Mick Hartley

The Scottish government is planning to go its own way and allow trans people to record their supposed "gender identity" rather than their actual sex: ie self-identify. Aged 16 and over, they can apply for a gender recognition certificate after stating they have lived as the opposite sex for three months, and then wait just three months for the certificate to be granted.

A Scottish Express poll found an amazing 90% opposed to the plans:

[A] spokeswoman for For Women Scotland said the results were encouraging and opposition to the plans is unlikely to go away soon.

She said: "It bears out the findings of our recent poll and two others which show that while people believe that trans people should be free to identify and live as they wish, self-id should never trump the rights or protections based on sex.

"The [Scottish] Government is naive if they think this will not be exploited or that there will not be serious social impact.

"We would really like to know who the Government think they are legislating for if not for those who do not have a medical diagnosis. Do they really think people can be born in the wrong body, or have 'lady brains', or gendered souls. It would be helpful if they could explain the rationale for allowing people to change their legal sex and why it is needed.

"The SNP are naive if they think there will not be repercussions. Any failures or harm caused by this policy will be squarely laid at their door by the electorate."

It comes as the SNP has been blasted for allegedly ignoring women's rights groups and pushing forward the legislative changes without adequate consultation involving all sides.

A Freedom of Information report lodged by policy analysts Murray Blackburn Mackenzie last year found five of the lobbying groups who met with Shona Robison, the minister in charge of the reforms already receive government funding – sparking fears of bias at the heart of the process.

Sarah Pedersen, Professor of Communication and Media at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, at UnHerd:

Local groups of gender critical feminists have sprung up throughout Scotland, from the Borders to the Highlands and Islands, and are making their mark both online and on the streets. Stickers, posters, postcards and suffragette ribbons all bear the same message for Nicola Sturgeon’s government: “Women Won’t Wheesht.”

As Covid restrictions ease and May’s local elections draw close, these women are ramping up their campaign to make the Scottish government think twice about its plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act (GRA). Currently, if you want to legally change your gender in Scotland, medical evidence is required; you must have lived in your “acquired gender” for at least two years. The Scottish government’s proposed reforms would mean that no diagnosis or medical reports would be needed, and the period in which applicants must have lived in their acquired gender would be cut to three months.

In other words, self-identification of gender would be introduced. The SNP government is expected to reveal its draft legislation in the coming weeks. For Scotland’s gender-critical feminists, their fight has never been so urgent….

For my research published this week into what I term a Scottish “cooperative constellation” of gender-critical feminists, I spoke to a coalition of women that reaches across the independence/unionist divide and includes women from all sections of society and political tribes. Some began their feminist careers on Greenham Common. For younger members, this is their first step into the political public sphere.

Putting aside what divides them, these women are united by concerns about the impact of the GRA reforms on women’s sex-based rights: the implications for women’s sport, refuges, prisons, and the myriad services achieved by feminist campaigners since the Seventies.

I carried out 18 in-depth interviews with politicians, researchers, journalists, bloggers, creative artists and grassroots campaigners — all of whom were promised anonymity. I asked all of them to disclose any abuse they had suffered due to their involvement in the constellation. After all, women’s livelihoods have been threatened because of their opinions on the GRA reform, and many involved in the debate are concerned for their personal safety.

What they had to say made for grim listening: they spoke to me of death and rape threats, demands that their employer sack them and attempts at “cancellation”. One interviewee described the response to an essay she posted online, in which she expressed her opinion that being a lesbian is the same as being same-sex attracted. “Almost minutes after it was published, I got a message saying, ‘I hope you get raped, or, better yet, killed. LOL’.” She also had another abuser post pictures of her home and her home address: “And this account was filled with things like, ‘Kill TERFs, TERFs don’t deserve rights. TERFs aren’t women’.” As another interviewee put it: “We seem to have become like the new witches, it’s like the new Salem”.

Scotland seems to be marching ahead into a brave new gender world – but it could backfire spectacularly, as the forces of rebellion gather together to make themselves heard.

Nicola Sturgeon is about to discover there’s a new dividing line in Scottish politics.