A Scottish man who identified as transgender after being charged with raping two women has been jailed for eight years for the crimes.
Isla Bryson, who went by his birth name Adam Graham until after his first court appearance in 2020, was convicted by the Glasgow High Court in January of the attacks in 2016 and 2019.
"You see yourself as the victim in this case. But you are not," presiding judge Lord Scott told Clydebank resident Bryson at the High Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday, referring to reports that suggested the convict suffered from neuro-developmental disorders.
"Your vulnerability is no excuse at all for what you did to these two women in 2016 and 2019," Scott stressed. "Regardless of your own vulnerability, in a period of just under three years, you raped two women who can both be regarded as vulnerable."
Scott also ordered Bryson to be kept under supervision for three years after his release and placed on the sex offender's register indefinitely, saying he was at "high risk" of re-offending.
Bryson's estranged wife Shonna Graham, who he married in 2016 just months before the first rape, condemned the Scottish Prison Service's initial decision to send him to a women's prison.
"The way I see it is he is a man, he done the crime as a man… he should do the time in a man's jail," Graham said.
Tweeted images of convicted Scottish transsexual rapist Isla Bryson, AKA Adam Graham, before transitioning (right) and while on trial (left)
The case caused nationwide controversy when Bryson's conviction came just a month after the Scottish devolved parliament passed new legislation making it far easier for individuals to obtain legal recognition as a member of the opposite sex — and gain access to their single-sex spaces.
A proposed amendment to the Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) bill from the Scottish Conservatives to disqualify convicted sex offenders from obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) was voted down by the governing coalition of the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scottish Greens.
Bryson was initially incarcerated at the Cornton Vale women's and young offenders prison in Stirling while awaiting sentencing.
But he was moved to HMP Edinburgh within days after public outcry forced a U-turn by Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who evaded the question of whether Bryson was a man or a woman when challenged by opposition leaders.
Days later another transgender Scot was arrested for kidnapping an 11-year-old girl. Andrew Miller of Gattonside near Galashiels, a former butcher now known as Amy, was later charged with abduction and sexual assualt.
Sturgeon unexpectedly announced her resignation earlier this month as head of the devolved administration and SNP leader.
Her potential successors include Ash Regan, member of the Scottish parliament for Edinburgh Eastern, who resigned from the devolved government in protest at the GRR bill, and fellow MSP Kate Forbes, a socially-conservative Christian.
However, media pundits are backing Humza Yousaf, who served under Sturgeon as transport and justice secretary and now holds the health portfolio. Yousaf is seen as the continuity candidate for Sturgeon's eight-year reign and has pledged to keep her trans self-identification policies intact.