The process of reforming gender recognition law in Scotland has so far been “exceptionally poor and a recipe for bad law,” opposition campaign groups and political analysts told a Holyrood committee.
Addressing the committee, which took evidence on a draft law aimed at streamlining the process by which a person can change their legal gender, the groups raised concerns that cis women should be excluded from services only. for women for fear of meeting a transgender person and suggested that young people were being “confused” by celebrities who were queer or not binary.
However, criticism of the proposal to reform gender recognition, which is supported by all parties in Holyrood except the Scottish Conservatives, has been made as other groups, such as Rape Crisis Scotland and Amnesty Scotland, have said that the bill would not affect the way women access services. .
Sandy Brindley, chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, told members of the Scottish Parliament’s Equality, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee that the service had been trans inclusive for 15 years and that “in all this time no there has been only one incident of trans people abusing this. “
Naomi McAuliffe, director of Amnesty’s program for Scotland, said she saw no evidence from other countries that had introduced similar systems that would result in a significant increase in the number of applicants. He referred to Ireland, which has a similar population in Scotland and has received less than 900 applications for a gender recognition certificate since it introduced “self-identification” in 2015.
Earlier, Lucy Hunter Blackburn of political analysts Murray Blackburn Mackenzie raised concerns that the bill would open the application process to a “larger and more diverse group,” including removing the requirement for a medical diagnosis, those that were not gender. dysphoric, warning that the previous act of 2004 “was being readjusted to do a different job.”
Hunter Blackburn said the committee could not ignore how it would affect the policy to change the law on obtaining a gender recognition certificate.
“The process that led to the presentation of the bill has been exceptionally deficient and a recipe for a bad law. I hope that now the committee will correct these mistakes instead of repeating them, “he said.
Susan Smith of the For Women Scotland campaign group said: “Yes [parliamentarians] they tell people, “We believe that the only criterion for knowing whether you are a man or a woman is your identity,” it is becoming increasingly difficult for individual organizations to have a policy that opposes this … the reality then. becomes [that] the person making these decisions is often a poorly paid receptionist at the sports center trying to tell someone that she can’t go to a women-only session. “
Urging the committee to expand its evidence base, Smith and Hunter Blackburn said MSPs should talk to pediatrician Hilary Cass, who is conducting a review of gender identity services for children in England and Wales.
Malcolm Clark of the UK-wide gender-critical campaign group LGB Alliance said young people were being influenced “through celebrity, peer pressure, a lot of social media nonsense” and that MSPs should also look for evidence of those they had subsequently rejected -transitioned.
Asked by SNP MSP Karen Adam if she could see similarities in her rhetoric with warnings about educating children on LGBT issues during the 1980s, at the time of section 28, Clark said he saw no comparison, claiming that pro-reform groups like Stonewall were taking “the good name of the gay rights movement to make this set of demands acceptable.”
Hunter Blackburn also suggested that there was consensus among critics and advocates on the “really problematic” requirement of the bill for applicants to live in their acquired gender for three months, which he described as “regressive and reinforcing stereotypes.” and that the Scottish Trans Alliance described. as “arbitrary” during a previous test session.