everyone’s time before we approach the only person in Scotland who appears to still believe in their civic and professional duty: the Information Commissioner.
Barring a miracle, we’ll see you on the 15th of May, readers.
Having received no response from multiple emails to the charity, we raised the matter with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator last year, and heard nothing from them about the results of their investigation – or indeed, come to that, about whether they’d actually conducted an investigation at all.
So a month ago we sent them a Freedom Of Information request to find out. At the last possible second before the deadline to reply expired, the OSCR have this morning deigned to grace us with their response, which you can read below.
It’s increasingly common now for the Scottish news to feature another prison scandal or employment-tribunal judgment highlighting the extent of gender-ideology capture in the country’s public authorities.
But it’s normally quite hard to get an overall picture of just how captured any particular public body really is, so we should offer some thanks to the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) who’ve helpfully provided us with a comprehensive primer in the form of a briefing for a board update later this week.
Innocent readers might have thought that the people managing a national park would be most concerned about attracting visitors, protecting wildlife, repairing paths and keeping local businesses sustainable, that sort of thing. But that’s not how things work in Scotland any more.
Because the CNPA are about to present the organisation’s 19 board members with an 91-page report and annex detailing all their vital work on… equalities issues.
So as promised, and having now spent 11 months trying to get answers any other way, this afternoon we had a live chat with controversial charity LGBT Youth Scotland.
In April last year we wrote to LGBT Youth Scotland asking them to explain why they were conducting activities in primary schools (and even with pre-school children) about sexual matters despite only having a remit to work with young people aged 13-25.
We received no reply, so we contacted the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, who sent a rather sniffy acknowledgement saying:
“If your concern leads us to making inquiries with the charity, we are unable to update you on the status of those inquiries. For more information about what to expect after you submit a concern, read our guidance on how OSCR deals with concerns and inquiries.”
That link, you’ll be amazed to hear, leads to a dead page.
agentx on The value bet: “Alliance to Liberate Scotland don’t register on polls and don’t register on betting odds.” May 6, 17:43
Captain Caveman on Seven Days Too Long: “@Lorncal “We cannot rely on any of the parties to support women’s rights when push comes to shove and they…” May 6, 17:24
Sven on The value bet: “Tent collapsed eh, well, that’s poles for you.” May 6, 17:15
Mark Beggan on The value bet: “‘I took a poll recently and 100% of campers were very angry when their tent collapsed’!” May 6, 17:09
Shug on The value bet: “Give us an idea of Swinneys option if A) he gets an overall majority B) he gets a minority gov…” May 6, 17:07
Tommy on The value bet: “The Greens coming second would be the nightmare of nightmares. I mean, they even make the SNP look good. Another…” May 6, 17:05
agentx on Anas Sarwar is a winner: ““While critics have pointed to the lack of formal, traditional trade union recognition, in May 2024, the Usdaw union stated…” May 6, 17:00
Colin Dawson on The value bet: “Tactical voting could turn all current predictions upside down. What are the odds of Alliance to Liberate Scotland winning a…” May 6, 16:56
KOF on Binfire Of The Vanities: “Colossian 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the…” May 6, 16:47
Glenn Boyd on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “Ah its The Fearless New Labour “Socialist” Anas Sarwar, the multi – millionaire who’s employees are bared from joining a…” May 6, 16:38
Mark Beggan on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “I’m surprised the Daily Rangers never had this printed in Hurdu.” May 6, 16:12
Mark Beggan on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “SarwarLtd can always rely on the Cousin vote.” May 6, 16:07
Mark Beggan on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “Do people still read the Daily Rangers?” May 6, 15:59
lothianlad on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “definately the best use of substitute toilet paper is the daily record. take heart…. oh how the mighty have fallen!…” May 6, 15:05
Peter McAvoy on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “As stated by an earlier comment. I don’t believe Anas Sarwar has opposed the Daily Records intent to close the…” May 6, 14:28
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Binfire Of The Vanities: “It was in a German PoW camp during WW2 that Dutch naval officer HANS ROOKMAAKER read the Bible and got…” May 6, 14:08
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Geri on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “Labour are finished. They were over the moment they got into bed with Bitter Together. Instead of seizing the chance…” May 6, 12:50
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: “I seem to remember Kellie only targeting council elections? I haven’t watched her for a while tho so things may…” May 6, 12:16
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Binfire Of The Vanities: “REPORT: ‘SCHOOLS STILL HEAVILY INFLUENCED BY GENDER IDEOLOGY’ (England & Wales) Child safety and wellbeing continues to be compromised in…” May 6, 12:15
Lorncal on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “Anas Sarwar is an empty vessel, like so many of the candidates standing for the all the parties. The problem…” May 6, 12:05
Socrates MacSporran on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “I don’t see a by-line, other than Anas Sarwar on that Record pish, but, it definitely reads like they’ve let…” May 6, 11:48
Geri on Seven Days Too Long: “Have you ever heard or followed Eva Comrie? In a handbags at dawn showdown with the TRA, my money would…” May 6, 11:44
Iain More on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “Anus the Butcher ad betrayer of Grangemouth squeals. No surprise that the Daily Redcoat would support the Quisling Liebore Party…” May 6, 11:44
One more day of nonsense left on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “Swiney rocked up at Cappielow early in this snorefest campaign , alongside nuSnp fanboy Compston. They had a wee photo…” May 6, 11:42
@nairnkev on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “Scotland needs dentists more than it needs anus sarwar as an msp let alone first minister, the sod should change…” May 6, 11:38
Den on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “Added to your testimony I’d like to add he is a bare faced liar, who lost all credibility in his…” May 6, 11:35
KOF on Binfire Of The Vanities: “By wilful cooperation, or just plain ignorance, all those who serve political parties serve the plans of Satan. It does…” May 6, 11:31
Rev. Stuart Campbell on Anas Sarwar is a winner: “In percentage terms, definitely the latter.” May 6, 11:27