WITH over 20 years as a lawyer and seven and a half years as Justice Secretary, I’ve come across some legal absurdities.

However, there’s been few as great as the ridiculous situation brought about by the Scottish Government’s policy on gender self-identification.

For now, in Scotland if a man perpetrates a rape but self-identifies as a woman then the crime will be recorded as perpetrated by a female, even though it’s physically and legally impossible.

I know transgender people and life has often been hard for them. Protecting them and ensuring they don’t suffer prejudice is right.

But allowing people to self-identify as whatever gender they wish is profoundly dangerous.

In England, as I discovered when chairing a seminar on protecting women prisoners, 40 per cent of transgender prisoners are now sex offenders.

But there are few transgender prisoners, they’re far more often victims not perpetrators of crime. Instead, it’s men self-identifying as women to secure access to the female prison estate. That’s dangerous and damaging to women inmates who often have been the victims of male violence, often sexual.

How does that affect East Lothian, you might ask, other than for a few? Well, it’s because that’s the tip of the iceberg on self ID.

We’ve seen issues in schools over unisex toilets and that will only increase. Frankly, I don’t think it’s right that a young girl of 13 should be expected to use the same toilet as a grown laddie.

Guidance given to schools now suggests that children of any age can transition and parents needn’t be told. That parents shouldn’t be told is simply unacceptable.

But what about other children expected to share changing rooms or overnight accommodation with children of the opposite sex? Shouldn’t their parents have a right to know the gender of children their kids are staying with?

I’m opposing what’s happening in prisons and Alba councillors will oppose this absurdity in our schools.