JOANNA Cherry wrote on Friday about the Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill (I’m appealing to SNP and ScotGov to press pause on gender self-ID, Feb 25). The GRR Bill is expected to be introduced within a few days, and fulfils a manifesto pledge not just of the SNP, but of Labour, the Greens, and the LibDems too.
Joanna’s commentary raises important issues related to devolved powers. She mentions that the GB Equality and Human Rights Commission has suggested to the Scottish Government that the bill be paused. However, the remit to advise government about devolved legislation that impacts human rights lies with the devolved Scottish Human Rights Commission, not the EHRC.
READ MORE: Scotland's trans communities hope for reform as GRA Bill to be laid in Parliament this week
The SHRC supports the GRR Bill. This division of remits is set in law, and the EHRC is required by law to obtain the consent of the SHRC before intervening, which the SHRC reports it did not do in this case.
Joanna suggests that the GRR Bill may be outwith the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament. That is a strange suggestion, given that the parliament already happily legislated in 2014 to change the arrangements and eligibility for gender recognition, allowing married people to obtain it for the first time. No-one claimed that was outwith its powers.
One might expect SNP MPs to argue for a broad interpretation of devolved powers, even if they personally disagree with the Scottish Parliament’s decisions at times.
READ MORE: What will Scotland's Gender Recognition Act Bill contain, and what does it all mean?
One part of Joanna’s comments with which the Equality Network completely agrees is that the debate on the GRR Bill should be conducted in a respectful way. Twitter in particular seems to attract appalling material on any side of any debate. It is now a horrible place for trans people, because of the unrelenting abuse. Many others, including MPs and MSPs, and in particular women (including those on both sides of this debate), experience that abuse too. We should all speak out about the unacceptability of personalised abuse or threats in political debate in Scotland.
The Equality Network looks forward to a reasoned debate on the GRR Bill, and to the parliament, in time, passing this legislation and making the lives of trans people that bit easier.
Tim Hopkins
Director, Equality Network
JOANNA Cherry rightly says that conflation of sex and gender lies at the heart of the bourach into which the Scottish Government is in danger of falling. One of the reasons why it handled the pandemic better than the government in Westminster is that it followed expert advice, much of it led by the World Health Organisation.
The WHO has also produced a clear statement on the distinction between sex and gender: “Gender is used to describe the characteristics of women and men that are socially constructed, while sex refers to those that are biologically determined.
READ MORE: Devil is in the detail of responses to survey on gender reforms
“People are born male or female, but learn to be girls and boys who grow into men and women. This learned behaviour makes up gender identity and determines gender roles.”
It goes on to differentiate between gender equality (the absence of discrimination) and gender equity (the fairness and justice in the distribution of benefits and responsibilities) between men and women.
I hope that next week’s ministerial statement will be based on this impartial and clear group of definitions, which seem to me to be completely in accord with Ms Cherry’s description of existing laws.
John Hunter
Linlithgow
YOU report that campaign group Fair Play for Women has lost its appeal against Lord Sandison’s decision to allow “transgender” people to give a different answer on the census to the sex on their birth certificate without a gender recognition certificate.
Surely this is an inexplicable and appalling breach of normal logic and law. Clearly the courts stretching their remit beyond its power.
READ MORE: Appeal against trans-inclusive ruling rejected at Court of Session
Notwithstanding this, and in order to render this section of the census irrelevant, I intend to avail myself of Sandison’s decision and will declare my gender differently from my birth sex.
For the purpose of this census, I will be transgender.
It’s the only protest I can make against bad law.
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh
MAY I suggest to James Duncan (Letters, Feb 26) that he looks up the legal definition of murder before making any more OTT claims.
Let’s imagine I dumped a highly toxic substance in a skip which he then handled and as a result died. If caught and charged for my very reprehensible action the charge would not be murder. Culpable homicide perhaps, but not murder.
He may think this is a quibble, but he wouldn’t if he ever had to face a charge for a more serious crime than the one he was supposed to have committed.
Andrew M Fraser
Inverness
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