CAROLYN Leckie is right to call for respectful discussion of the proposals to bring gender recognition law up to international best practice (Questioning gender law isn’t a form of transphobia, October 16). We would certainly not label Ann Henderson as transphobic for retweeting a tweet, calling for discussion, from a group opposed to that change, especially if she was unaware of the depth of that group’s opposition to trans equality.

Carolyn Leckie asks about hormone treatment for children under 16. Cross-sex hormone treatment in Scotland is not provided to trans young people under 16. A small number of under-16s are prescribed puberty-delaying medications – these are fully reversible, and are also prescribed to children who begin to experience early puberty. The advantage is that they give a young person more time to discover their gender identity, delaying the development of physical changes that can be seriously problematic for a trans person. However, even these reversible medications are only prescribed after careful assessment by gender identity clinicians.

Carolyn Leckie also asks about access to women-only spaces. In brief, the changes to gender recognition law will not give trans women any greater right to access women-only spaces – there is no such absolute right and will not be. Related to this, it’s notable that key providers of women’s services, such as Rape Crisis Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid, support the proposed changes.

We would welcome an opportunity to discuss these issues in more detail with Carolyn Leckie and others.

James Morton
Manager, Scottish Trans Alliance

READ MORE: Questioning gender law is not a form of transphobia​

A VERY thoughtful, and thought-provoking, article from Carolyn Leckie in today’s paper on the Gender Recognition Act 2004. She suggests that, perhaps, since she’s landed the wrong side of 50, she “just doesn’t get it”. Being just the right side of 80 myself my confusion is even greater.

It seems to me that when I was Carolyn’s age people did not define their whole being by gender identification or sexual proclivities. Asked what I was, I was likely to reply “a maths teacher” and extremely unlikely to say “straight”.

As far as I am concerned everybody has the right to dress as they like, love who they like and behave as they like, as long as they harm no others, but do they really need to be so loud about it?

Tony Williams
Address supplied

THANK you for Hamish MacPherson’s very sobering article on the massacre of Glencoe (The War of Two Kings, October 9). The very precise instruction to massacre from the Earl of Stair to the Campbell regiment, led by a Campbell of Glenlyon, makes the blood run cold.

But fast forward one generation, and one of the MacDonald chieftain sons married a Campbell of Glenlyon. Fast forward two generations and the Jacobite army is encamped before the battle of Falkirk: on hearing that the MacDonalds of Glencoe are camped near Callander House, residents of the then Earl of Stair, Prince Charles, send word that they should move further away. To this order, the MacDonalds send answer that: “If His Royal Highness thinks that we are so dishonourable as to take vengeance on the grandson for the sins of his grandfather, then we are not honourable enough to fight for His Royal Highness.”

Tragic though our history has often been, and indeed the history of all nations, it would have been a great deal more catastrophic had we not been, by and large, a Christian country. Whether in Gaelic, English or Scots, the words of the Lord’s prayer, “forgie us the wrangs we hae wrocht as we forgie ithers the wrangs we ha dree’d” have been consistently taught to every child in each generation, that is until very recently.

We live now in a socially vituperative age, but the injunction to forgive our enemies and pray for those who persecute us remains a seed of hope in a broken world.

Lesley J Findlay
Fort Augustus

READ MORE: Glencoe and the failed Jacobite rebellion of 1708​

I FOUND Janet Cunningham’s letter of October 11 very interesting in its almost Biblical reference. Worth remembering that in the Bible, Moses led the Israelites to the mountain but it was Joshua and Caleb who led them in to the promised land. Why? Because when the 12 spies reconnoitred the land, they were afraid of what they would face and were convinced the problems could not be overcome. Essentially, they were too afraid to try, and only the two courageous enough to go got to go.

Maybe the SNP should remember this. Scotland will not drift and suddenly wake up independent. It will have to be fought for. No time now for fear. I doubt we will ever get a poll over 60% for Yes, and if we do, you can expect a repeat of the scurrying from London northwards to preserve the “precious family of nations”. We also won’t win anyone over by having all our facts and figures straight. Sometimes you just need to get on with it.

Julia Pannell
Tayside

READ MORE: Letters, October 10